Opening Educational Practices in Scotland
Open education and widening participation
Pete Cannell 07 December 2015
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Opening Educational Practices in Scotland
Open Educational Resources
“Open Educational Resources (OERs) are any type of educational materials that are in the public domain or introduced with an open
license. The nature of these open materials means that anyone can legally and freely copy, use, adapt and re-share them. OERs range from
textbooks to curricula, syllabi, lecture notes, assignments, tests, projects, audio, video and
animation.” (UNESCO definition)
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Opening Educational Practices in Scotland
OER: the 5Rs• Retain – the right to make, own, and control copies of the
content;• Reuse – the right to use the content in a wide range of ways
(e.g., in a class, in a study group, on a website, in a video);• Revise – the right to adapt, adjust, modify, or alter the
content itself (e.g., translate the content into another language);
• Remix – the right to combine the original or revised content with other open content to create something new (e.g., incorporate the content into a mashup);
• Redistribute – the right to share copies of the original content, your revisions, or your remixes with others (e.g., give a copy of the content to a friend).” (David Wiley, 5 March 2014)
Source: http://opencontent.org/blog/archives/3221
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Opening Educational Practices in Scotland
The Promise• The promise of Open Education is that
traditional boundaries and barriers to engagement with higher education can be broken down (OECD, 2007; D’Antoni, 2014)
• The current reality in Scotland and in Europe (recent OECD report, Falconer 2013) is that Open Education in general and OER in particular is having a relatively limited impact on widening participation and lifelong learning
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Opening Educational Practices in Scotland
The Project• Opening Educational
Practices in Scotland is a three year project led by the Open University in Scotland but involving all of the higher education sector.
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Opening Educational Practices in Scotland
Project objectivesThe project encompasses a number of activities over a three year period (2014-2017):• Analysis of current open educational practices• Events programme across Scotland to raise awareness of OEP• Development of an online hub to encourage and share best practice in
open education• Development of a small number of high quality OERs of particular benefit
to Scotland• Badging of informal learning• Learning design for widening participation• Research and evaluation building strong evidence base• Evaluation of various economic models of openness
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Opening Educational Practices in Scotland
Origins• Strong focus and
incentive to work in partnership to widen participation in Scottish Higher Education
• Availability of OER resources (OpenLearn …) and high level of expertise within the Open University
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Opening Educational Practices in Scotland
OER developed in partnership
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Opening Educational Practices in Scotland
Open Educational Practice
Cape Town Declaration - 2007
• The declaration stresses that developing the potential of open education requires practices that enable educators to share approaches and ideas and promote development in pedagogy.
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Opening Educational Practices in Scotland
Extending how we think of OEP• The evidence that OEPS is building on suggests that it
may be useful to think of practice as including:• Learning design and pedagogy• Opportunities for co-creation• Social Context• Collective and peer supported learning• Networks
Project activities• Discussion with partners and potential partners – approx 50• WorkshopsoLearning Design aimed at developing practiceo ‘Open Learning Champions’oA range of open practice topics
• Presentations at conferences and seminars• Advisory forums
• Developing exemplar OER and associated practice• Supporting development and piloting of badges in WP
contexts• Developing hub for open educational practice• Embedded evaluation and research• Reports and papers
Emerging Themes• Partnership• High levels of interest outside the formal education sector• Extending learning design and practice to include the use of
materials in social settings – importance of peer support• Value of working with partners who are embedded in their own
well established networks• The opportunities that are created by working with partners
where individuals play intermediary or facilitating roles with fellow workers, clients …
• Value of co-creation and collaborative design• OER ladder – from use through to remixing• Sharing and developing knowledge• The online hub is being designed to support learning
communities – not another repository
Contact Us:Email:[email protected]
Twitter: @OEPScotlandBlog: www.oepscotland.orgCommunity hub: www.oeps.ac.uk
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Opening Educational Practices in Scotland
Barriers to use – case study
• Working with Scottish Union Learning to develop Open Learning Champions
• 18 unions• Around 100 ULRs• Building a community on
www.oeps.ac.uk
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Opening Educational Practices in Scotland
What we’ve found• Barriers familiar in the WP literature – socio-economic,
attitudinal, confidence …• But these overlap and interact with specific
characteristics of the online environmentScale and complexity of the offer – ‘looks like a university’The idea that online means individualisedNegative experience (e.g. tick box, top down)Where to start – lack of structure Digital skills, digital literacyLack of good collective models