Towards a sustainable knowledge policy in a university learning environment K.U.Leuven Towards a...

Towards a sustainable knowledge policy in a university learning environment

K.U.Leuven

Towards a sustainable knowledge policy in a

university learning environment

Frederik Truyen, K.U.Leuven


K.U.Leuven

What will we discuss?

E-Learning at the University today OER as a motor of change Social networks and knowledge development Impact on E-Learning Knowledge and responsibility Opportunities


E-Learning at the University today

K.U.Leuven


From LMS to Integral Learning Environment

LMS integration with ERP system Focus on core educational processes Embedded in educational strategy of

the institution “The university as a reflective

organisation is in its totality involved in its education”

• Onderwijsbeleidsplan 2006-2009, K.U.Leuven

K.U.Leuven


Toledo/CDLP Very Large Scale Integration Optimized for integration of Association

university colleges Currently closed, password-protected

environment Ability to use copyright-protected materials in

a protected space Student-generated content through wiki's /

blogs

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Toledo/CDLP

Open issues• Content not Open• Difficult to access from outside universities• Difficult to search for existing course materials• No clear quality standards• “Hidden treasures”

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OER as a motor of change

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A Review of the Open Educational Resources Movement: Achievements, Challenges, and New Opportunities

• Daniel E. Atkins• John Seely Brown• Allen L. Hammond

Report to the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation

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Emerging Deeper Understanding of Human Learning "All these examples point to expanding learning theories that

include situated learning and learning-to-be (within an epistemic frame) rather than just learningabout.

The stage is being set to reformulate many of Dewey’s theories of learning informed by and leveraging newer cognitive and social theories of learning and delivered in computationally rich experiential learning environments."

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Berlin Declaration

University has signed Berlin Declaration• http://oa.mpg.de/openaccess-berlin/berlindeclaration.html

Implications for research• http://www.driver-repository.be/

Implications for Education?

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OER as a motor of change

Open Source, Open Access and Open Content:

• Provide inherent quality control• Enable sustainable contents• Stimulate knowledge development through re-use• Enlarge the user base and in this way foster the

creation of added meaning• Make an economy adjusted to the reality of

scarcity of time and abundance of information


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Social software and web 2.0

Integrates aspects of group interaction (different forms of online interactivity and different modes of communication)

Easy to use. Accessible, simple technology Emergent: enables group self-organisation,

rather then imposing an organisation to a group.

Bottom-up, adaptive and subversive


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Two parallell movements Socialisation of the web

• The web connects people. It allows peer-to-peer knowledge development

• Information selection through the social network, e.g. social bookmarking

• >> Rich Use

Automation

• The computer network acts on the content, it plays a role in content selection

• Information selection through metadata (tags): Resource Description Framework

• >> Rich Content


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Examples Online collaboration

• Wikipedia• Wiki’s• Blogs

Social bookmarking• Delicious• Mind-mapping• Folksonomies• Tagging / Tagclouds

Social networking• Linked-In• Facebook• Hives

Social sharing• YouTube• Flickr• Slideshare• RSS-feeds


Changing expectations on knowledge

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Case 1: Family doctor Little girl with grandfather visits family doctor

• Doctor has ca. 30 minutes for each patient• Grandfather maybe is a highly educated aeronautics

engineer, who has studied his grandchild’s case on PubMed• Patient side has more brainpower/time resources available

than doctor and has ample access to information• The social context is to the disadvantage of the family

doctor, whose authority is challenged• A modern approach will try to use and exploit the patient

side in the knowledge strategy towards addressing the disease, while stressing the family doctor’s information validation skills and responsibility therein


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Case 2: Linux-installation IT professional performs an installation of Linux

• People agree he/she “knows” how to do it, he/she is “in the know”

• Yet, he/she has no knowledge of all details: there simply are to many details to be known

• Needs no real insight in key explanatory mechanisms: weak justification

• Has to fall back on online documentation• Needs chat with other professionals• “Just-in-Time delivery” of key items• Has certainty on his/her network: strong metabeliefs• Has good knowledge on own knowledge reach and limits


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What happened? In all these cases, today’s availability of information

and its inherent complexity defy our traditional conceptions about what one should and can know

The individual often can’t cope any longer on his own to make a justifiable knowledge judgment

New requirements are set out for what is socially accepted as knowledge

This poses some challenges for education (e-)Learning should support these requirements and

address these challenges


How to react?

Internet is not an isotropic space• Acting on the content is possible• OER can, just like PubMed and DOAJ,

impact on th einformation that reaches internet users

Information ≠ Knowledge Assessment of and expectations

towards knowledge have changedK.U.Leuven


K.U.Leuven

Knowledge as social construction

Social constructivism An ever increasing percentage of our

knowledge is about our own creations, like artifacts and concepts

• (e.g. organisational psychology studies abstract concepts like “job satisfaction” etc.)

These concepts gain their meaning from the social context (Lave & Wenger 1991)


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Knowledge in the network

Connectivism Sharing of responsibility for knowledge Deference to experts (Kripke 1980) Reasonable grounds to accept something from a

known expert (Burge 1979)

Participative knowledge model• Stakeholders• Testimony (Burge 1993)

Development of procedures


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Knowledge in the network Externalisation of knowledge (Clarck & Chalmers 1998)

• On a macro level External memory (knowledge is stored) (Bush 1945) Translation into organisations, structures Consolidation into artifacts Integration into software External validation

• On a micro level We weave our personal knowledge trail on our portable, mobile, iPod,

PDA, … Socialization of knowledge (Goldman 1999)

• What we know is what others accept that we know, we are entrusted with knowledge

Acculturation of our environment: we are gradually operating in a more and more knowledgeable, intelligible domain


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Knowledge reach

The knowledge reach is related to our activities, and the required granularity to support our actions

We do not all need the same depth of knowledge on a specific topic (Kripke 1980)

Social organization helps to make available the knowledge we need when we need it (Goldman 1999)


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Knowledge development circle

Knowledge is passed on from experts to stakeholder communities, where it is merged with practice to yield more concrete, specific knowledge

This way, a knowledge development circle emerges where at one time one acts as an expert, at another one uses other experts’ insights as a professional


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Just-in-Time delivery

The true revolution in the knowledge economy can be compared with the evolution in logistics and transport

We are heading to Just-in-time delivery of knowledge


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Knowledge on Demand


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Multifacetted en fine-meshed

Each “community of practice” develops a proper language registry to grasp its activity domain

These intricate overlapping realms of meaning give a rich variety to what is to be known

What would the richness of the world of ideas be without the depth of human activity?

Each will decide the depth and width of the particular understanding he needs to develop in a layered knowing society

Open Educational Resources can capture the "knowledge within" professional organisations


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Impact on (e)Learning

Weaving the web of knowledge


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Universitaire meerwaardeketen

LCMSLCMS

Wiki’s, blogs, forums, groups, shared spaces, conferencing ...

Wiki’s, blogs, forums, groups, shared spaces, conferencing ...

E-Learning

Information oriented

Knowledge oriented


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Learning changes

Knowledge becomes a personal journey in a social environment (think about E-Portfolio)

Learning is reaching the network of stakeholders

Learning is getting accepted in the circle of “those in the know”

It requires taking responsibility for knowing


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Track while Scan

In a wide sweep, we keep track on a whole range of adjacent knowledge fields, without going into details

• We trust others to do so … Depending on the need, we will engage

specific details in depth• We learn others to trust we are doing so …


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Learning activities and their relative importance Sara Lee/DE (source: AKC, 2002)


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Knowledge workers Knowledge workers and researchers

• Introduce themselves in a « community of practice » (Wenger …)

• Mix private and professional knowledge development

• Gain authority • Have good situational awareness of the

knowledge network• Feel responsible for a particular knowledge

domain• Weave their personal web of knowledge, often on

their laptop and other mobile devices


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Ethical dimension of knowledge

Learning then becomes getting involved in a reference-community in a reliable way

Taking and granting responsibility is becoming crucial

There is an imperative to mutual quality assessment and control

One will always have to assess, at the boundaries of one’s own core competence domain, how “loosely” one is allowed to know things to be able to perform in a professional way


Professional knowledge …

Traditional Knowledge as …

• a requirement• a commodity• an effect• an output

Today Knowledge as …

• a responsibility • a resource• a task• an asset

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Opportunities

Keeping contact with Alumni Reaching out to professionals Showcasing the University Shaping content mainstreams

• "Lead by Example“ Enlarging the University footprint

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Conclusions …

From LCMS to Learning Network• The LCMS needs to earn its place in the virtual social

workspace of the student• The student has to be encouraged to build his own learning

network• Part of the evaluation of the student should focus on his

« Virtual Sitz im Leben »• Students will learn to assess each others knowledge and

learn to claim their own• This network needs to extend to the professional life through

Open Educational Resources


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Conclusions … For a university with a large scale e-learning

environment a policy on Open Educational Resources can:

• help to profile the university on the internet• be a way to mainstream educational contents• enable students outside the university to

participate• facilitate regional expertise networks involving

professional knowledge circles• keep a bond with alumni students

Towards a sustainable knowledge policy in a university learning environment K.U.Leuven Towards a...

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