Who learns from Open
Educational Resources?
Professor Andy Lane, Director, OpenLearn
Friday 3rd April 2009
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The meaning of open in OER? (Geser, 2007)
Open educational content types (resources = content + tools)
First generation (OER 1.0) usually known as
OpenCourseWare: support materials from
classroom based teaching in educational
institutions
Second generation (OER 2.0): self study
material devised for open, distance and/or elearning from educational institutions (and
publishers)
Third generation (OER 2.5?) or user generated
or augmented content: additional material not
from educational institutions but from individuals
and specialist groups or organisations
The Four Rs of Open Educational Content
• Reuse – Use the work verbatim, just exactly as
you found it
• Rework – Alter or transform the work so that it
better meets your needs
• Remix – Combine the (verbatim or altered work)
with other works to better meet your needs
• Redistribute – Share the verbatim work, the
reworked work, or the remixed work with others.
David Wiley, 2007
The value of OER is influenced by their:
Availability
– How many there
– Formats they are in
Accessibility
– How found and by whom
– Economic and technical factors
Acceptability
– Social and cultural factors
Major aims of OpenLearn
• Enhanced learning experiences for users of
open content (self study content plus open
learning environment);
• Greater involvement in higher education by
under-represented groups and empowerment
for various support networks that work with
them;
• Enhanced knowledge and understanding of
open content delivery, how it can be effective,
and the contribution it can make to further
development of e-learning;
• Enhanced understanding of sustainable and
scalable models of open content delivery.
Implications for Teaching of OER
(the creation of environments and opportunities from which
and in which to learn)
• Granularity of offerings – the size and interdependence of modules
• Greater resource based learning tempered
with greater interactivity to make them truly
stand-alone
• Tuition and support separated from content
• Generating many versions of the same
content for particular contexts
• Curriculum design in a content rich
environment
Implications for Learning of OER
(the self, peer and professional recognition of changed behaviours
expressed as knowledge, skills, competencies etc)
• Judging the appropriate mix between:
- Pedagogic support (built into content)
- Personal support (self reflection and guidance)
- Peer support (mutual reflection and guidance)
- Professional support (expert reflection and guidance)
• The importance of new social computing
technologies in facilitating support and interaction
• Co-creation of learning experiences in a full
partnership or being a learning broker for self
designed programmes
Motivations for institutions and individual
teachers to use OER (1)
• Pedagogic enhancements and cost reductions
• Direct students to appropriate units for updating
• Deliver OER in different formats e.g. print, CD
under cost recovery basis
• Download and reversion Units for targeted and
local delivery whether online, blended or f2f
• Mix OER from different sources into new
courses
Motivations for institutions and individual
teachers to use OER (2)
• Recognition for such teaching activities
• Investigate OU (or others) approach to teaching
a particular topic
• Share materials and ideas with other educators
worldwide
• Cooperate or collaborate with others in
developing new OER
• Provide tutorial or assessment services around
OER
Barriers for institutions and individual
teachers to use OER
• Lack of strategic direction and support
• Misplaced anxiety about copyright
• Believing it is about technology and not
pedagogy
• Thinking we are all in competition rather than
collaborating for a wider public good and
competing to provide the best educational
service to niche audiences - coopetition
Who are our users?
• Individual self learners
• Individual and groups of educators around
the world
• Lifelong learning groups in the UK wanting
informal study
• Educational and other organisations for
collaboration and staff development
What registered users want
• ‘Volunteer students’
– More content
– More interactivity
– Assessment opportunities
• ‘Social learners’
– More tools
– Multiple media
And what happens to our content?
• Accessed and used online by browsers and registered
users (‘use as-is’)
– 4 million unique visitors
– 80 thousand registered users
• Added to online by registered users (‘rework’)
– 10,000 postings and journal entries
– 500 uploads of new or revised content
• Referred to from another website (‘re-use’)
– 2,500 referring websites each month
– 5,400 in total
• Taken away and used elsewhere (‘re-use’, ‘rework’ or
‘remix’)
– 10,000 printings per week
– 10,000 downloads per week
Quality management or caveat emptor?
• LearningSpace:
–
–
–
–
Original material externally peer reviewed
Pre-publication internal peer review
5 star user ratings
User reviews
• LabSpace
– Badging of Units as
• Current OU OER
• Archived OU OER
• User generated contribution
• Project generated contribution
– 5 star user ratings
– User reviews
– Post publication external peer review?
– Institutional Lenses like Connexions?
Open educational content can act as a mediating
object between ‘teachers’ and ‘learners’
OER
Teachers
Learners
Teacher-content interaction
• Purpose of content
• Degree of meaning/sense-making in content
• Structure of content
– Learning outcomes
– Assessment
– Feedback
• Community involvement
– Teacher-learner
– Teacher-teacher
Learner-content interaction
•
•
•
•
•
Level of engagement
Prior sense-making
Testing sense-making
Augmented sense-making
Community involvement
– Learner-learner cooperation
– Learner-learner collaboration
So if we don’t value and use Open Educational
Resources, who will?
Further information
• OpenLearn Digital book
– http://labspace.open.ac.uk/file.php/4/
kmap/1221755314/book.html
• Knowledge network
– http://kn.open.ac.uk/public/workspac
e.cfm?wpid=6478
• OLnet research network
– www.olnet.org