STUDENTS AS CAPACITATORSSUPPORTING OER SUSTAINABILITY

Thomas King

The context: sustaining OER trajectory

The foundational theorisation (e.g. Wiley), online platforms (OECommons) and legal frameworks (CC licences) for OER are well established

The next step is to massify/normalise OER and OEP practices, particular as uptake has not been as vigorous as expected (or feared…)

However, this requires additional resources – OER production can be streamlined, but will almost always require more time than closed materials development

Claims of OER Efficiency

Reduce costs Democratise learning

Improve accessibility and reach Allow for educator-learner co-creation of

materials Improve quality

Peer-to-peer sharing Increased collaboration

Costs of OER E-Infrastructure Requires developing new proficiencies

Intellectual Property Management Curation & metadata

Conceptualisation of context-free/’agnostic’ material design

Change in practice (e.g. sourcing references)

Time, time, TIME.

Sustainability challenges Challenges:

Incentivisation schemes are uneven or absent Not all institutions have support units to assist

interested academics Academic staff globally are already time-

constrained OER production needs to be sustainable –

which is facilitated by some degree of localisation. Soft/project funded research mandates cannot guarantee long-term uptake.

Students – a potential resource

Postgraduate students Beginning to develop advanced subject knowledge Likely to have experienced course materials from the

student perspective Already involved in tutoring and lecturer support Have time, and; Need money

Summary: postgrads have the time, capacity and energy to engage in OER production/facilitation

UCT context ‘Pride of authorship’ model – no

centralised QA system IP policy which shares copyright of

teaching materials and scholarship between academics and institution

High degree of academic freedom/independence

Relatively autonomous, ‘siloed’ (Hussey, 2012) nature of academic work

Study site: the OER Adaptation project

Small grant from University of Cape Town executive to develop OER materials

Explored employing students as ‘hunter-gatherers’ – identifying lecturers (based on personal/peer experiences) and attempting to acquire teaching materials

Coordinated centrally by an academic coordinator and a student coordinator (me) who provided IP training, advice and support

Methodology Semi-structured interviews with the 5

student adapters who contributed substantively to the project

Structured interviews with 4 participating lecturers

Artefact analysis of completed OER Rogers’ Diffusion of Innovations theory

employed to determine whether or not student facilitators could act as change agents, supporting an institutional OER agenda

Training Students trained in Intellectual Property

management (copyright clearance and transmitting such information to lecturers), curation, and metadata

Training based on University of Michigan DScribe process; primary difference being students were also trained in acquisition techniques

Caveats & disclaimers Small study (5 students, 4 lecturers) Lecturers in this study were either OER

contributors or engaged in other forms of online content sharing (other lecturers less involved in online sharing were approached but did not contribute)

T

Student support nodes

The ‘O’ of OER - Adaptation

Adaptation: Copyright clearance – finding sources of and where

necessary alternatives to all third-party materials (typically images, sound, video)

Referencing all third-party material with appropriate open licences

Skills: digital literacy, IP/copyright knowledge Time: Moderate/High Student competence: High Lecturer confidence: High

The ‘E’ of OER - Generation Generation:

Developing original pedagogical content Modifying/supplementing existing pedagogical

content with new examples, more recent literature, etc.

Decontextualisation: removing markers that localised the material specifically to the South African situation

Skills: subject knowledge, learning design Time: High Student competence: Low Lecturer confidence: Low

The ‘R’ of OER - Publication Publication

Editing completed OER for final upload. Can include converting to open formats (e.g. Open Office), compression/reducing file size

Upload to online institutional/subject repository after metadata ascription

Skills: curation, metadata, digital literacies

Student competence: Moderate/High Lecturer confidence: High

Discussion Students and lecturers largely agreed that

students were best placed to perform copyright clearance and curatorial activity; less well-positioned to perform pedagogical modification

Lecturers disengaged from the minutiae of the adaptation process – relatively lasseiz-faire attitude towards the process after agreeing to contribute

Lecturers’ responses indicated that they gained little new knowledge through engaging in the project

Conclusion Given that students are skilled in

adaptation and curation, but less skilled in acquisition and generation, it would appear that they are best employed not as hunter-gatherers but as capacitators…

Not as in electronics…

… but as in ‘helping hands’

Conclusion (continued) However, students have the potential to

contribute pedagogically if involved early in the materials design process, particularly for materials they co-teach.

Students may (relatively) easily be employed as capacitating agents in OER production; with some creativity they can also be employed as pedagogical co-creators.

OER advocacy needs to acknowledge that from the creators’ perspective, at least in the short run, OER costs time.

References Hussey, G. D. (2012). The state and future of

research at the University of Cape Town’s Faculty of Health Sciences. South African Medical Journal, 102(6).

‘Capacitator’ by Gary Houston. Available at https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:S.I.-capacitor-20150807-003.jpg

‘Giving a leg up’ by Shane T. McCoy, CC BY-SA. Available at https://www.flickr.com/photos/usmarshals/19309287359/in/album-72157653250378893/