OER Content Development February 2 nd 2010 Phyllis H. Hillwig

Agenda How is it done currently? How can OER build and scale content for large-scale adoption? What is the future of content development?

What Do We Do? Help Education Entities: Create products faster Convert fixed development costs to variable costs Innovate throughout the development cycle Refresh and Ensure materials are ready for mass consumption Must-Haves: for High-Stakes Education Programs

4 Based on the Knowledge From Traditional Publishers Schools Non-Profits OER DOD Starbase Flat World Knowledge

Connexions is: a place to view and share educational material made of small knowledge chunks called modules that can be organized as courses, books, reports, etc. Anyone may view or contribute: Authors: create and collaborate Instructors: rapidly build and share custom collections Learners: find and explore content Where does content come from? Authors/contributors Teachers/ students Content service providers Publishers Content Development in Source:

Authors/Contributors Recommendations Benefits: Subject matter experts Low-cost solution Channels to students, teachers, and peers Author’s good will Dependent on endorsement Incomplete, modular Limited presentation options Challenges:

Recommendations Pre-qualify SMEs. Invest in a small internal staff. List and train best practices. Be flexible. Encourage completion and consistency. Leverage networks within for adoption. Engage peers to review and spot check.

Publishers Pros: Known brand identity Published at own cost Trusted and known quality On-level, audience centered Huge variety of publishers Cons: Business model not developed with OER ideals Messy to untangle rights Open to learn more, but guarded

Recommendations with Publishers Understand their business models and value they bring Community of users have value to the publishers, is there a blend model? Many are open to new possibilities in today’s market.

Service Providers Pros: In the business of building commercial-ready content Work-for-hire and fast Network of resources Work along side to build courses strategically Do “additional work” Cons: Will cost more than just hiring SMEs Dependent on client’s brand Does not have a body of content to adopt

Recommendations with Service-Providers Use them if you: want to build content quickly and consistently. need support. (project management, editing, art, other services) have a small internal project management Q/A teams

Building for Adoption Anyone can build content, but what are the ingredients for large-scale adoption?

Questions to Check Do you know your competitors? Will it engage the user? Does it have adequate support materials? Does it use visuals and media well? Do you understand copyright? Do you have reviewers who can endorse and influence? Does it have clear, measureable, learning objectives? Does it integrate well? Can we find it easily? Is it complete?

Content Facts To build a strong OER community, you need a critical mass of quality and scalable content at all levels of learning. Understand the advantages and disadvantages to content solutions to help sculpt content development decisions. Plenty of room for a variety of solutions. While content access is free, content creation is not.

The Future……is Here

Measureable Value Based on the economic crisis, tighter scrutiny, age of transparency

Design and User Experience as Differentiators - CONTEXT What is remembered is through experience each step of the way

Life-Long Learners Know that your users can be anyone, anywhere, with a variety of needs

19 Multi-Delivery and Integration audio video gamesim illustration photo

Mobile Nation Expect anywhere, anytime access to learning How will you change content to adapt?

21 All About the Individual Customization down to the individual. LMS Student #1 Curriculum Student #2 Curriculum Learning Objects Learning Paths

New Research Motivation, Challenge, Emotion, Age give us insight into learning

Not About Content, but Eyeballs and Attention Is value measured by how many users and long you can keep a user engaged?

Thank You Phyllis H. Hillwig, Ed.D x273 cell: (443)