Managing and disseminating Open Educational Resources
1. Managing and disseminating
Open Educational Resources
Phil Barker, Heriot-Watt University
JISC CETIS Learning Technology Adviser
phil.barker@hw.ac.uk
http://www.icbl.hw.ac.uk/~philb/
http://blogs.cetis.ac.uk/philb/
2. Overview
What?
What are OERs?
Who? How?
Who is releasing OERs? How do they do
release them?
Why?
Why do they do want to
release them?
3. What are OERs?
Open:
Easy to define (if dogmatic)
Educational Resources:
Harder to pin down (because pragmatic)
4. Dogmatic definition of OPEN
“open educational
resources should be
freely shared through
open licences which
facilitate use, revision,
translation,
improvement and
sharing by anyone”
Capetown declaration on open education
http://www.capetowndeclaration.org
5. More dogmatic definition of OPEN
“open educational
resources should be
freely shared through
open licences which
facilitate use, revision,
translation,
improvement and
sharing by anyone”
Capetown declaration on open education
http://www.capetowndeclaration.org
So not ND
6. Even more dogmatic definition
“open educational
resources should be
freely shared through
open licences which
facilitate use, revision,
translation,
improvement and
sharing by anyone”
Capetown declaration on open education
http://www.capetowndeclaration.org
So not NC?
7. Define “Educational Resource”
(courseware, learning objects, teaching resources,
educational materials)
Dogmatic definitions don’t
work here
51. OER/OCW Initiatives
HEFCE: UKOER
Aim: institutions to set up sustainable mechanisms for
making a significant amount of existing learning
resources freely and openly available.
Extent:
Phase 1, 2009-10 ~£5.7M;
Phase 2, 2010-11 £5M.
Phase 3, 2011-12 ~£5M
53. Why release OERs?
Internally or Externally
Sharing • To Academics
• To Students
• To Others
• Potential students
• Life long learners
• Policy makers
• The casually interested
54. Why release OERs?
Internally or Externally
Sharing • To Academics
But• why share?
To Students
• To Others
• Potential students
• Life long learners
• Policy makers
• The casually interested
55. Why release OERs
The objects of the
University shall be to
advance learning and
knowledge by teaching and
research particularly in
Science, in Technology,
and to enable students to
obtain the advantages of
liberal university education.
Heriot-Watt University charter
Loughborough University charter
56. OERs are good Marketing
Search engine optimization
• OERs are “potentially compelling content, not like
research papers”
(anon., to protect the guilty)
Course “tasters”
• A reasonable estimate of recruitment influenced by
OpenLearn is the approximately 10,500 students
since launch who have made use of OpenLearn
before they register for a course at The OU in the
same online session.
http://newsletter.alt.ac.uk/4ii7jyi4jnx
57. OERs facilitate partnerships
Partnerships with local business
Partnerships with 3rd sector
Partnerships with other (overseas) institutions
• Advertises presence
• Answers the questions “what have you got?”
“what can we use?”
• Provides access without stretching the VLE
58. OERs Might
• Lead to better content
• Analogy with OSS
• Share development effort
• Many eyes see bugs more quickly
• Lead to better / more flexible practice
• Open educational practice
• Peer-to-peer learning
• Massively open online courses
• Provide new approaches to resource
management
• Use of social sharing sites, YouTube, iTunesU, SlideShare
• Reduce the authentication/authorisation burden
59. How are OERs Released?
Summary of what we’ve covered so far:
• Licensing is important
• All sorts of content types and formats
• Complex objects / related resources are normal
• All sorts of users
• Learners as well as academics
• Exposure is important
• On the web not in the repository
60. How are OERs Released?
First catch your rabbit...
• Collect or capture what is in use
• Collect slides, record lectures
• Filter for IPR issues
• Typically institution will own copyright and other
IPR
• Frequently 3rd party resources that have been
licensed-in* will be and issue
(* best case scenario)
• Quality control
• Include authors, title, consistent branding etc.
61. Hosting & Disseminating OERs
“Projects should deposit their content in ... least one ...
openly accessible system or application with the
ability to produce RSS and / or Atom feeds; for
example an open institutional repository, an
international or subject area open repository, an
institutional website or blog, or a Web 2.0 service.”
UKOER programme Technical Requirements
http://blogs.cetis.ac.uk/lmc/2010/12/03/oer-2-technical-requirements/
See also “Then and Now” a summary of technical
approaches of JISC programmes from 2002-2010
http://blogs.cetis.ac.uk/lmc/2010/04/16/then-and-now/
63. What projects did.
MIT:
• Many types of
resource
• Targeted at
learners
• Bespoke web CMS
• Arranged by
courses.
http://ocw.mit.edu/
64. What projects did.
Oxford:
• Podcast audio and
video recordings of
lectures (expanding
now)
• Drupal CMS
• Arrange by series,
dept, people.
• Disseminate to
iTunesU
http://podcasts.ox.ac.uk/
65. What projects did.
Nottingham:
• Wide range of
course materials
• EQUELLA
repository platform
• Arrange by faculty,
tags, search.
• Links in to other
services
http://unow.nottingham.ac.uk/
66. What projects did.
HumBox:
• Wide range of
course materials
• Audience:
academics &
students
• ePrints+edShare
repository platform
• Social profiles
• Clone & adapt
http://humbox.ac.uk/
67. What projects did
• CETIS’s UKOER technical synthesis and summary
http://wiki.cetis.ac.uk/UKOER_synthesis
• One Standard to Rule Them All?: Descriptive Choices
for Open Education
http://www.slideshare.net/RJohnRobertson/one-standard-to-rule-
them-all-descriptive-choices-for-open-education
Editor's Notes
Defining an educational resource is like trying to define a chair
Defining an educational resource is like trying to define a chairYou could try to define what a chair is defining its essential features
Defining an educational resource is like trying to define a chairYou could try to define what a chair is defining its essential featuresBut you’ll soon find some example that doesn’t have one feature
Defining an educational resource is like trying to define a chairYou could try to define what a chair is defining its essential featuresBut you’ll soon find some example that doesn’t have one featureOr another. So maybe just say that you’ll recognise one when you see one because it is meant to be sat on
Defining an educational resource is like trying to define a chairYou could try to define what a chair is defining its essential featuresBut you’ll soon find some example that doesn’t have one featureOr another. So maybe just say that you’ll recognise one when you see one because it is meant to be sat onBut not everything that can be sat on is a chair (even though you might find it useful if you need to sit down).
MIT were the first. Most people of heard of MIT OCW; many (perhaps) think of OCW as being synonymous with MIT OCW.
Think about this and write the answers down
Trying to show that (i) MIT OCW is older than you might think and (ii) more extensive. If you looked at it a short while after it was first set up it might be worth looking again
Berkeley have a slightly different approach
Stanford focus on Engineering
Other Universities joined in
Other Universities joined in
Other Universities joined in
Other Universities joined in, possibly more of them than you might think
Other Universities joined in, possibly more of them than you might think
Other places joined in, possibly more of them than you might think
Other Universities joined in, possibly more of them than you might think
Other Universities joined in, possibly more of them than you might think
Other Universities joined in, possibly more of them than you might think, and not just in the US
Other Universities joined in, possibly more of them than you might think, and not just in the US
Other Universities joined in, possibly more of them than you might think, and not just in the US
Other Universities joined in, possibly more of them than you might think, and not just in the US
Other Universities joined in, possibly more of them than you might think, and not just in the US
Other Universities joined in, possibly more of them than you might think, and not just in the US
Other Universities joined in, possibly more of them than you might think, and not just in the US
Literally 100s of other Universities joined in, possibly more of them than you might think, and not just in the US
Literally 100s of other Universities joined in, possibly more of them than you might think, until the UK (well England, mostly) got involved the OU had an obvious affinity with Open Education, Oxford had it’s own strengths to showcase, but other, more typical, Universities also committed to provide OERs.
Literally 100s of other Universities joined in, possibly more of them than you might think, until the UK (well England, mostly) got involved the OU had an obvious affinity with Open Education
Literally 100s of other Universities joined in, possibly more of them than you might think, until the UK (well England, mostly) got involved the OU had an obvious affinity with Open Education, Oxford had it’s own strgenths to showcase.
Literally 100s of other Universities joined in, possibly more of them than you might think, until the UK (well England, mostly) got involved the OU had an obvious affinity with Open Education, Oxford had it’s own strengths to showcase, but other, more typical, Universities also committed to provide OERs.
Literally 100s of other Universities joined in, possibly more of them than you might think, until the UK (well England, mostly) got involved the OU had an obvious affinity with Open Education, Oxford had it’s own strengths to showcase, but other, more typical, Universities also committed to provide OERs.
Literally 100s of other Universities joined in, possibly more of them than you might think, until the UK (well England, mostly) got involved the OU had an obvious affinity with Open Education, Oxford had it’s own strengths to showcase, but other, more typical, Universities also committed to provide OERs.
Literally 100s of other Universities joined in, possibly more of them than you might think, until the UK (well England, mostly) got involved the OU had an obvious affinity with Open Education, Oxford had it’s own strengths to showcase, but other, more typical, Universities also committed to provide OERs.
See http://www.khanacademy.org/about (esp. “how did you get started?”)
See http://www.slideshare.net/cetismdrsig/making-your-content-visibleSee also http://www.russellstannard.com/
An example from Law at Bradford
An example from Chemistry at Lincoln
Core Materials: material scientists sharing resources
