PAPER 1: OPEN EDUCATIONAL

RESOURCES(OERS) - OPEN FOR

BUSINESS OR CLOSING

DOWN SALE?D R . T O M FA R R E L LY & D R . E A M O N

C O S T E L LO

WHAT ARE OER?T E R M S ; C O N T E X T & M O D E L S

SOME TERMS…1. Open Educational Resource (OER) “[t]he open provision of educational resources, enabled

by information and communication technologies, for consultation, use and adaptation by a community of users for non-commercial purposes” UNESCO Forum on Open Courseware in 2002 (UNESCO, 2002:24),

2. “A learning object is a digital resource that can be reused to mediate learning. An open educational resource is a learning object that can be freely used, reused, adapted, and shared” Wiley (2008:346).

3. Open Education Practice - The International Council for Open and Distance Education defines open educational practices, quite simply, as 'practices which support the production, use and reuse of high quality open educational resources (OER)'.

4. Cape Town Open Education Declaration: “open education movement combines the established tradition of sharing good ideas with fellow educators and the collaborative, interactive culture of the Internet. It is built on the belief that everyone should have the freedom to use, customize, improve and redistribute educational resources without constraint”.

INTERNATIONAL CONTEXT - UNESCO

1. Forum on Open Courseware for Developing Countries (UNESCO, Paris, 1-3 July, 2002)

2. World Conference on Higher Education: The New Dynamics of Higher Education and Research for Societal Change and Development (UNESCO, Paris, 5-8 July 2009): – "ODL approaches and ICTs present

opportunities to widen access to quality education, particularly when Open Educational Resources are readily shared by many countries and higher education institutions"

INTERNATIONAL CONTEXT – UNESCO II• World Open Educational Resources Congress (UNESCO Paris 2012) in conjunction with the Commonwealth of Learning (COL)

2012 Paris OER Declaration:a) Foster awareness and use of OERb) Facilitate enabling environments for use of Information and Communications Technologies

(ICT)c) Reinforce the development of strategies and policies on OERd) Promote the understanding and use of open licensing frameworkse) Support capacity building for the sustainable development of quality learning materialsf) Foster strategic alliances for OERg) Encourage the development and adaptation of OER in a variety of languages and cultural

contextsh) Encourage research on OERi) Facilitate finding, retrieving and sharing of OERj) Encourage the open licensing of educational materials produced with public funds

MARTIN WELLER’S L IT TLE & BIG OER

The Iceberg of Reuse, (White & Manton, 2011 p.5)

LITTLE OER – small scale development and use; most not visible

BIG OER – The visible side of OERs; institutional support and visibility – MOOCs best known example.

THREE MODELS OF SUSTAINABILITY (WILEY 2007:5)

• The MIT model – OER are created and released by a dedicated, centralised, paid project team.• The USU (Utah State University) model – OER are created by a hybrid of a centralised team and decentralised staff.• The Rice model – This is a decentralised model based around a community of contributors.

WELLER (2014: 79) :

“Current costs allocated to

purchasing textbooks for colleges can be instead diverted to creating textbooks which are open and

free to use”.

OER PROVISION IN THEIRISH HE SECTOR

LEANING RESOURCES AND OPEN ACCESS IN HE INST ITUT IONS IN IRELAND

Team:Project Lead: Angelica Risquez (UL)Researcher: Ann CoughlanDIT: Claire McAvinia, Yvonne Desmond & Pauline RooneyRCSI: Catherine BruenMIC: Ann O’Keeffe & Deirdre RyanNUIG: Sharon FlynnUL: Fiona Farr & Ann Marcus Quinn

Q 1 - HOW ARE OPEN EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES CURRENTLY BEING USED AND SHARED IN IRISH HIGHER EDUCATION INSTITUTIONS AND WHAT CAN WE LEARN FROM SUCH EXPERIENCES?• Awareness of OERs and knowledge about use quite

low: 15% Not Aware to 14% Aware and Knowledge how to use• Regular use by participants: Primary Content 8% and

Supplementary Content 21%• Never or Rare Use: Primary 64% and 41%• Where Find: Search Engines (149); YouTube (102);

Sharing with Colleague (84)• Citation: Don't deal with issue/unsure 32%• Share? Yes 65% No 35%

Q 1 - HOW ARE OPEN EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES CURRENTLY BEING USED AND SHARED IN IRISH HIGHER EDUCATION INSTITUTIONS AND WHAT CAN WE LEARN FROM SUCH EXPERIENCES? IIWhy Share: • Collegiality & facilitating

student learning; • Philosophical Conviction; • To develop subject

area/learning materials; • Use to others or to

institution; • Reciprocity; • Self-promotion

Not Share: • Copyright issues/intellectual

property rights/protection of work;

• Time; • Material perceived to be

irrelevant or context specific;• Policies of

confidentiality/materials the property of institution

• Cost;• Lack of incentive/motivation

REPOSITORIES BUILT DURING RIAN PROJECT (2007 -2010)

REPOSITORIES BUILT INDEPENDENTLY

RIAN: THE NATIONAL RESEARCH PORTAL

LESSONS…..National Digital Learning Repository (NDLR)

GOING FORWARDC O N S I D E R AT I O N S

UK’S OER PROGRAMME (2009-2012)• Not all OER are widely or globally accessible in a pedagogical or technical sense:

– Pedagogical and Operability Considerations• Citation protocols – Is Creative Commons enough or appropriate?• Tracking – how and why?• Institutional and National polices• Sustainability the primary issue

OVERCOMING BARRIERS AND FINDING ENABLERS (JISC 2014)

Stakeholder

Barrier Enabler Possible Benefits

Teachers & academic staff

Time is a significant issue particularly when re-purposing existing materials

Institutional support and acknowledgment of time needed to re-purpose materials Technical support and guidance from central teams

Improved quality and checks re legality of content

Teachers & academic staff

Skills/competencies – a whole range of new skills may be needed (technical and pedagogical).

Training and/or extra support from central teams

Additional skills and experience for staff

Management

Institution wide approach – HE institutions may not have culture or mechanisms to support institution wide dialogue which is needed for OER initiatives

Develop new partnerships within institutions Create mechanisms for cross faculty communication, practice sharing.

Joined up approaches

SHOULD YOU SHARE?YES

• Recognition• Enhancement of

reputation – Individual & Institutional • Public Good

NO• Recognition – What

really counts?• Lack of quality control

– mass education on the cheap?• Lack of wider

commitment – Government & Institutional

Atkins, D. E., Brown, J. S., & Hammond, A. L. (2007). A Review of the Open Educational Resources (OER) Movement: Achievements, Challenges, and new Opportunities. Menlo Park, CA: The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. Higher Education Authority (2009) Open and Flexible LearningHEA Position Paper, November 2009. HEA; Dublin. Available from: http://www.hea.ie/sites/default/files/hea_flexible_learning_paper_nov_2009.pdf JISC (2014) OER’s -Overcoming barriers and finding enablers. Available from: https://www.jisc.ac.uk/guides/open-educational-resources/overcoming-barriers-and-finding-enablers

McAvinia, C., & Maguire, T. (2011). Evaluating the National Digital Learning Repository (NDLR): New models of communities of practice. AISHE-J: The All Ireland Journal of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, 3 (1). Available from http://ojs.aishe.org/index.php/aishe-j/article/view/39       

Bibliography

National Forum for the Enhancement of Teaching & Learning in Higher Education (2015) Learning Resources and Open Access in Higher Education Institutions in Ireland, Focused Research Report No. 1, 2015. NFTL: Dublin. Available from: http://www.teachingandlearning.ie/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/Project-1-LearningResourcesandOpenAccess-1.pdf

Weller, M. (2014.) The battle for open: how openness won and why it doesn’t feel like victory. Ubiquity Press, London.

White, D. & Manton, M. (2011) Open Educational Resources: The value of reuse in higher education. JISC-funded OER Impact Study, University of Oxford. Available from: http://www.webarchive.org.uk/wayback/archive/20140614114921/http://www.jisc.ac.uk/media/documents/programmes/elearning/oer/OERTheValueOfReuseInHigherEducation.pdf

UNESCO (2009) 2012 Paris OER Declaration. World Open Educational Resources (OER) Congress UNESCO, Paris, June 20-22, 2012. Available from: http://www.unesco.org/new/fileadmin/MULTIMEDIA/HQ/CI/CI/pdf/Events/Paris%20OER%20Declaration_01.pdf      

Bibliography