Revisiting barriers to participation

Opening Educational Practices in Scotland

Revisiting barriers to participation

Pete Cannell

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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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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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The promise of open education• Free access to high quality education on a mass scale• Widening participation• UNESCO 2012

‘Promote and use OER to widen access to education at all levels both formal and non-formal in a perspective of lifelong learning …’

• Butcher 2011‘… there is little evidence of educational transformation resulting from OER practices: [..]. The lack of sufficient evidence hinders understanding of the role of OER in widening access to education, social inclusion, and long-term sustainability.’

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Understanding the barriers to use of OER• Partnership with Scottish Union

Learning• Mutual interest in open learning• Two series of workshops each

involving just under 100 Union Learning Representatives

• Aim to understand barriersdevelop models for learning in the workplace

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Findings•‘Traditional Barriers’ (situational, institutional, dispositional) intersect and interact with specific features of the open digital environment•Too much choice – ‘looks like a University’•Conceptions of online learning

ULRs at an OEPS workshop 2015

• Individualised • Tick box • Digital literacy – second

digital divide

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Shifting the discussion

Book Club analogy

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Social practice• 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

http://www.oeps.ac.uk/

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Revisiting barriers to participation

Education

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