15 Friday Apr 2016
Posted in #OER16, Apps, CPD, Evaluation, OER's, Open Access
14 Friday Mar 2014
Posted in OER's, Open Access
Tags
Colin Gray (@elearningcolin) just advertised some open learning courses on the SEDA email list today. They looking interesting:
“The courses are all aimed at teaching an aspect of Technology Enhanced Learning and they’re part of the research project I’m currently working on. The aim is to develop models of online learning for work based learners such as yourselves, and, of course, to help people integrate a bit more tech into their teaching!
Anyway, enough explanation, I’d love to have anyone on the courses that are interested. Here’s the list:
– The Podcasting Teacher: Creating Podcasts for Education
– Perform Magic with Moodle: Enhance any Module
– Cloud Apps for Education: Collaborate, Organise & Enjoy!
You can see more details and book on the courses here:
http://www.telteacher.com/sm “
07 Friday Mar 2014
Posted in OER's
Tags
Great new (FREE) online course starting next week – check it out!
• The course site sits within p2pu and is available at https://p2pu.org/en/courses/140/intro-to-openness-in-education/
• The Facebook community for the course can be accessed at https://www.facebook.com/groups/1427036210872914/
• The Google plus community for the NWOER Network can be accessed at https://plus.google.com/communities/105070147683917577275
• Start following @northwestoer. We will be using the Twitter hashtag #nwOER
For further information regarding this open course, please access http://www.celt.mmu.ac.uk/flex/oerweek.php
26 Saturday Jan 2013
Posted in Conferences, OER's, Technology Enhanced Learning
HEA Workshop and Seminar Series 2012-13
Embedding Open Educational Resources institutionally
University of Leeds
Date: Thursday 24th January 2013
Time: 10:00 – 15:30
Venue: University of Leeds
First there was a welcome and introduction from The Higher Education Academy and Professor Vivien Jones, Pro-Vice Chancellor for Student Education, University of Leeds
The first presentation was on ‘Institutional OER project: experiences & outcomes’ by Dr N Morris, Dr D I Lewis, [University of Leeds]
They started with a definition of OER’s, ‘Digitised teaching and learning and research resources that reside in the public domain or have been released by the copyright owner under and intellectual property licence (eg Creative Commons) that permits their use or re-puposing (re-use, revision, remixing, redistribution) by others’. Thus not to be confused with open accessed resources.
Next followed a brief outline of the Project’s aims
The Workshops took a similar format; give e.g.s of subject specific OER’s (15 mins). Then got the participants to find OER in their subjects. Then general discussion on challenges and benefits of OER’s. The feedback was very good although attendance at the workshops was quite low. They also produced Case Studies pamphlet highlighting some good practice. Also presented at student education conference.
The Workshops highlighted a great need for staff guidance and support. Some themes emerged: Web portals for resources, Staff like advice on producing OER’s, Staff would like a publishing guide, Staff wanted recognition and to be rewarded and finally, staff would like clear advice on copyright.
Finally a Steering group was set up
There are further events planned:
Before lunch we then had a discussion session on ‘The challenges of embedding OERs institutionally’ led Rebecca Dearden, (University of Leeds)
In the afternoon we had Keynote lecture by Professor Wyn Morgan, (University of Nottingham) on ‘Embedding OERs at the University of Nottingham’ He started by explaining ‘What is Open Nottingham?’ and the two main drivers for using OER’s at Nottingham University;1. Internationalisation 40,000 students, 6,000 international students 6 Campuses 2. Having a well developed Learning Technology Support that supports Open Learning)
It has been a relatively new initiative. U-Now launched in 2007. Member of OCWC in 2008. BerLin Project 2009/10. Open Nottingham started in 2010.
He then outlined some of the key reasons ‘Why are we Open’ at Nottingham. Firstly for reasons of Social Responsibility – providing OER’s to other institutions (this is now in the Uni Strategic plan). Second it is an example Excellence in education at Nottingham, and thirdly for promotion opportunities, where prospective students can get a ‘taste’ of the courses at Nottingham University.
It is also very clear that Open Nottingham has some important support from Senior management. But it is always a ‘Opt in’ for individuals and faculties – staff are not required to make their resources ‘open’. There have also been dedicated tools developed by the learning support team e.g. Xerte – Xpert – YouTube channel – Xpert 2
The impact on the University has already been significant. 70% of schools engaged – Mature publication model – 3600 credits by 2015 For Example, School of Politics and international Relations has; School wide engagement, embraced new technology, Transformational change. Over 600 credits committed (produced ‘Politics in 60 seconds’ explaining their research in 60 second videos ….available on YouTube)
Also at an individual Level, Dr Richard Field produced a online statistical package. Produced a Handout for SPSS. He found loads on Open resources, Changed the instructions, changed some of the instructions, Changed font – Saved time only took 300 mins to produce handouts.
Furthermore ‘Encouraging Re-Use of OER’s’, is now Optional module on PGCert for teaching staff .
Impact on students is also an important factor. OER supporting learners. Input all areas: use systems and resources.Students union support. Students given links to U-Now to access materials (www.unow.nottingham.ac.uk) As one student said, “interested in using U-Now resources….because it was like a safe ‘sandbox’….” Furthermore, UNow provided embedded OER’s into “student Essentials” (resources study kits)
From a marketing perspective the links on Nottingham’s online prospectus to UNow (links to podcasts, videos etc) give a flavour of the university
However, there are associated barriers to staff engagement with OER’s (Based on staff survey):
In terms of ‘Next Steps’ the university aims to increase focus on helping staff to re-use content, expand its publication model, investigate the potential for open courses (MOCCS) and look to embed OER in all schools across the university
Thus in conclusion not everyone at Nottingham is fully engaged with OER’s, however, “we have tried to promote OER, make them as simple as possible and make and reuse OERs to make student learning as interesting as possible”
Case study from experienced OER practitioner [Mr Antonio Martínez-Arboleda, University of Leeds]
Antonio gave a presentation on Humbox and how he used it:
http://www.humbox.ac.uk which is Repository for Arts and Humanities resources Over 4000 resources.
and SCORE Support Centre for Open Resources in Education www.open.ac.uk/score
Jorum www.jorum.ac.uk – Embedding OER oral histories of Spanish political refugees
Finally the day was concluded with a discussion session – Future individual plans for creation / use of OER [Dr D I Lewis, University of Leeds]
07 Tuesday Aug 2012
Posted in OER's, Open Access, Technology Enhanced Learning, Uncategorized
Here is a new site which will be a great resource for researchers and lecturers teaching research methods:
http://www.digitalscholarship.ac.uk/
It provides a number of OER’s on the following topics:
20 Friday Jul 2012
Posted in Conferences, OER's, Open Access, Seda, Technology Enhanced Learning
The Higher Education Academy and SEDA held a one-day conference today at Aston Conference Centre, Birmingham. “Following three years of funding from the Higher Education Academy and JISC, a wide range of programmes and projects have explored the creation, development, use and reuse of open educational resources. Globally, the open resources movement is changing polices and the development needs of staff and students alike. This timely conference will explore answers to the question: Where next for open practice and staff development? It will feature contributions from funded projects and new directions in thinking on this exciting and challenging area of developing academic practice.”
Welcome and opening address
Dr David Mosley, HEA Academic Lead for Online Learning,
Chris Rowell, Technology Enhanced Learning Advisor, Regent’s College and SEDA Executive Committee member
Keynote – Are we ready for OER?
Peter Hartley
Oers’s at Teeside University – equipping academics to design fit for purpose Distance learning curricula through experiential learning using an OER
Philosophy underpinning the module: Designed a module for the lecturers to use in a very experiential way. (Pedagogy not technology drives the design, learning by doing, modelling the way, designing for realistic delivery, Relevant output for participants)
4 units: divided up overall structure (typically this includes: aims and outcomes, intro to topic, reflection on prior learning, directed learning tasks)
Balancing local purpose with transferability: Local staff can engage with (for a PGCert module)
Project blog: https://eat.scm.tees.ac.uk/blog/tag/jisc-oer-project/
Info: g.james@tees.ac.uk
Language Open Resources Online (LORO) at the OU – from Open Educational Resources to Open Educational Practices – Professional development of language teachers through collaborative writing and peer review
Background to the OU: Languages at OU – 1000plus students, English Spanish French German Italian welsh and Chinese. Blended approach to teaching, course materials produced centrally, 300plus tutors line managed in regional teams.
LORO data base for language learning materials, 1.5 million page views, 2500 resources, 1200 registered users. Attempts to make it interactive, leave comments, registered users can leave a profile of themselves.Creative commons license.
Benefits of using LORO, ‘Value of feedback on one’s work’, good recourse for lecturers to brose and download teaching material. However, very few if any lecturers created their own resources.
They set up a project for tutors to use LORO collaboratively and develop their own teaching resources. Stages of project; selection of participants( up to 20 experienced and enthusiastic language lecturers), training sessions (compulsory, Synchronous, peer reviewing others work and reviewing progress) follow up meetings, collaborative activities ( Dedicated Elluminate room for training, Project forumn and wiki, emai, participant Elluminate rooms), publicising the project (internally), Evaluation questionnaire.
Results: 20 new resources have been created. Questionnaire results showed an increased use of interaction of LORA….but also a clear preference for tutors to use their own materials. Tutors enjoyed the collaborative working and peer review process. Number of resources uploaded in LoRA has increased. It as a ‘valuable staff development opportunity for participants’. General perception of a successful project
You can access LORO at: http://loro.open.ac.uk/
Project team: T. Beaven, A. Comas-Quinn, A. Duensing, M. Gallardo, S. Heiser, C. Pleines.
OER’s and Staff development at University of Oxford
Oxford University has produced over 4000 teaching resources to be shared on iTUnesU.
Why: enhance the capabilities of new and experienced academic staff
Lectures are written by the lecturers so it’s a big thing when lecturers decide to give away their resources
“Open content literacy is knowing when and why open content is necsaary, where to find and share it, evaluate and use it in a ethical manner”. The crucial issue is the ability to reuse resources.
Most of the work done was with intellectual property (with a lawyer) to produce a single sign-off sheet for copyright purposes.
This raised the whole issue of copyright and publishing (especially when Oxford Uni press is part of the University).
Oxford Uiversity settled on the Creative Commons licence which give attribution to non-commercial parties. This gives consistency and contingency to all of Oxford’s resources. I.e. they are giving a licence to share a resource.
Why are Oxford producing OER’s? promotion and marketing of the university is the main reason.
Feedback from Oxford’s OER’s has enhanced the lecturer’s experience, as they get feedback from outside the college and from their peers. They have also enjoyed the interaction with the school curriculum and an increased understanding of a digital presence and online publishing, like blogs. Especially for very topical issues like the higgs- boson stuff.
Some of the lecturers are getting over 100,000 download of the resources and to get feedback, “it’s a huge personal boost to receive feedback; as a teacher its is just what you want to hear”
Open Notingham: Knowledge without Borders.
Open source tools Open learning publishing ….U-NOW- Xerte – Xpert (300,000 OER’s, iTunesU, Xpert attribution tool,)
OER is a stated objective of the Uni’s strategy on Social Responsibility but is also related to ‘Excellence in Education’, ‘promotional opportunities’, ‘Internationalisation’ and ‘cost efficiencies’
What support does it have?
Senior support, Vice Chancellor Pro Vice Chancellor- Director of Teaching and Learning. Opt-in, schools can pilot or provide as much content as comfortable. Impact on staff 70per cent of schools engaged. 500% increase in content submission 21010-11. 3600 credits by 2015. Individual schools, eg offered over 600 credits and their ‘Politics in 60 seconds’ iTunes channel.
Digital literacy course is now an optional module on the PGCHE and is freely available to all staff.
Lastly we saw a demo of Xpert for downloading OER images.
OER13 National OER conference ‘Creating a Virtuous Circle’ 2013 26th and 27th March – Nottingham.
Reflections on the day – Professor Phil Levy, Deputy Chief Executive (Academic), HEA
10 Thursday May 2012
Posted in OER's, Open Access
Tags
In John Naughton’s recent article in the Observer he gave some persuasive arguments why academic journals should become ‘open source’.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/apr/22/academic-publishing-monopoly-challenged
The subscriptions to journals is a massive cost to university libraries and in turn the taxpayer, “the average cost of an annual subscription to a chemistry journal is still $3,792 and many journals cost far more. The result is that unconscionable amounts of public money are extracted from our hapless universities in the form of what are, effectively, monopoly rents for a few publishers”. Surely this money could have alternative uses.
Academics are setting up their alternative freely available journals. There is even advise on the web on ‘How to run an open access journal’; http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/pamphlet/2012/03/06/an-efficient-journal/
This in turn is being supported by lecturers promoting their own research articles via Blogs and Twitter. The evidence is beginning to grow that this is a very effective way of getting these articles read by people that matter. See for example, ‘The verdict: is blogging or tweeting about research papers worth it?’: http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2012/04/19/blog-tweeting-papers-worth-it/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+ImpactOfSocialSciences+(Impact+of+Social+Sciences)
SEDA publishes Innovations in Education and Teaching International (IETI) and Educational Developments plus numerous special publications….which are fantastic!!I think Seda publications should follow ALT’s lead and become ‘open access journals’ http://www.alt.ac.uk/researchinlearningtechnology2012. This would lead to better access to SEDA publications, substantially reduce publication fees, speed up the publication process and increase the influence and relevance of SEDA ideas in education.
Any comments?
