Presentation by Pete Cannell and Ronnie Macintyre at OER16 conference, Edinburgh 20/04/16

1. Opening Educational Practices in
Scotland
Pete Cannell and Ronald Macintyre

2. 2
Opening Educational Practices in Scotland
The Project
• Opening Educational
Practices in Scotland
is a three year project
led by the Open
University in Scotland
but involving all of the
higher education
sector.

3. 3
Opening Educational Practices in Scotland
Project objectives
The project encompasses a number of activities over a
three year period (2014-2017):
• Analysis of current open educational practices
• Events programme across Scotland to raise awareness of OEP
• Development of an online hub to encourage and share best practice in
open education
• Development of a small number of high quality OERs of particular
benefit to Scotland
• Badging of informal learning
• Learning design for widening participation
• Research and evaluation building strong evidence base
• Evaluation of various economic models of openness

4. 4
Opening Educational Practices in Scotland
Extending how we think of OEP
• The evidence that OEPS is building on suggests that it may be
useful to think of practice as including:
• Learning design and pedagogy
• Opportunities for co-creation
• Social Context
• Collective and peer supported learning
• Networks

5. 5
Opening Educational Practices in Scotland
Four emerging themes
• Scholarship and dissemination of knowledge /openness as a
public good/ social mission
• Understanding and overcoming barriers to engagement with
OER in widening participation contexts
• Social practice
• The ladder of engagement – towards remixing and reversioning

6. 6
Opening Educational Practices in Scotland
Scholarship and dissemination of knowledge
• Creation of exemplar OER
Building on models of co-creation (emphasis on
Learning Design) e.g. Caring Counts
• Importance of development embedded in networks
Strengthens design and heightens impact
• Scottish Association for Marine Science/ UHI - Seaweed
• Glasgow University (Crichton Campus) – End of Life
Academic communities in which specialised knowledge
is shared and developed – driver of obligation for public
engagement/ social mission – potential for reuse

7. 7
Opening Educational Practices in Scotland
Understanding barriers to engagement
• Widening participation as well as widening access
• Working with partners in the third sector, unions,
colleges and universities
• ‘Traditional’ WP barriers (situational, institutional and
dispositional) intersect and interact specific
characteristics of digital environment

8. 8
Opening Educational Practices in Scotland
• Developing evidence that models of collective engagement and
pedagogical approaches that all peer support and interaction
are critical
• Hosting these on www.oeps.ac.uk (OEPS hub)
• Builds on concepts of trusted gatekeepers in WP practice
• Working with gatekeepers to co-develop models of practice –
identify appropriate material and provide structures and
pathways to scaffold support
• Shifts the boundaries of the university – example of work with
Scottish Union Learning and Union Learning Representatives
(the gatekeepers in this context)
Social practice

9. 9
Opening Educational Practices in Scotland
Towards remixing and reversioning
• In working with lots of partners we’ve found that initially
the challenge is to engage with the first of the 5Rs – in
truth ‘free’ is the primary interest – ‘open’ lags behind
• Through engagement with issues around enabling use
– interest in remixing and reversioning starts to emerge
• Interested in whether technology is now such that the
barriers to making material ‘your own’ are shrinking to
the extent that users can remix and reversion at much
lower cost
• Developing small pilots with the new tools on
OpenLearn Works (soon to be OpenLearn Create) to
test these ideas.

10. Contact Us: Email:
OEPScotland@open.ac.uk
Twitter: @OEPScotland
Blog: www.oepscotland.org
Community hub: www.oeps.ac.uk