1. Supporting teaching in higher education to improve student learning across the Biosciences OeRBITAL Open Educational Resources for Biologists Involved in Learning and Teaching Terry McAndrew and Chris Taylor Follow us @terrymc @chr1staylor http://tinyurl.com/bioukoer

2. Task – part 1 Work as a group/team of 2 Using paper or card, describe a repository item you feel is of significant value to your discipline, using a diagram or sentence Using the tools provided, launch your resource into the ‘Universal Repository’ provided in the room. Plan (3mins) Build and launch only when prompted

3. GO!

4. Task 2 – part 2 Using the experiences of the group, and no other resources outside what was used in task 1, improve your design to land in the ‘Universal repository’ Work in same team Plan (1 mins) Launch again only when prompted

5. GO!

6. Task discussion How many teams achieved the objective? What tactics were used? What opportunities were missed? Post event: Did anyone append a resource on the second attempt to a ‘successful’ entry? Why not? Our communities may be making similar assumptions

7. A view of the problem OERs being produced as resources with better licencing Benefits to framework not being fully acted upon Attitude or Altitude? OER aspect was doubtful; no clearer than CC licence Promotion of own materials via repositories is not significant until community has engaged Cost-benefit is recognition e.g. if repository content is promoted through Google and major search engines Senior management remain to be convinced completely Lack of Learning Technologists role in the production loop Learning Technologists trade techniques more than content e.g. ALT, but are very lively traders Academics trade content (overtly or covertly) to build networks and solve problems Academics do not automatically grant permission to LTs to trade their content, yet it provides evidence of quality for them Academic institutions need to deliver differently to optimise use of resources Student experiences of OER How are these being shared? How is feedback generated and acted upon? What’s the real difference in Adoption and Adaption?

8. Background Mixed experiences / perceptions of OER OER is a great idea - but how is it 'leveraged' for the benefit of the individual, institution and discipline realistically. Phase 1 outputs created 200+ resources into JORUM Phase 1 issues included licensing shifts (change of mind or “sleight of hand” ?), lack of collaborators, balance of content delivered and different reasons/drivers. Phase 1 Bioscience project delivered useful content to the discipline and developed capacity

9. Plan Get discipline experts immersed – sink or swim! Discipline Consultants (DCs) appointed Gather the story Share experiences throughout (with email/twitter/Skype prompts) Low technology barriers Use professional networks; learned societies and colleagues, subject associations Champion something for ‘boosting’ via specialists Goal: Achieve sustainable orbit for key resources

10. Environment What is the current academic practice? Update to phase 1 survey to follow Are Learning Technologists repeating unnecessary work in parallel isolation? Funding for discipline-wide projects is limited Creating solutions to identified discipline needs Stakeholder groups need to be made aware of OER benefits and their responsibility to make it happen

11. Wiki The OeRBITAL Wiki Work in progress MediaWiki based DCs have freedom - differing but similar approaches Establishing ‘trailblazing’ paradata in the disciplines Opportunities to expand other discipline practitioners Get help – enlist colleagues Potential partnership solutions OER Glue Folksemantic / OER Recommender Learning Registry

12. Issues (phase 1 and 2) Academic staff use Google – and it works! Other sources are effective but sometimes hard work Many still complain about lack of time Academic staff teaching blogs are still not common practice in biosciences – peer asynchronous sharing opportunity missed? Students not significantly involved in validating content – direct engagement with resources unrecorded Licence confusion – many available resources have unclear licence info but “you can still use them” Academic competition / collaboration is “messy”

13. How OERs are used Adoption examples Use as is Use with new context guidance Used to ‘seed’ in-house ideas – “inspiration” Adaption Stripped down for refined application Improved and distributed ‘downsteam’ for local use Improved and distributed ‘upstream’ for academic practitioners

14. Progress Successes Engagement by key practitioners Reasonable technical barriers surmounted Wider networks becoming more aware of OER concepts Supports existing territories, not competing with them Paradata encounters Concerns Academic overload or Academic habits?

15. Paradata Learning registry project potential Use of SemanticWiki markup Use of RDFa resource descriptions Learning technologist opportunities for paradata

16. Questions? Adaption issues in your community? How does your role expecting to develop with OERs? Suggestions to maximise outputs and outcomes?