Phil Barker, Heriot-Watt University JISC CETIS Learning Technology Adviser / Managing and disseminating Open Educational Resources

Overview What? Who? Why? How? What are OERs? Who is releasing OERs? Why do they do want to release them? How do they do release them?

What are OERs? Open : Easy to define (if dogmatic) Educational Resources : Harder to pin down (because pragmatic)

Dogmatic definition of OPEN “open educational resources should be freely shared through open licences which facilitate use, revision, translation, improvement and sharing by anyone” Capetown declaration on open education

More dogmatic definition of OPEN “open educational resources should be freely shared through open licences which facilitate use, revision, translation, improvement and sharing by anyone” Capetown declaration on open education So not ND

Even more dogmatic definition “open educational resources should be freely shared through open licences which facilitate use, revision, translation, improvement and sharing by anyone” Capetown declaration on open education So not NC?

Define “Educational Resource” Dogmatic definitions don’t work here (courseware, learning objects, teaching resources, educational materials)

Santa’s Chair © Daniel R Blume, CC-BY-SA

Arts and industries chair © Darren and Brad, CC-BY-SA brad-darren/ /

Bench © dcJohn CC-BY-SA

from Two Bar Stools © Rennet Stowe CC-BY

Tree Stump 2 © Ashish Joy CC-BY

Educational Resources Something useful for teaching and learning? Something designed with pedagogic intent? Could be anything.

Educational Resources Whole courses Lecture notes Presentation slides Lecture handouts Lecture recordings Assignments Tests or Exams Reading lists Images Videos Simulations Text books Students’ work screenshot taken from MIT OCW site © MIT. CC-BY-NC-SA

Who is involved in OER release?

Taken from MIT OCW site © MIT. CC-BY-NC-SA

MIT OCW was launched in ???? MIT OCW has ??? Courses

Taken from MIT OCW site © MIT. CC-BY-NC-SA MIT OCW was launched in 2001 MIT OCW has 2000 Courses

Taken from Berkeley Webcast site © Berkeley university.

Taken from Stanford Engineering everywhere site © Stanford University. CC-BY

Taken from Tufts OCW site © Tufts University. CC-BY-NC-SA

Taken from Johns Hopkins OCW site © Johns Hopkins University.

New Jersey Institute of Technology OCW site © NJIT.

UMass, Boston OCW site © University of Massachusetts.

U niversity of Michigan OCW site © University of Michigan.

Notre Dame OCW site © university of notre dame. CC:BY-NC-SA

UC Irvine OCW site © University of California, Irvine.

Utah OCW site © University Utah

USQ Australia OCW site © University of S Queensland. CC By-NC-SA

UCT Open Content site © University of Cape Town.

Carlos III OCW site © Universidad Carlos III. CC BY-NC-SA

OUNL OCW site © Open Univeriteit (NL). CC BY-NC-SA

Farabi OCW site © International University of Iran.

Open University Israel OCW site © OU Israel.

Hokkaido University OCW site © Hokkaido University.

Korea OCW © Korea University. CC BY-NC-ND

University of Nottingham OCW © University of Nottingham.

OpenLearn site © Open University. CC BY-NC-SA

OpenSpires site © University of Oxford.

Open Exeter Repository © University of Exeter.

LeedsMet Repository © Leeds Metropolitan University. _oer.php

Curve resource Centre © University of Coventry.

University of Leicester Repository © University of leicester.

So much for “big OER”, what about individuals?

Khan Academy © Salman Khan.

Multimedia Training Videos © University of Westminster.

brOME © M van Hoor / Bradford University.

ChemFM © University of Lincoln. CC BY-NC-SA

Core Material © University of Liverpool. CC BY-NC-SA

HumBox © University of Southampton.

OER/OCW Initiatives HEFCE: UKOER Aim: institutions to set up sustainable mechanisms for making a significant amount of existing learning resources freely and openly available. Extent: Phase 1, ~£5.7M; Phase 2, £5M. Phase 3, ~£5M

Why are they releasing OERs?

Why release OERs? Sharing Internally or Externally To Academics To Students To Others Potential students Life long learners Policy makers The casually interested

Why release OERs? Sharing Internally or Externally To Academics To Students To Others Potential students Life long learners Policy makers The casually interested But why share?

Why release OERs The objects of the University shall be to advance learning and knowledge by teaching and research particularly in Science, in Technology, and to enable students to obtain the advantages of liberal university education. Heriot-Watt University charter Loughborough University charter

OERs are good Marketing Search engine optimization OERs are “potentially compelling content, not like research papers” (anon., to protect the guilty) Course “tasters” A reasonable estimate of recruitment influenced by OpenLearn is the approximately 10,500 students since launch who have made use of OpenLearn before they register for a course at The OU in the same online session.

OERs facilitate partnerships Partnerships with local business Partnerships with 3 rd sector Partnerships with other (overseas) institutions Advertises presence Answers the questions “what have you got?” “what can we use?” Provides access without stretching the VLE

OERs Might Lead to better content Analogy with OSS Share development effort Many eyes see bugs more quickly Lead to better / more flexible practice Open educational practice Peer-to-peer learning Massively open online courses Provide new approaches to resource management Use of social sharing sites, YouTube, iTunesU, SlideShare Reduce the authentication/authorisation burden

How are OERs Released? Summary of what we’ve covered so far: Licensing is important All sorts of content types and formats Complex objects / related resources are normal All sorts of users Learners as well as academics Exposure is important On the web not in the repository

How are OERs Released? First catch your rabbit... Collect or capture what is in use Collect slides, record lectures Filter for IPR issues Typically institution will own copyright and other IPR Frequently 3 rd party resources that have been licensed-in* will be and issue (* best case scenario) Quality control Include authors, title, consistent branding etc.

Hosting & Disseminating OERs “Projects should deposit their content in... least one... openly accessible system or application with the ability to produce RSS and / or Atom feeds; for example an open institutional repository, an international or subject area open repository, an institutional website or blog, or a Web 2.0 service.” UKOER programme Technical Requirements See also “Then and Now” a summary of technical approaches of JISC programmes from

What projects did.

MIT: Many types of resource Targeted at learners Bespoke web CMS Arranged by courses.

What projects did. Oxford: Podcast audio and video recordings of lectures (expanding now) Drupal CMS Arrange by series, dept, people. Disseminate to iTunesU

What projects did. Nottingham: Wide range of course materials EQUELLA repository platform Arrange by faculty, tags, search. Links in to other services

What projects did. HumBox: Wide range of course materials Audience: academics & students ePrints+edShare repository platform Social profiles Clone & adapt

What projects did CETIS’s UKOER technical synthesis and summary One Standard to Rule Them All?: Descriptive Choices for Open Education them-all-descriptive-choices-for-open-education