Promoting effective engagement with UK PSF for STEM

OER11 Conference, Manchester Conference Centre

Theme – Academic practice and digital scholarship

11-13 May 2011

Paper:OER1106

Tom Browne, Barrie Cooper, Marge Clarke, Andy Pye, Simon McGirr

Education Enhancement | Academic Services | University of Exeter, UK

OER on the Horizon

In 2010 it was stated that :

“The movement toward open content reflects a growing shift in the way academics ... are

conceptualizing education to a view that is more about the process of learning than the

information conveyed in their courses.”

“Information is everywhere; the challenge is to make effective use of it. As customizable

educational content is made increasingly available for free over the Internet, students

are learning not only the material, but also skills related to finding, evaluating,

interpreting, and repurposing the resources they are studying in partnership with their

teachers.”

(Educause Horizon Report, 2010)

Its now 2011 – its time has come!

Online Learning Task Force

• Reported to HEFCE in January 2011 • OLTF had been tasked to address how UK HE might maintain and

extend its position as a world leader in online learning.

Recommendation 6

Investment is needed for the development and

exploitation of open educational resources to enhance

efficiency and quality Collaborate to compete. Seizing the opportunity of online learning for UK higher

education

Report to HEFCE by the Online Learning Task Force

http://www.hefce.ac.uk/pubs/hefce/2011/11_01//

Efficiency or effectiveness?

Open Educational Resources

O for : Open – resources that are free and accessible over the internet. You can use them ‘as is’ or modify them to suit any context of your own. You merely have to acknowledge the original contributor.

E for : Educational – is commonly the context but it can, if the author allows, also be commercial

R for : Resources – can be anything, but commonly will include full courses, course materials, complete modules, notes, videos, podcasts, assessments, tests, simulations, worked examples, software, and any other tools or materials or techniques used to facilitate learning.

Free stuff!

Exeter’s JourneyPhase 1 : Open Exeter : HEFCE-funded, JISC-managed : May 2009 - April 2010

• Explored organisational / technical / support / academic issues at institutional level• 360 credit equivalent from existing material• Evaluate sustainability

Recommendations• ‘Re-engineering’ existing material, particularly re. copyright not scalable. • OER must be integral part of scholarly endeavour – factored into curriculum design

and delivery.

Phase 2 : Open STEM : HEFCE-funded, HEA-managed : Sept 2010 - Aug 2011

• aligning to UK Professional Standards Framework• Incorporate OER awareness into accredited staff development programmes

Phase-1 to Phase-2

Challenges to Practice

• Reward and recognition

• IP issues

• Quality and reputation

• Confidence and trust

• Tension / dichotomy between individual and institutional perspective

• Support Issues

• Staff Development

Tom Browne, Richard Holding, Anna Howell, Sue Rodway-Dyer (2010) The challenges of OER to Academic

Practice. Journal of Interactive Media in Education. http://jime.open.ac.uk/article/2010-3/pdf

Time (and as proxy for other challenges)

Staff Development

Recommendations from Open Exeter

• ‘Re-engineering’ existing material, particularly re. copyright compliance, not scalable.

• OER must be integral part of scholarly endeavour – factored into curriculum design and delivery.

However (relating to reward and recognition challenge):

“I have been advised by senior academics that we should not strive for teaching

excellence if this undermines the delivery of grants and publications.”

T v R tension transcends OER agenda

Open Materials for Accredited Courses

(OMAC) HEA strand: 11 projects, all releasing OER

• Resources to support staff engaged in teaching and supporting learning.• Support e.g. HEA-accredited accredited programmes.

Open Stem (Exeter)• Transforming Teaching in Mathematics and Biosciences• 2 cohorts of participants (Autumn and Spring Term)• Trialing resources of activities used in staff development• All resources to be released as OER

Institutionally embed OER agenda into University behaviour

Open STEM outputsCourse materials: videos, learning and teaching activities including subject-

specific supporting material, intervention cards, scenario cards and completed student assignments for practice marking.

Evidence: Substantial bank of evidence from focus group transcripts, evaluation and reflective log book feedback, coffee conversations, blog entries, quotes, data and session evaluations which will be built into a comprehensive case study.

Guidance: ‘Pedagogical’ packages’ including our evaluation of materials and guidance on how to use them.

http://labspace.open.ac.uk/course/enrol.php?id=6597

Pedagogical wrapper

‘ OER … need to be properly designed, and developed within a broader learning context that includes the critical activities needed to support learning’

‘ … that can be shared both within and outside the consortium. Not only would the content be available, but also the underlying instructional principles, learning outcomes, learner assessment strategies, what learner support is needed, learner activities, and program evaluation techniques, so that other instructors or learners can adapt to their own context.’

Tony Bates OERs: the good, the bad and the ugly. Feb 2011

http://www.tonybates.ca/2011/02/06/oers-the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly/

Open STEM – the journey

• 12 month project, reporting in August 2011.• Resource development is largely complete – now on the

release phase.

Remaining plan for the session:

• My experience of OER• Open STEM design decisions• Our resources and the “pedagogical wrapper”

My personal experience with OER

• Teaching fellow in mathematics at Exeter and part-time Academic Developer

• Contributor to the Phase-1 “Open Exeter” project- donated lecture notes for a mathematics course

• With “Open STEM”, I consciously wished to create a different sort of OER- a complete “package” consisting of activities together with advice and evaluation relating to how we had used them

Open STEM design decisionsQ: Where should our primary repository for our OER be?

A: We chose the Open University’s LabSpace because ...

• it is an implementation of Moodle, with which the project team were familiar;

• it is a VLE, which meant that we could easily keep our individual resources small and disaggregated, yet present them as part of a larger coherent body of material;

• of the possibility of building a community around these resources using forums, contributions to a resources database, ...

Open STEM on LabSpace

http://labspace.open.ac.uk

Enrolment Key: OpenSTEM

• Resources

• Notes for Academic Developers

Open STEM on prezi.com

Prezi provides a non-linear alternative for presenting our resources:

• Search for OpenSTEM on http://prezi.com

- this is still experimental!

- performance issues are unclear in relation to the amount of content that can be put in a prezi.

Feedback and evaluation• Feedback from people who trialled our activities was extremely

positive (Autumn & Spring cohorts)- particularly like the subject-specific resources and

demanded even more specialisation!

• Started demonstrating our resources to Academic Developers and other interested staff members with a good response:

- advice and guidance on using the resources was deemed valuable

- even staff whose role is not primarily Academic Development see potential uses for our materials

Follow our progress!• Open STEM on LabSpace:

http://labspace.open.ac.uk(Enrolment Key: OpenSTEM)

• Open STEM blog:

http://blogs.exeter.ac.uk/openstem

• Open STEM website:

http://www.exeter.ac.uk and search for “Open STEM”