1. Open Educational Practice
“Enhancing Prostate Cancer Care”
through Collaboration, Conversation
and Open Online Learning
Assess
individual
need
Provide
quality
information
Make shared
decisions
Cath Holborn
Twitter: @cholborn
Email: c.holborn@shu.ac.uk
2. What did we do?
• An open, online course
• ‘Enhancing Prostate Cancer Care’
• Designed and delivered by SHU
• Open to healthcare professionals, patients,
carers and others interested in the topic
• Developed in partnership with pebblePAD and
Prostate Cancer UK
4. Course Planning
• The topic / focus needed to be meaningful and of
value (PCUK quality checklist)
• Not just about delivering an open access course
• SHU advisory group established to support
process and ensure quality
• Course delivery team established (individuals from
SHU, pebblePAD and PCUK)
• Other external partners / services engaged
• Roles and responsibilities established, and
timelines set
5. Learning and Teaching Approach
• Week 1 = induction and familiarisation
• Weeks 2-5 = topic delivery
• Workbooks (pebblePAD) released each week containing:
– Learning materials (embedded and via slideshare, YouTube)
– Additional support resources e.g. useful websites
– Open access RLO
– Weekly blog and associated themes (pebblePAD)
– Article of the week
– ‘Webinar Wednesday’ (Bb Collaborate)
– ‘Tweetchat Thursday’ (Twitter and Storify)
– End of week ‘e-tivity’ and ‘open badge’ criteria
– ‘One Word Friday’ (AnswerGarden)
– End of week ‘Round-up’
20. Course Evaluation
• 903 participants enrolled aged 17-69, from
across 35 countries (mainly UK)
• 83.3% healthcare professionals; 8.6% students
(3.2% at SHU); 1.7% patients; 1.2%
carer/widow of a patient; 1.7% PCUK, SHU &
pebblePAD staff; 0.9% other HEI staff
• Student and staff experiences gathered
24. Feedback during course delivery
• Weekly blog included a feedback thread and a
questions & queries thread
• Changes and improvements could be made in
time for the following week (if needed)
• One word Friday also provided a useful insight
into the participant experience
25.
26.
27. Post-Course
• 213/903 completed the end of course
evaluation exploring overall satisfaction and
barriers to completion
• 58/213 were non-engagers
• 155 were active participants in the course
32. Qualitative themes
Positives
• Enthusiasm for course content, it’s
relevance and value
• Patient experiences greatly valued
• Opportunities for communication
• PebblePAD engaging and powerful tool
• Tutor support praised (friendly, helpful
and inclusive)
• The ‘Access all Areas’ induction
resource and YouTube ‘instruction’
videos
• Webinar recordings
• Continued access to materials and
pebblePAD
• Patient, carer, public and HCP
interaction valued by some
Negatives
• ‘Weekly’ pace too quick for
some
• Hard to keep up with all the
resource& activities each
week
• Timing of release for
learning materials
(Mondays)
• PebblePAD and the variety
of technology used, was
overwhelming for some
• Technological issues for
some e.g. hospital firewalls,
slow internet connections
• Some found patient/care –
HCP interaction limiting
33. Costs
• Low in comparison to other MOOCs investigated
• Helped by:
– Platform hosting, technical support and
registration provided by pebblePAD
– Experience and expertise of SHU staff (with
technology & topic)
– Experts time given freely i.e. webinar speakers,
PCUK nurses for the blog
– Free access to the journals (JRP and JMIRS)
– Free services from the end of week ‘artist’
– A focus on ‘the conversation’ rather than lots of
glossy content
34. Recognition of Learning
• 6 participants have since submitted a Recognition of
Prior Learning (RPL) claim to SHU
• 15C at level 7 have been awarded in lieu of our ‘Prostate
Cancer’ MSc module
• Claimants had to submit evidence of completing all
badges for weeks 1-4 and submit a 2500 word essay
that addresses similar learning outcomes
• 2 are existing MSc students, 4 will now join one of our
MSc courses
• In addition, we have also had new ‘module’ applications
from individuals who had completed the MOOC and
now want to try further ‘formal’ online (DL) study
35. Concluding Remarks
• A very positive experience overall (for all involved)
• Collaboration with external organisations a worthwhile
benefit
• A great staff development opportunity
• Good for marketing our expertise and providing a ‘taster’ of
online/DL study
• Quality and relevance of learning resources and the
‘conversational’ aspect to course delivery was valued
• Engagement with synchronous communication could be
improved
• Initial induction and tutor support (at start and ongoing) is
vital
• Use of open badges and links to ongoing CPD a strong feature
• Investment required for future projects may differ depending
on support, resource and expertise available
36. With thanks to…
• pebblePAD
• Sheffield Hallam University
• Prostate Cancer UK
• Patients as Educators Volunteers (PCUK)
• PCUK specialist nurses
• Expert webinar presenters
• SHU course delivery staff
• David Eddy (co course lead and project lead)
• Matthew Wheeler (pebblePAD)
• Sarah Smith (SHU student and MOOC artist)
• Sue Beckingham (SHU )
• Ian Glover (SHU)
• Graham Holden (SHU)
• Helen Parkin (SHU) – production of the evaluation report