Developing a Culture of using Open Educational Resources (OERs) in Education for Sustainable Development and Global Citizenship for staff in Education, particularly Initial Teacher Education Julian Priddle (OSIER project manager), Jocelyn Wishart and Fiona Hyland ESCalate, Graduate School of Education, University of Bristol)

OSIER – Open Sustainability in Education Resource – is a project within the second phase of UKOER. UKOER is funded by HEFCE, and is managed by HEA and JISC.

OSIER is managed by ESCalate, the HEA Subject Centre for Education, based at the University of Bristol. It has six partner HEIs, covering all home nations of the United Kingdom.

Aims and Objectives “… to create a collection of open education resources for education practitioners to integrate education for sustainable development into their programmes and to promote this collection to ensure its use and sustained development beyond the end of the current funding period.”

To discover, review and revise digital resources and to share them as open content. To provide a trusted, sustainable community repository for these resources. To bring about a community of peers committed to sharing and reviewing online resources. To establish a culture of open educational resources, with increased awareness of and commitment to sharing teaching resources.

To discover, review and revise digital resources and to share them as open content. Our project partners researched resources and revised where necessary. Some partners included networks, so that the project tapped into wider communities.

To discover, review and revise digital resources and to share them as open content. We have also established new contacts through the lifetime of the project. They have included other resource projects and NGOs involved in ESD.

To discover, review and revise digital resources and to share them as open content. The project identified standards for IPR and usability. Revising existing resources that have not been designed as OERs raises various issues.

To provide a trusted, sustainable community repository for these resources. The project employed a contractor to develop an online repository. We largely followed models from UK OER Phase 1 and other repository projects.

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To bring about a community of peers committed to sharing and reviewing online resources. Through our partners, our partner networks and other contacts, we have created a large community. The community has a culture of discovering and recycling resources, but OERs are not used widely.

To establish a culture of open educational resources, with increased awareness of and commitment to sharing teaching resources. We are starting from a relatively low baseline of resource sharing. OERs are not explicitly ‘part of the culture’ within the sector.

To establish a culture of open educational resources, with increased awareness of and commitment to sharing teaching resources. OERs need to be seen to have added value. We need to encourage comments and feedback, re-use and re-purposing.

What are the lessons learned so far? OERs are not embedded in the community culture. There is a low appreciation of both the nature and potential value of OERs.

What are the lessons learned so far? It is easy but time-consuming to add value to OERs by: Tagging Contextualising Aggregating Adapting existing resources places an extra burden on resource author.

Where are we going, and how do we get there? We need to embed the use of OERs within the community. Ensure OSIER resources are high-quality. Establish and share good practice. Enhance the value of OSIER resources.

Where are we going, and how do we get there? We need to move from adapting existing resources to working with new OERs. Communicate OSIER guidance and standards alongside promoting resources. Ensure users are supported in creating new resources.

Where are we going and how do we get there? We need to move the focus from ‘upload’ to ‘download’. Encourage use of OERs, both as resources and as exemplars. Facilitate sharing of feedback and sharing of derivative resources.

With thanks to: Our partners and partner networks (please see details in the project brochure) and others who have supported the project by supplying resources and participating in other ways The project team at ESCalate Kate Borthwick, our external evaluator The programme team at HEA HEFCE, HEA and JISC for support through UKOER2