Grappling with "openness" and "impact in OER research

Preview:

Citation preview

Cheryl Hodgkinson-Williams

University of Cape Town

Open Education Global Conference, Banff, Canada

22-24 April 2015

Grappling with the concepts of “impact” and

“openness” in relation to OER: Current

developments in the ROER4D Project

Rising numbers of students in

the education sector

Education institutions under

political & financial pressure

Expensive, limited in number,

often outdated textbooks are

not entirely relevant to the

context

Employability of graduates

Reduction of educational

funding by governments

Key challenges facing education in developing countries

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3APCoE_students_at_AICTE_Regional_Office_in_Mumbai.jpg

OER as a response to some educational challenges

facing education in developing countries

http://www.elearning-africa.com/eLA_Newsportal/finding-the-sweet-spot-open-educational-resources-in-the-developing-world/

http://www.unesco.org/iiep/virtualuniversity/forumsfiche.php?queryforumspages_id=23 x

OER as a response to some educational challenges

facing education in general – NMC Horizon Report 2015

htt

ps://n

et.ed

ucau

se

.edu

/ir/

libra

ry/p

df/H

R2

015

.pdf

Slow uptake of OER in South America & Africa,

better in South East Asia

http://ocw.mit.edu/about/site-statistics/

https://stateof.creativecommons.org/report/

http://oermap.org/oer-evidence-map/

Most OER research taking place in Global North

ROER4D Research: OER Adoption & Impact

ROER4D Funding

International Development Research

Centre (IDRC)

Open Society Foundations (OSF)

UK Department for International

Development (DFID)

3 year project (27 Aug 2013 - 27 Aug

2016 with an extension to Feb 2017)

Grant 1 - IDRC CAD 2 million & OSF

Grant 2 - DFID CAD 500,000

3 Regions

South America

Sub-Saharan Africa

Central, South & South-East Asia

18 research projects in 7 clusters

86 researchers & associates

26 countries

16 time zones

IDRC

OSF DFID

In what ways, and under what circumstances, can the adoption of

OER impact upon the increasing demand for accessible, relevant,

high-quality, and affordable education in the Global South?

Research on Open Educational Resources for Development (ROER4D)

In what ways, and under what circumstances, can the adoption of

OER impact upon the increasing demand for accessible, relevant,

high-quality, and affordable education in the Global South?

Research on Open Educational Resources for Development (ROER4D)

ADOPTION STUDIES

1. In what ways, and under what

circumstances are OER being

adopted in the Global South?

In what ways, and under what circumstances, can the adoption of

OER impact upon the increasing demand for accessible, relevant,

high-quality, and affordable education in the Global South?

Research on Open Educational Resources for Development (ROER4D)

IMPACT STUDIES

2. In what ways, and under what

circumstances can OER adoption impact

upon the increasing demand for accessible,

relevant, high-quality, and affordable

education in the Global South?

ADOPTION STUDIES

1. In what ways, and under what

circumstances are OER being

adopted in the Global South?

ROER4D

Network hub

OER Desktop overview (1) Survey of OER

adoption by academics & students

(1)

Academics’ adoption of OER

(2)

Teacher educators’ adoption of OER (3)

OER adoption in one country (1)

OER impact studies (7+1)

Baseline educational expenditure (2)

Overview of ROER4D’s 7 Project Clusters

ROER4D’s Project Clusters & Coordination

Guiding questions to tease out “openness” &

“impact”1. What is the

problem?

2. What is the claim about

OER?

3. What are the specific

objectives?

4. What would count as

evidence?

5. From whom could evidence be obtained?

6. How would you gather evidence?

7. What is the theory of change?

1. What is the problem?

1. What is the problem?

The problem is NOT the lack of OER uptake in the Global South per se

The challenge is to identify the original / implicit / underlying educational problem that OER was intended to address, e.g.

Educational materials

Increasing cost of textbooks, learning and teaching resources

Out datedness of curricula, textbooks, learning and teaching resources

Inaccessibility of books, journals, multimedia resources behind pay walls

Generic texts and/or texts in a language other than the local language

Learner-related problems

Increasing numbers of students requiring education

Lack of participation in informal and/or formal education

Poor student retention

Life-long learning required for 20th century work

Educator-related problems

Transmissionist pedagogy or teacher-centred approaches

Lack of time to develop and re-develop good quality materials

Why it is important to identify the problem?

• To be able to identify the impact of the use of OER on the problem

OER for what?

1. What is the problem?

2. What is the claim about

OER?

3. What are the specific

objectives?

4. What would count as

evidence?

5. From whom could evidence be obtained?

6. How would you gather evidence?

7. What is the theory of change?

Guiding questions

2. What is the claim about

OER?

2. What is the claim about OER adoption?

The “promises” made about OER include:

Educational materials

Decreasing the cost of textbooks, learning and teaching resources

Increasing the currency of textbooks, learning and teaching resources

Allowing access to books, journals, multimedia resources previously copyrighted and/or behind pay walls

Localising and/or translating texts

Learner-related problems

Increasing numbers of students requiring education

Widening participation in informal and/or formal education

Improving student retention

Providing opportunities for life-long learning

Educator-related problems

Improving teacher pedagogy to more constructivist / learner-centred

Reducing the time to develop and re-develop good quality materials

Why it is important to identify the OER claims?

• To be able to formulate the implicit or explicit hypothesis

Use of

OER will

do what?

Guiding questions

1. What is the problem?

2. What is the claim about

OER?

3. What are the specific

objectives?

4. What would count as

evidence?

5. From whom could evidence be obtained?

6. How would you gather evidence?

7. What is the theory of change?

3. What are the specific

objectives?

3. What are the specific objectives?

The challenge is to identify and define the key concepts underpinning the practices being investigated. Are the objectives to establish:

How aware people are of the concept of sharing materials freely and legally

How they find OER, in contrast to other materials on the Internet

How and why they create OER

Why they only reuse OER “as is” (i.e. make a copy)

In what ways they revise OER (e.g. translate, re-sequence)

In what ways the remix OER (e.g. combine with other OER)

And how these practices might influence the cost, relevance, accessibility of educational materials

Why it is important to specify objectives?

• To be able to narrow down the research focus and formulate specific research

questions

• Tease out the concepts – e.g. what is OER; does it include OA articles?

What

‘open’

practices?

Hodgkinson-Williams & Gray (2009:110) & Hodgkinson-Williams (2014)

Copy

Customise (e.g. translate, add local content)

Combine (e.g. select and mix content)

Contribute (e.g. share locally & with the world)

OER: Degrees of openness: Practices & licences

Hodgkinson-Williams & Gray (2009:110) & Hodgkinson-Williams (2014)

Copy

Customise (e.g. translate, add local content)

Combine (e.g. select and mix content)

Contribute (e.g. share locally & with the world)

OER: Degrees of openness: Practices & licencesP

RA

CT

ICE

LE

GA

LT

EC

HN

ICA

L

Guiding questions

1. What is the problem?

2. What is the claim about

OER?

3. What are the specific

objectives?

4. What would count as

evidence?

5. From whom could evidence be obtained?

6. How would you gather evidence?

7. What is the theory of change?

4. What would count as

evidence?

4. What would count as evidence?

The key challenge here is to map the problem, the OER claim (ie. the

underlying hypothesis) to the potential evidence, e.g.

Why it is important to establish what would count as evidence?

• To be able to establish the legality, ethics and feasibility of the study

• To establish what evidence would be most compelling (ie. “gold”), moderately

convincing (ie. “silver”) or marginally supportive (ie. “bronze”)

• To preempt the type of data reseachers can put forward as impact measures

before actually conducting the study

Problem Claim Evidence

Increasing cost of

textbooks, learning and

teaching resources

Decreasing the cost of

textbooks, learning and

teaching resources

Calculation of savings

based on number of OER

users who would have

spent funds on traditional

textbooks/educational

materials

Guiding questions

1. What is the problem?

2. What is the claim about

OER?

3. What are the specific

objectives?

4. What would count as

evidence?

5. From whom could you

obtain evidence?

6. How would you gather evidence?

7. What is the theory of change?

5. From whom could evidence be obtained?

5. From whom can evidence be obtained?

Who will gain from the benefit of the use of OER for xxx problem?

E.g. Cost reduction for …

governments for some K-12 materials

parents, bursary providers and/or students in college or university

Who will suffer some consequence of the use of OER for xxx problem?

E.g. Reduction in income for …

textbook and/or journal publishers

educators who write their own books (that may have copyrighted

materials) and sell these to the students

Why it is important to identify from whom evidence can be obtained?

• To be able to establish from whom you can elicit responses directly and whose

perceptions might need to be ascertained indirectly

Guiding questions

1. What is the problem?

2. What is the claim about

OER?

3. What are the specific

objectives?

4. What would count as

evidence?

5. From whom could evidence be obtained?

6. How would you gather evidence?

7. What is the theory of change?

6. How can evidence be gathered?

6. How can evidence be gathered?

Direct Indirect

Observation of performance Interview about perception of

performance

Artefact analysis Interview or questionnaire about

perceptions of quality

Interview of beliefs Survey of practices

Achievement scores Interview or questionnaire of perceptions

of value of OER in improved performance

Why it is important to identify how evidence can be gathered?

• To isolate the ‘open’ practices as carefully as possible

• To obtain the most accurate and comprehensive evidence to support your ‘impact’

claim

Guiding questions

1. What is the problem?

2. What is the claim about

OER?

3. What are the specific

objectives?

4. What would count as

evidence?

5. From whom could you

obtain evidence?

6. How would you gather evidence?

7. What is you theory of change?

7. What is the theory of change?

Open practices enabled by CC &

open formats

“Openness”

Impact on underlying problem

“Impact”

Teasing out “openness” and “impact”

Guiding questions

1. What is the problem?

2. What is the claim about

OER?

3. What are the specific

objectives?

4. What would count as

evidence?

5. From whom can evidence be obtained?

6. How can evidence be gathered?

7. What is you theory of change?

Links

Website: www.roer4d.org

Contact Principal Invesigator:

cheryl.hodgkinson-williams@uct.ac.za

Follow us: http://twitter.com/roer4D

Presentations: www.slideshare.com/roer4D

Acknowledgments & Attribution

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Written by Cheryl Hodgkinson-Williams, Henry Trotter, Tess Cartmill, Sukaina Walji,

Sarah Goodier & Thomas King

Contact:cheryl.hodgkinson-williams@uct.ac.za

Graphics by Rondine Carstensrondine.carstens@uct.ac.za, Cheryl

Hodgkinson-Williams & Henry Trotter henry.trotter@uct.ac.za

Recommended