Thinking about Open

This openly licensed pack of resources and accompanying Powerpoint slide deck was created from the Thinking about Open workshops run at a variety of Scottish colleges and Higher Education institutions during 2015 and 2016 as part of the Opening Educational Practices in Scotland (OEPS) project. The workshop was developed by the research team, OER Hub researchers Beck Pitt and Bea de los Arcos.

The workshop was conceived and developed to enable colleagues from across organisations and institutions to begin thinking about openness within their own context, creating space for discussion and enabling reflection regarding next steps. We have designed and used the workshop activities with both small (5 persons) and large (20 persons) groups. We are releasing the slide deck, activities, open practice example cards and other material associated with the workshop to enable you to:

Facilitate your own Thinking about Open workshop at with colleagues; Review the content and adapt for your own context and needs; Pick and choose activities and materials; … Anyway you want to use it! The joy of open!

We would love to hear how you use this content, whether you develop it further and any outcomes (positive or negative). Email us if you would like to share: Beck.Pitt [at ] open.ac.uk

The following document contains the workshop description, an overview of the workshop itself and the workshop activities. You will find a guide to the content of the non-activity slides in the slide deck below.

An easy to use version of the slide deck is available here: http://www.slideshare.net/OEPScotland/thinking-about-open-slidedeck The case studies are available here: http://www.slideshare.net/OEPScotland/thinking-about-open-what-is-open The list of ‘challenges’ is available here: http://www.slideshare.net/OEPScotland/challenges-most-frequently-faced-when-using-oer You can also review examples of specific Thinking about Open workshops by browsing the OEPS slideshare: http://www.slideshare.net/OEPScotland

Original workshop description

“Thinking About Open is a half-day workshop exploring what openness and open educational practices are. The workshop aims to help instigate discussion at your organisation on how openness could make a difference to your own practices whilst acting as a springboard for further discussion on the practicalities of open practice. The workshop utilises a range of case studies and examples of openness to help facilitate discussion.

This workshop is aimed at anyone with an interest in finding out more about openness and how it can make a difference to their own practice.”1

1 Source: https://oepscotland.org/events/workshops/

This work was created as part of the Opening Educational Practices in Scotland (OEPS) project (https://oepscotland.org) and unless otherwise stated is licensed CC-BY 4.0 International license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

Workshop activities

Activity 1: What does openness mean to you? Slide No: 4Aim of activity: Stimulate and document initial discussions around opennessMaterials: Large pieces of paper/Flipchart paper, pens or can be done

with sticky notes then grouped togetherAllocated time: 30-45 minutes depending on the number of participants

Activity description: Let’s get this workshop started! Either in small groups or if fewer people as one group, ask people to brainstorm ideas/responses to the question: “What does openness mean to you?” for 15-20 minutes. Groups can brainstorm their responses on flip chart paper/sticky notes. If you have more than one small group, bring the individual discussions together by facilitating a workshop wide discussion at the end of the allocated time (10-15 minutes). As part of this round up you might want to highlight key ideas mentioned by participants, synergies or introduce your own thoughts.

Take it further:The results of this activity can be referred to later in the workshop. Getting people to write down their thoughts and ideas also act as a record of people’s initial thoughts about openness in their context. With participant permission you could perhaps gather together outputs such as these from the workshop and reuse them as part of a future workshop.

Activity 2: What example resonates best with you? Slide No:Case studies: http://bit.ly/2bcuPyL Aim of activity: Understanding different aspects of openness through real life

examples Materials: Laminated copies of the case studies available for print out on

the URL above (depending on group sizes you will need a couple of sets of these)

Allocated time: 40 minutes

Activity description: After getting everyone to think more closely about what openness means within their context, this workshop activity focuses on exploring different types of open practice and ideas about openness. Using the 10 case studies and using Slide 6 ask participants to talk more about “Which example resonates best with you?” We recommend circulating the URL to the case studies to participants prior to the workshop so people can read the examples. The length of the pre-discussion part of this session is in part dependent on whether participants have reviewed the case studies – in either instance allow 10 minutes for refreshing people’s memories or have people choose one card, read it and share what it is with the group. Participants can then discuss which of the case studies resonates best with their own context and share these thoughts collectively. At the end of the allocated group discussion time the facilitator should then ask for individual contributions and thoughts about the examples given.

Take it further:

This work was created as part of the Opening Educational Practices in Scotland (OEPS) project (https://oepscotland.org) and unless otherwise stated is licensed CC-BY 4.0 International license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)

Develop your own examples and share them so we can help build the collection!

Activity 3: Barriers to Open Slide No:Challenges: http://bit.ly/2bh8q2o Aim of activity: Understanding possible challenges and solutions to being

openMaterials: You will need to create sets of the cards showing individual

challenges. These can be laminated for longevity if needed. Allocated time: 45 minutes

Activity description: Before revealing the slide with OER Hub research data on what educators find the biggest challenge on using OER, distribute one set of the cards to each group. These sets of cards have a list of all the challenges listed as possible barriers to using open educational resources that the OER Hub used in their survey work. Ask participants to look at the cards, stating that these show challenges when using OER. Participants should choose and discuss the challenges, selecting the top three challenges that they think are the most pressing (in their particular context or in general for the adoption of OER). After the allotted time the groups come together to talk about their chosen three before the results of the Hub research are revealed.

Take it further: If you are interested in exploring the OER Hub survey questions further and utilising them for your own purposes, you can view them here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1fL_yf-O70ZjvH67Ue8LlfidjEXwtDQ5T0TBe-Z1GYaI/edit#gid=0

Where are you? Using, Creating, Sharing The blog post re: workshop B at the March 2016 OEPS forum (see: https://oepscotland.org/2016/04/08/oep-best-practice-at-oepsforum4/) has a description of another activity we use, which was adapted from Catherine Cronin and gets people to think about where they are in terms of sharing, creating and using OER. For the Forum we extended this to get people to share solutions and crowd source ideas and this extension might also work well for the workshops… 

ORIOLE Reuse Cards We’ve also used the ORIOLE reuse cards (http://orioleproject.blogspot.co.uk/p/shop.html); there are clear explanations on how to use them on the webpage.

This work was created as part of the Opening Educational Practices in Scotland (OEPS) project (https://oepscotland.org) and unless otherwise stated is licensed CC-BY 4.0 International license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)