SCOP 2007 ‘Open Educational Resources as an Instrument for achieving Education for All’
Towards European-wide Quality and Benchmarking of Open Educational Resources
Kees-Jan van Dorp & George Ubachs
European Association of Distance Teaching Universities (EADTU)
[email protected]@EADTU.nl
Agenda
Part – One: Consortium of New Generation OER
Consortium introduction Consortium stages Consortium progress Consortium outlook
Part – Two: Proliferating Quality and Benchmarking
The problem at hand Some results Tool support needed E-xcellence
Consortium introduction
Consortium philosophy
A new generation open educational resources Stimulate, extend, and expand the use of OER in Europe Provide lifelong learning with a new gateway to university education Widen the participation in higher education in line with the Lisbon agenda Brand lifelong open and flexible learning throughout Europe Share and build on scientific and expert knowledge of OER
Consortium aspiration
A new generation open educational resources No traditional face-to-face educationDidactic model based on distance education Specifically designed, developed for distance learning Courses with intrinsic broad pedagogical coverage Unique pathway: from non-matriculated to matriculated Successive multilingual versioning and localisation Content and registration: a distributed model Content mobility and virtual mobility Strong partnership
Consortium introduction
Consortium “tangibles”
Members providing a broad offer of open courses Universities increasingly into mode of informal learning Interconnectivity between formal and informal learning (bridging two modes of learning)
Transfer of courses between member institutions (translation and localisation)
Overarching portal pointing to national OER portals Best practice and progress support for the partners (variety of attitude, commitment, and growth path)
Policy-making: institutionally, nationally, and European
InformalInformal
Utilise open resources Utilise open resources
Enter formal programmeEnter formal programme
N
N
Y
N
Y
N
Y
Y
Off-campuslearning
Academic appetite
Learning privileges
Consortium extends “Open” invitation to learn
Consortium introduction
• European Association of Distance Teaching Universities
• The Open University (English)
• Open Universiteit Nederland (Dutch)
• FernUniversität in Hagen (German)
• Centre National d'Enseignement à Distance (French)
• Network per l'Universita Ovunque (Italian)
• Universidade Aberta (Portuguese)
• Moscow State University of Economics, S and I (Russian)
• Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia (Spanish)
• Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (Spanish/Catalan)
• Anadolu university (Turkish)
Task forceTask force
Core group Core group
Actors Actors Actors Actors Actors Actors Actors Actors University(high-end)
Local TFLocal TF
Research expert
Governance structure Consortium “composition”
Consortium stages
How did we as a Consortium start?
One year ago………just born, small, fragile ………
………analogous to ………???☺
1. Conception phase
2. Embryonic phase
3. Infant phase
4. Maturation phase
5. Adult phase
Fragileentity
Robustentity
learning and experiencing
- - An analogy -
Where do WE stand?(have we matured yet)
risks
Consortium stages
Potential factors influencing Consortium maturing
Organisation-relatedOrganisation-related
Characteristics of organisations’ strategies, structure and funding methods Changing organisational needs and perceptions Current ICT infrastructure context Maturity of new technologies available Commitment and support within different echelons Staffing, experts and project experience
Content-relatedContent-related
Availability, size and complexity (rework) Technical and definitional issues (exchange strategies) Intellectual property rights (third party rights) Availability of pacing and learning schedules (learner support) Content “shelf-life” and annual releases (renewal) Quality assurance systems
Process-relatedProcess-related
Project costs and funding Planning and time-span Governance structure Project management Project team expertise Project staffing stability
Operations
Consortium progress
Core group meetings - ‘Core Group Meeting’ (June 30, 2006) at The Open University, Walton Hall, Milton Keynes- ‘Core Group Meeting’ (August 25, 2006) at FernUniversität Hagen, Germany - ‘Core Group Meeting’ (November 9, 2006) at European Association of Distance Teaching Universities (EADTU)- ‘Core Group Meeting’ (December 20, 2006) at Katholieke Universiteit Leuven Belgium ‘Core Group Meeting’ (February 2, 2007) at at Katholieke Universiteit Leuven Belgium
Task Force meetings ‘Task force’ Meeting (February 22, 2006) at EHSAL, Brussels ‘Task force’ Meeting (September 13, 2006) at EHSAL, Brussels ‘Task force’ Meeting (January 15, 2007) at Katholieke Universiteit Leuven Belgium ‘Task force’ Meeting (May 14, 2007) at Katholieke Universiteit Leuven Belgium
EC Consultations DG Information Society and Media, eContentPlus Workprogramme 2006,Consultation meeting, Luxembourg, 6 April 2005Preparatory stakeholder meeting Directorate General Education and Culture (DGEAC)preceding the meeting to the Cabinet of Mr. Ján FIGEL', Brussels, 3 March 2006 Stakeholder meeting EADTU and William and Flora Hewlett Foundation to the Cabinet of Mr. Ján FIGEL', Brussels, 14 March 2006 DG Information Society and Media, eContentPlus Workprogramme 2008Meeting of education stakeholders, Luxembourg, 27 April 2007Stakeholder meeting EADTU to Principle Administrator DG Information Society and Media
on eContentPlus Workprogramme, Luxembourg, 3 April 2007 Stakeholder meeting EADTU to the Cabinet of Mr. Ján FIGEL', Brussels, 23 May 2007
Strategy &
policy
Politics
Consortium progress
Achievements: awareness, commitment, embedding
Building a consortium model Ways of working, sharing, partneringIndividual partners, collective strength Addressing benefits of OER Initial framework for adoption
The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation has been a true process catalyst for mobilising individual partners and to provide for dissemination, sparring and support
Achievements: wide-spread dissemination
Press, Blogs, etc: foregrounding membersForums, conferences, national and European Frontrunner dissemination by EADTU membersPropagating OER in Conferences:
Achievements: satellite initiatives and spin-offs
Institutes touching ground with ‘local’ OER Task Forces Increased look-out for funding opportunitiesInstallation and appointment of OER professionals (EADTU, ICDE, UNESCO, etc.)Inflow in national bodies & international consortiaHigh-end consultations with Commission’s Cabinet ODL into OCW Consortium recognition
Online Educa Berlin 2006(UK OU, UOC, EADTU)
EU e-Learning Conference Helsinki 2006(UK OU, Miskolc NHRDC, OUNL, EADTU)
EADTU Annual Conference Tallinn 2006(UK OU, FernUni, UNED, e-Collegium, NHRDC,UniNettuno, UOC, EADTU)
Open Education Conference Utah 2006(UK OU,OUNL, EADTU)
EduMedia Conference Salzburg 2007 (EADTU, OUNL)
SCOP Conference Heerlen 2007(EADTU, OUUK, OUNL)
“planning to create at least 10 multilingual courses10 multilingual courses”
Consortium progress
Member commitment….now taking off
“co - production system to realisecourses in a multilingualmultilingual format”
“generate no less than twelve 1 ECTS courses”
“translate French online courses in GermanGerman, , SpanishSpanish and and EnglishEnglish”
“allall OER courses already developed will be made available”
“make available one or two courses
for MORIL activities”
“planning to adopt and to localize
in Russian at least 20 coursesat least 20 courses”
extending beyond Europebeyond Europe to Latin America
and the United States
“number of courses in the portal will increase
progressivelyprogressively within time”
….I guess we are on the right track!
Consortium outlook
Agreement on project Master plan Consolidation of critical course mass Diversification of funding sources Assuring availability & stability of staff
Robustentity
learning and experiencing
““Consortium building” Consortium building” Here do WE standHere do WE stand
Project Project Roll-outRoll-out
Consortium outlook
Aren’t we forgetting something?
Long term Consortium success depends on the learners’ appreciation
Individual quality perceptions and personal course satisfaction
The key to retention of your visitors and learners
myQuality
Proliferating Quality and Benchmarking
The problem at hand
Autonomous, self-study courses?
Many OERS, much variation: what is myCourse, what is myQuality, where is myPedagogy?
In search of: Bioinformatics “some sort of an introduction”
(actually searching: Bioinformatics, a quick reference for dummies, pedagogically-rich, visual learning elements, a fast forward course)
How do I select? My Search and Learning time to be devoted, is limited
Many results, but unfortunately disappointing:
OER Blogs, Lecture notes (classroom based), Hyperlinks (not working), Literature references (buy textbook)…..But no coherent course!
Finally, I found one coherent course!But no Quality Metadata
Coherent course, self-studywhat is fit for myPurpose
where is myPedagogysearching for myQuality
Some results ofmy humble exercise
Bio
info
rmat
ics
“so
me
sort
of
an i
ntr
od
uct
ion
”
OER urgently requires tangible and ready-to-deploy OER urgently requires tangible and ready-to-deploy quality instrumentsquality instruments
built upon a European (or Global) platformbuilt upon a European (or Global) platform with national recognitionwith national recognition
Tool support needed
QA in HE and is receiving a lot of attention at institutional, national and European level
Still missing: QA specific to e-learning
• Criteria based on ease of access
• New forms of interaction (students and staff)
• Flexibility, personalisation and other pedagogical aspects that are more relevant to
e- learning
• They express the added value of e-learning to HE
Especially, with the leap towards new generation OER
E-xcellence
E-xcellence in e-learning is:
• Complementary to other national quality assurance systems
related more to content, staff and infrastructure
• Optimising the learning process and offering assurance to stakeholders
that e-learning provision is of high quality
E-xcellence has established:
• A framework of quality criteria for the development, operation and evaluation of
e-learning programmes
• An appropriate set of performance indicators, parameters and guidelines by
which the quality of e-learning programmes can be measured by assessment
• A definition of threshold and excellence level
E-xcellence
Set of (33) European benchmarks
They cover institutional, pedagogical, technical, ethical and management aspects of e-learning organised into the three main categories of :
• Management(institutional and programme levels)
• Products(curriculum, course design and delivery)
• Services(student and staff support)
An important aspect of E-xcellence is that it offers a European-wide
set of benchmarks, independent of particular institutional or national
systems, and with guidance to educational improvement
E-xcellence
E-xcellence
E-xcellence
Cutting-edge developments
European OER Consortium European Quality Consortium
European Association of Distance Teaching Universities (EADTU)
Open Universiteit Nederland (OUNL)
The Open University (UKOU)
FernUniversität in Hagen
Network per l'Universita Ovunque (Nettuno/UniNettuno)
Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia (UNED)
Centre National d'Enseignement à Distance (CNED)
Anadolu University
Universidade Aberta
Moscow State University (MESI)
Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC)
European Association of Distance Teaching Universities (EADTU)
the Open University (OUUK)
Open Universiteit Nederland (OUNL)
University of Oulu (OULU)
Centre National d'Enseignement à Distance (CNED)
Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC)
Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia (UNED)
Estonian Information Technology Foundation (EITSA)
National Council for Distance Education (APERTUS)
Network per l'Universita Ovunque (NETTUNO)
European University Association (EUA)
The eLearning Industry Group (eLIG)
Nederlands-Vlaamse Accreditatie Organisatie (NVAO)
Join in
E-xcellence
SCOP 2007 ‘Open Educational Resources as an Instrument for achieving Education for All’
Towards European-wide Quality and Benchmarking of Open Educational Resources
Kees-Jan van Dorp & George Ubachs
[email protected]@EADTU.nl
Thank you !