Recently in conjunction with Open Education Week, the Open Education blog over at Open Knowledge featured a guest post by Javiera Atenas, Ernesto Priego and me, in which we propose that Open Data is under-explored as an educational resource. See:
The piece ends with a link to a very short survey, through which we are trying to capture examples of OD as OER use. Many thanks to everyone who already completed the survey - please do/share if you haven't!
Friday, 10 April 2015
Tuesday, 8 July 2014
Breaking down barriers: Open Educational Practices as an emerging academic literacy
A conference presentation with Jo Stroud and Javiera Atenas at Connected Learning in an Open World: Academic Practice and Technology conference, University of Greenwich; 8 July 2014. Links for our accompanying Prezi plus our speaking notes are below.
Abstract:
This paper considers barriers to the uptake of Open Educational Practices (OEP) and how these barriers might potentially be overcome. ‘Open education’ has become an increasingly important topic in TEL and wider educational debates, partly driven by the rapid emergence of MOOCs. Various activities, such as sharing of teaching resources, open access publishing, and delivery of free, online courses, are being promoted under the umbrella of ‘openness’, yet the majority of scholars do not appear to be embracing the concept wholeheartedly. Amidst dramatic changes to the current learning, teaching, and research landscape, academics are increasingly called upon to become ‘connected’, ‘digital’, and ‘open’ scholars, requiring engagement with a kaleidoscope of interconnected open social and digital practices. Potentially the most powerful and compelling argument for any version of ‘open education’ is the claim that academics should adopt Open Educational Practices (OEP). For example, Andrade et al. (2011) assert that “OER and OEP are changing learning scenarios” and that “the use of OER and the implementation of OEP lead to innovations in pedagogical terms”. OEP consist not only of creating and reusing OER, but also of other forms of transparency around academic practice, such as blogging, tweeting, presenting, and debating scholarly and pedagogic activities, in ways that promote reusability, revision, and collaboration (Ehlers, 2011; Jacobi & Woert, 2012). OEP are therefore tactics for increasing access to knowledge, developing and strengthening communities of practice, disseminating positive ways of working, leveraging high-quality existing resources, and promoting innovative pedagogies (Andrade et al., 2011). In spite of this, there appears to be a lack of engagement with OEP. It’s possible that these theoretical and practical benefits have not been widely understood by the academic community, but it also seems to be the case that real or perceived regulatory, technical, cultural, and skills barriers exist. In our presentation we will consider the nature of these barriers in greater detail and suggest potential strategies for their mitigation.
References:
Andrade, A., Ehlers, U.-D., Caine, A., Carneiro, R., & Conole, G. (2011). Beyond OER: Shifting Focus from Resources to Practices (pp. 1–191). Duisburg-Essen. Retrieved from http://www.oerasia.org/OERResources/8.pdf
Ehlers, U., & Conole, G. (2010). Open Educational Practices : Unleashing the power of OER (pp. 1–9). Retrieved from http://efquel.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/OEP_Unleashing-the-power-of-OER.pdf
Ehlers, U-D. (2011). From Open Educational Resources to open educational practices. eLearning Papers, (23), 1–8. Retrieved from http://www.elearningeuropa.info/nl/node/71328
Jacobi, R., & Woert, N. van der. (2012). Trend Report on Open Educational Resources 2012. SURF, Utrecht.
Prezi available: http://prezi.com/yenbduyyzsjy/greenwich-apt
Slide notes available: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1kEmbPQKuvtIm9r84aTJ8raJnfEPJIw6WvrJdBguJe4s/edit?usp=sharing
Abstract:
This paper considers barriers to the uptake of Open Educational Practices (OEP) and how these barriers might potentially be overcome. ‘Open education’ has become an increasingly important topic in TEL and wider educational debates, partly driven by the rapid emergence of MOOCs. Various activities, such as sharing of teaching resources, open access publishing, and delivery of free, online courses, are being promoted under the umbrella of ‘openness’, yet the majority of scholars do not appear to be embracing the concept wholeheartedly. Amidst dramatic changes to the current learning, teaching, and research landscape, academics are increasingly called upon to become ‘connected’, ‘digital’, and ‘open’ scholars, requiring engagement with a kaleidoscope of interconnected open social and digital practices. Potentially the most powerful and compelling argument for any version of ‘open education’ is the claim that academics should adopt Open Educational Practices (OEP). For example, Andrade et al. (2011) assert that “OER and OEP are changing learning scenarios” and that “the use of OER and the implementation of OEP lead to innovations in pedagogical terms”. OEP consist not only of creating and reusing OER, but also of other forms of transparency around academic practice, such as blogging, tweeting, presenting, and debating scholarly and pedagogic activities, in ways that promote reusability, revision, and collaboration (Ehlers, 2011; Jacobi & Woert, 2012). OEP are therefore tactics for increasing access to knowledge, developing and strengthening communities of practice, disseminating positive ways of working, leveraging high-quality existing resources, and promoting innovative pedagogies (Andrade et al., 2011). In spite of this, there appears to be a lack of engagement with OEP. It’s possible that these theoretical and practical benefits have not been widely understood by the academic community, but it also seems to be the case that real or perceived regulatory, technical, cultural, and skills barriers exist. In our presentation we will consider the nature of these barriers in greater detail and suggest potential strategies for their mitigation.
References:
Andrade, A., Ehlers, U.-D., Caine, A., Carneiro, R., & Conole, G. (2011). Beyond OER: Shifting Focus from Resources to Practices (pp. 1–191). Duisburg-Essen. Retrieved from http://www.oerasia.org/OERResources/8.pdf
Ehlers, U., & Conole, G. (2010). Open Educational Practices : Unleashing the power of OER (pp. 1–9). Retrieved from http://efquel.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/OEP_Unleashing-the-power-of-OER.pdf
Ehlers, U-D. (2011). From Open Educational Resources to open educational practices. eLearning Papers, (23), 1–8. Retrieved from http://www.elearningeuropa.info/nl/node/71328
Jacobi, R., & Woert, N. van der. (2012). Trend Report on Open Educational Resources 2012. SURF, Utrecht.
Prezi available: http://prezi.com/yenbduyyzsjy/greenwich-apt
Slide notes available: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1kEmbPQKuvtIm9r84aTJ8raJnfEPJIw6WvrJdBguJe4s/edit?usp=sharing
Friday, 21 March 2014
Seminar review: Practical considerations of running a MOOC
The University of London’s (UoL) Centre for Distance Education (CDE) provides thought-provoking lunchtime seminars on topics of interest to learning technology practitioners and staff who teach or administer online courses. A recent well-attended seminar on the practicalities of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) included presentations on MOOCs in English Common Law (ECL) and Creative Programming (CP).
Julie Voce, E-Learning Services Manager at Imperial College and I wrote up our notes of this event and they are available on the ALT Online Newsletter.
Julie Voce, E-Learning Services Manager at Imperial College and I wrote up our notes of this event and they are available on the ALT Online Newsletter.
Friday, 7 March 2014
Is it time for MOOCs to 'open up'?
A piece I co-wrote with Javiera Atenas is now live on the LSE Impact of Social Sciences blog: MOOCs must move beyond open enrolment and demonstrate a true commitment to reuse and long-term redistribution.
MOOCs must move beyond open enrolment and demonstrate a true commitment to reuse and redistribution. http://t.co/QpqAYJmSya #OER #edchat
— LSEImpactBlog (@LSEImpactBlog) March 7, 2014
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