Anna Skowron, Malgorzata Kurek Jan Długosz University

1. This project was financed with the support of the European Commission. This publication is the sole responsibility of the author and
the Commission is not responsible for any use that may be made of the information contained therein.
Going open?
The teachers’ perspective on
openness in education
Anna Skowron
Malgorzata Kurek
Jan Długosz University

2. LangOER: enhancing teaching and learning of less used
languages through OER/OEP
3-year network (January 2014- December 2016) supported by action KA2
Languages of the Lifelong Learning Programme, European Commission
Our Partners
• Fryske Akademy, The Netherlands (Project coordination)
• Web2learn, Greece (Project management)
• European Schoolnet, Belgium
• University of Gothenburg, Sweden
• Jan Dlugosz University, Poland
• Mykolas Romeris University, Lithuania
• International Council for Open and Distance Education Belgium (ICDE), Norway
• European Foundation for Quality in E-learning,
• Rezekne Higher Education Institution, Latvia
To learn more: http://langoer.eun.org/

4. Project activities:
• A report into the current situation of OERs in
less taught languages;
• Training materials and training courses for
non-English speaking teachers;
• “To remain human and liveable, knowledge
societies will have to be societies of shared
knowledge.” (UNESCO 2005, p. 5)

5. Openness: The key concepts and controvercies:
• definitions (UNESCO 2002, 2012; Hewlett
Foundation, 2007; Capetown Open Education
Declaration, 2007; OECD, 2007);
• criteria (Mc Greal, 2013)
• (faculty) attitudes to opennes, sharing and
borrowing; (Rolfe,2012)
• barriers to and drivers for opennes and sharing; (
Mc Greal, 2013)
• licensing;
• diffusion - The 4 RS: revise, reuse, re-distribute,
remix,.(Hilton, Wiley,2010) .

6. Barriers recognized on personal level:
• staff feeling insecure,
• need for recognition
The strongest drivers for sharing and borrowing:
• belief in open education
• a reputation enhancer for both the institution and the individual
• economic factors (Mc Greal, 2013)

8. - “Activities of sharing and borrowing are
entranched in both professional and personal
feelings and attitudes” (Rolfe, 2012: 8)
The academic faculty were positive about
“sharing resources locally, yet apprehensive
about making resources more openly
available” (Rolfe, 2012)
Teachers would benefit from:
(a) having access to best
teaching practices,
(b) sharing their teaching practices with other
teachers and
(c) reflecting on others’ teaching practices
(Griffiths and Blat 2005; Conole 2008;
Galley et al. 2010)

9. OUR RESEARCH
Aim: preparing ground for teacher training
Stages:
Step 1 Desktop research – investigation of OERs in
Polish.
Criteria:
• licensing
• access and availability
• format
• sharing, adapting and repurposing
• qaulity indicators
• Step 2: - Online questionnaire - 32 participants

10. Step 1 – desktop research
Guiding questions:
• What is the scope and character of national,
regional and local OER initiatives in Poland ?
• What is the range, quality and characteristics
of OERs available in Polish ?
• What are the implications for prospective
teacher training ?

11. Polish repositories – an overview
OPEN AGH COURSEWARE
SCHOLARIS
NAUCZYCIEL
SZTUKA24
FREELEARNING
WLACZ POLSKE
CYFROWA WYPRAWKA
EDUKACJA MEDIALNA
WSZECHNICA
E-GLOBALNA
BAZA NARZĘDZI DYDAKTYCZNYCH
ZABAWNIK
ŚCIŚLE FAJNA LEKCJA
WOLNE LEKTURY
HISTORIA W SIECI

12. OERs - Quality indicators:
• clear and concise content,
• demonstrating the concepts to be learned, and integrating,
where appropriate, with prerequisites and instructions that
are clearly indicated.
• the brand or reputation of the OER creator,
• peer review,
• user ratings,
• use indicators,
• validation
• self-evaluation.
• Other possible quality indicators: shareability, timeliness,
reach (number of users), usability (licence restrictions) and
accessibility
(Mc Greal, 2013 )

14. Step 1 Conclusions:
• OERs - an umbrella covering various types of resources ( also
paid ones);
• the most common types of OERs: digital libraries,
repositories or content aggregators;
• many represent centralised, Web 1.0 approach (limited
interaction, users as consumers , textual materials);
• address teachers;
• lack of user feedback/rating tools

15. Polish repositories – traffic
VISITS PER DAY
PAGE/CONENT
VIEWS
CONTENT
DOWNLOADS
OPEN AGH COURSEWARE 2500
SCHOLARIS
4511
1992
24
62
NAUCZYCIEL
SZTUKA24
FREELEARNING 1953*
WLACZPOLSKE
CYFROWA WYPRAWKA
EDUKACJA MEDIALNA
WSZECHNICA 1786
E-GLOBALNA
BAZA NARZĘDZI DYDAKTYCZNYCH
ZABAWNIK
ŚCIŚLE FAJNA LEKCJA
WOLNE LEKTURY
22687
77834
1786
5499
HISTORIA W SIECI

16. Step 2:
• Objective: investigating Polish teachers’
attitides and beliefs sorrounding borrowing
and sharing resources openly
• Participants: 32 teachers
• Tools: an online survey
• Research questions:
o What are teachers’ attitudes to opennes?
o How do teachers share and borrow materials?
o What forms of sharing and borrowing do they prefer
in terms of:
ADAPTATION/PUBLISHING/AUTHORSHIP/CONTROL?

17. RESULTS
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45
MEN
WOMEN
Chart Title

18. Types of schools
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16
other secondary school junior high school upper primary school lower primary school kindergartens

19. Teaching experience
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16
YEARS
> 20 > 10 6 - 10 yrs 3 -5 yrs 1 - 2 yrs

20. Adaptation and modification 1
• Repurposing - 78%
• Remixing – 82%
• Using online tools for materials creation – 92%

21. Adaptation and modification 2
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80
IMAGES
LESSON PLANS
EXERCISES
TESTS
MUSIC CLIPS
VIDEO CLIPS
PRESENTATIONS
ADAPT DON'T CHANGE

22. Attitudes to SHARING and PUBLISHING
• using materials and adapting them - 96%
• borrowing materials from colleagues 98%
• willingness to publish 77%
• publishing if credited - 54%
• publishing ONLY if credited - 38%
CONTROL
• knowing when materials are being used 85%
• having control over who uses materials 89%
• having full control over the reuse (who ? when?,
what?) 19%

23. Accessing materials
• search engines - 97%
• own resources - 80%
• other people’s resources - 79%
• repositories 88%
BUT
• Using CC search criteria - 22%

24. “Open educational resources will be easy to
revise or remix technically if they are
meaningfully editable (like a web page),
access to the source file is provided (like an
HTML file), can be edited by a wide range of
free or affordable software programs (like an
RTF file), and can be edited with software that
is easy to use and is used by many people”
(Hilton,et.al.)

25. I like sharing my own materials because…
… I want to help other
teachers.
… If I use them successfully,
other teachers may use
them as well.
… I am proud of my
achievements – my
materials are good so they
should be shared with the
world.
… teachers should cooperate
for the sake of good
education.

26. I don’t like sharing my own materials because…
… I don’t trust everyone.
… I know no one will thank me.
… not everyone will appreciate it

27. Implications for teacher training
• Teachers understanding of openness is geared
towards adaptation, modification and creativity
(textual materials);
• Need for promoting flexible manipulation and
remixing of resources across modalities;
• raising awareness of CC licensing (practical
aspects)
• A strong focus on task design – training teachers
how to build materials into a lesson or how to
design good tasks around them.
• Student perspective is neglected - Highlight the
role of good quality repositories for homework and
self-study.

30. http://langoer.eun.org/
Stay in touch
This project was financed with the support of the European Commission. This publication is the sole responsibility of the
author and the Commission is not responsible for any use that may be made of the information contained therein.

31. Thank you very much for your
attention!

32. References:
• Atkins, D.E., Brown, J.S., & Hammond, A.L. (2007). A review of the open educational
resources (OER) movement achievements, challenges, and new opportunities. Retrieved
June 1, 2014, http://www.hewlett.org/uploads/files/ReviewoftheOERMovement.pdf
• Cape Town Open Education Declaration. (2007). Unlocking the promise of open
educational resources. Retrieved June 3, 2014, from
http://www.capetowndeclaration.org/read-the-
declarationhttp://www.oecd.org/edu/ceri/38654317.pdf
• Hylen, Jan OECD report: Giving Knowledge For Free: The Emergence Of Open Educational
Resources. (2007). Retrieved May 31, 2014, from
http://www.oecd.org/edu/ceri/38654317.pdf
• Hilton, J. Wiley, D. (2010). “The creation and use of Open Educational Resources in
Christian higher education.” Christian Higher Education, Volume 9: No. 1: pp. 49-59.
• Hilton, J., Wiley, D., Stein, J., and Johnson, A. (2010) “The four R’s of openness and ALMS
Analysis: Frameworks for Open Educational Resources.” Open Learning: The Journal of
Open and Distance Learning. 25 (1): 37-44. (Taylor & Francis Version, Open-Repository
Version).
• Rolfe, V. ‘Open Educational Resources: Staff Attitudes and Awarness’, Reasearch in
Learning Technology. Vol.20, 2012