POERUPGráinne Conole,

University of LeicesterRory McGreal

Athabasca University

EFQUEL Innovation Forum Granada, Spain 5th – 7th September 2012

Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License(some images fair use)

• Stimulate uptake of OER by policy– Evidence-based policies

• Study end-user–producer communities • In-depth Euro case-studies & selected others • Recommendations & actions • Trustworthy and balanced research results

Partners

SERO

Context and rationale

• Over ten years of the OER movement• Hundreds of OER repositories worldwide• Evaluation shows lack of uptake by teachers

and learners• Shift from development to community

building and articulation of OER practice

Focus• Stimulating uptake of OER through policy• Building on previous initiatives (eg. OPAL, Olnet)• Through country reports and case studies• Evaluate successful OER communities

Outputs• Inventory > 100 OER initiatives• 11 country reports• 13 mini-reports• 7 in-depth case studies• 3 EU-wide policy papers• 7 options brief packs for EU

nations/regions

Progress• Country reports– Draft country reports available– http://poerup.referata.com/wiki/Main_Page

• Case studies– Identified– Methodology chosen (Social Network Analysis)– Instruments being development (Survey plus

semi-structured interviews)

Country reports: key themes• Diversity of educational contexts and

maturity of internet provision and use of e-learning

• Differences in policy support & funding for OER initiatives

• Diversity from basic OER awareness to OER maturity and embedding

• Few national OER initiatives

Emergent themes• Shift from development to OER

practices• Broader notion of open practices –

open learning, teaching and research

• Use of social and participatory media to foster OER communities

UK Country Report• Significant funding from JISC/HEA – three

phase OER programme with around 100 OER initiatives

• Individual fellowships through SCORE and Olnet funding

• Institutionally supported initiatives• Main activity in England, little in other

countries

Ming Nie

UK Country Report• Funding mainly from government – top-down• Funding mainly on production/producers, little

on end-users or impact on learning• Mainly HE/FE, little school-based• Most institutions don’t have an OER strategy• Lots on cascading and transferring of experience• Most institutions have an OER repository• Related work: iTunesU and MOOCs

Challenges• Decreased government funding• Avoid the ongoing spiral of increased costs• Student incapacity to pay high tuition

Disaggregated industries

NO FRILLS

• Volkswagen Fiat, Ryanair, Walmart, Easyjet

NO FRILLS• Banking, groceries, department stores,

travel agencies, accommodations, mobile telephony, stock brokering

Education has been relatively immune

from such disruptive technologies

For Profit Universities

• Rapid growth • Profit on govt loans to students• Censure, complaints from public institutions• Growing numbers of students

Free–tuition institutions

OERu

Do we need and can we afford the full bundle?

Teaching Research Admin

OER University Concept

Jim Taylor

Assessment &

Accreditation

Wayne Macintosh

"Let's put all this hype about change and transformation in perspective. It's underhyped."

"There's something coming after us, and I imagine it is something wonderful.” "

Danny Hillis, Wired

Change

« le changem

ent s’im

pose, la su

rvie est

une optio

n; faite

s le bon ch

oix »

François T

avenas, an

cien re

cteur d

e l’Univers

ité Laval

“Change is m

andatory, su

rvival is an

option. M

ake the r

ight choice

.”

François T

avenas, an

cien re

cteur d

e l’Univers

ité Laval

• “Affordability in the future may be the first requirement not an afterthought.” Whitesides (2011)

The race may not be to the swift, but to the cheap

http://www.poerup.infoAshanti

Further information

http://www.poerup.info/