"Social networking and gaming capacities of OER" is the set of activities (or Output) number 3 of the European project ExplOERer. Presenter: Katerina Zourou

1. Output 3: Social networking and
gaming capacities of OER
First ExplOERer meeting, Thessaloniki, 3-4 November 2014
#explOERer
Output leader: Katerina Zourou
This project has been funded with support from the European Commission. This publication
reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any
use which may be made of the information contained therein.
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2. Scope
• Better understand the role of social networking and gaming in ΟEP
as it is materialized in ROER and digital learning spaces in general
• Provide evidence regarding the potential of incentivized models of
learning (gaming/social networking mechanisms) in OEP
• Develop, implement and test a set of social networking and gaming
features in two existing ROER (action research approach)
• Customize 2 ROER (OER repositories: LORO http://loro.open.ac.uk
and KlasCement http://klascement.net/ )
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3. Who is concerned
Mainly:
(W2L) Katerina and Giulia
(OUUK) Anna
(KC) Bram and Hans
(UGOT) Linda and Sylvi
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4. Activities and timeline
#O3/A1: Completion of the desktop research and technical specifications
# O3/A2: Development of prototype
# O3/A3: Publication of results
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5. How O3 activities link to those of other Outputs
O3 complements O1 and O2 as it approaches OER reuse from a design
perspective
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6. Period of intensive work and milestones
OUUK, KC and W2L to invest heavily in O3.UGOT to contribute. Very
low involvement of GCU and CCPL.
Period of intensive work: December 2014-February 2015: planning and
development of the prototypes for the two ROER (cooperation
between developers of the 2 ROER and ExplOERer researchers).
Publication of results (after November 15): least intensive stage.
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7. First deliverable in the row
#O3/A1: Completion of the desktop research and
technical specifications
• Collection of papers on social networking and gaming mechanisms in Open
learning settings (broader than OEP)
• Insights into incentivized models in OEP (even MOOCs): rewards, badges
and other recognition mechanics=> analysis of types of mechanics by type
of learning context
• Contacting developers of ROER or MOOCs who designed and tested social
networking or gaming features - explore their added value for learning =>
feasibility audit to elaborate a list of features appropriate to each context
• Collection of readings facilitated by Mendeley reference management tool
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8. Social networked game mechanics analyzed in the
context of web 2.0 language learning communities
2013 paper by Zourou & Lamy. Overview of gaming mechanisms:
• Scoring systems
• Learner score
• Teacher score
• Badges
• Challenges
• Rating systems
• Rating of learner input
• Rating of learner input followed by feedback
• Rating of tutor feedback
• Intra-native speaker feedback
• Leaderboards
Zourou, K., Lamy, M.-N. 2013. “Social networked game dynamics in web 2.0 language learning communities”,
Alsic, Vol. 16, retrieved from http://alsic.revues.org/2642
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9. Some preliminary discussions on badges:
contacts with OERRH…. to be followed up
Bea de los Arcos,
OERRH, UK
From a recent email exchange regarding the “Open Research”
course:
“As you know we used the P2PU School of Open platform to set up
the OERRH's course on Open Research. Participants could earn a
badge by completing all non-optional activities and contribute to
forum discussions during the facilitated version of the course. The
School of Open platform sets it all up for you, really (for instance,
it's easy to review applicants' contributions to the forums as they
are pulled out in one single page) so it hasn't been terribly
complicated”.
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10. # O3/A2: Development of prototype
• 2 prototypes, one for each ROER to be embedded and tested
• Some of the features will include: badges, milestones, feedback,
rewards, leaderboards, etc.
• Objective :
• build loyalty, reward users with the aim of fostering OEP and enhancing OER
uptake in new learning/teaching contexts
• See whether and how open learning occurs with the help of social networking
and gaming mechanics
# O3/A3: Development of prototype
• Testing the new features: analysis of user activity (quantitative data)
and interviews/surveys w/ users (qualitative data)
# O3/A4: Dissemination of results
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11. Mendeley desktop-ExplOERer group and its
resources so far
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13. Project website
ExpOERers voted for and against an independent website (not part of
Wikieducator despite the fact that this was in the proposal)=>
Ioannis and Katerina decided to set up an independent website as main
website hosted by UGOT (indicative URL: exploerer.gu.se) and to have
also a Wikieducator website fed by the main one (as secondary site)
Wikieducator’s site is ready for content to be added
http://wikieducator.org/ExplOERer
The main site will be built on wordpress.com and will then migrate to
UGOT servers=> the URL of the project website is still unknown
(approval by UGOT technicians)
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