Opening Educational Practices in Scotland

Pete Cannell and Ronald Macintyre

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Opening Educational Practices in Scotland

The Project• Opening Educational

Practices in Scotland is a three year project led by the Open University in Scotland but involving all of the higher education sector.

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Opening Educational Practices in Scotland

Project objectivesThe project encompasses a number of activities over a three year period (2014-2017):• Analysis of current open educational practices• Events programme across Scotland to raise awareness of OEP• Development of an online hub to encourage and share best practice in

open education• Development of a small number of high quality OERs of particular benefit

to Scotland• Badging of informal learning• Learning design for widening participation• Research and evaluation building strong evidence base• Evaluation of various economic models of openness

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Opening Educational Practices in Scotland

Extending how we think of OEP• The evidence that OEPS is building on suggests that it

may be useful to think of practice as including:• Learning design and pedagogy• Opportunities for co-creation• Social Context• Collective and peer supported learning• Networks

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Opening Educational Practices in Scotland

Four emerging themes• Scholarship and dissemination of knowledge /openness as a

public good/ social mission

• Understanding and overcoming barriers to engagement with

OER in widening participation contexts

• Social practice

• The ladder of engagement – towards remixing and reversioning

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Opening Educational Practices in Scotland

Scholarship and dissemination of knowledge• Creation of exemplar OER

Building on models of co-creation (emphasis on Learning Design) e.g. Caring Counts

• Importance of development embedded in networksStrengthens design and heightens impact

• Scottish Association for Marine Science/ UHI - Seaweed• Glasgow University (Crichton Campus) – End of Life

Academic communities in which specialised knowledge is shared and developed – driver of obligation for public engagement/ social mission – potential for reuse

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Opening Educational Practices in Scotland

Understanding barriers to engagement • Widening participation as well as widening

access• Working with partners in the third sector, unions,

colleges and universities

• ‘Traditional’ WP barriers (situational, institutional and dispositional) intersect and interact specific characteristics of digital environment

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Opening Educational Practices in Scotland

• Developing evidence that models of collective engagement and pedagogical approaches that all peer support and interaction are critical

• Hosting these on www.oeps.ac.uk (OEPS hub)• Builds on concepts of trusted gatekeepers in WP

practice• Working with gatekeepers to co-develop models of

practice – identify appropriate material and provide structures and pathways to scaffold support

• Shifts the boundaries of the university – example of work with Scottish Union Learning and Union Learning Representatives (the gatekeepers in this context)

Social practice

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Opening Educational Practices in Scotland

Towards remixing and reversioning• In working with lots of partners we’ve found that initially

the challenge is to engage with the first of the 5Rs – in truth ‘free’ is the primary interest – ‘open’ lags behind

• Through engagement with issues around enabling use – interest in remixing and reversioning starts to emerge

• Interested in whether technology is now such that the barriers to making material ‘your own’ are shrinking to the extent that users can remix and reversion at much lower cost

• Developing small pilots with the new tools on OpenLearn Works (soon to be OpenLearn Create) to test these ideas.

Contact Us:Email:OEPScotland@open.ac.uk

Twitter: @OEPScotlandBlog: www.oepscotland.orgCommunity hub: www.oeps.ac.uk