Edmundo Tovar - Analysis of existing research and best practices

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Analysis of existing research and best practices

Edmundo Tovar (Universidad Politécnica de Madrid), Igor Lesko (OpenCourseWare Consortium), Eva Sancho (Universidad

Politécnica de Madrid)Email address(es): [email protected];

[email protected]; [email protected];

opencourseware.eu with the support of the Lifelong Learning Programme of the European Union

OpenCourseWare in the European HE context

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Introduction

• The aim was to identify successful practices for implementation and use of OCW/OER in HE and to investigate how OCW/OER could facilitate student virtual mobility. Not to provide a thorough analysis of the use of OCW/OER around the world

but to highlight important lessons learned from the studied initiatives. The research was carried as part of the Project on “OpenCourseWare in the

European Higher Education Context: how to make use of its full potential for virtual mobility”.

• A survey has been done by leaders of OER initiatives from all around the world. Responses to the survey were received from 31 Higher Education

Institutions and organizations from 14 different countries. Majority of respondents (81%) defined initiatives at their Institutions as

OpenCourseWare (OCW) with the remaining 19% contextualizing their projects within the broader spectrum of Open Educational Resources (OER).


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Results


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Results


Frecuency %

Learners 25 80%

Faculty members 14 45%

Organizational Leaders 26 83%

Profesionals 9 29%

Other 24 77%

Frecuency %To achieve professional qualifications

7 22%

To obtain official degrees 4 12%To support teaching 25 80%To increase physical mobility 2 6%To increase virtual mobility 6 19%To simply provide open materials 24 75%Other 7 22%

Target group

The use of OCW/OER in Teaching and Learning

Frecuency %Texts 31 100%Slides 24 77%Audio materials 18 58%Video materials 26 83%Exercises 22 70%Rubrics 4 12%Other 11 35%

Characteristics of published OCW/OER

Frecuency %Degrees 8 25%Diplomas 3 9%Certificates 6 19%Test 7 22%Exams 10 32%Other 6 19%

Means of evaluating or certifying learning processes via OCW/OER

5opencourseware.eu with the support of the Lifelong Learning Programme of the European Union

Factors enabling OCW/OER initiatives Factors inhibiting OCW/OER Initiatives• Institutional support

An institution supports open sharing in education through:

-Actively encouraging participation in the production and sharing of OCW/OER amongst faculty members-Implementing open content or open access policies-Providing resources (financial and staff) to assist faculty members in the production of OCW/OER-Providing incentives to faculty members to engage in the production and sharing of OCW/OER • Positive attitudes from faculty members

• Lack of institutional support

• Negative attitudes from faculty

• Copyright-related challenges

• Lack of information about institutional benefits related to OCW/OER projects

• Difficulties with finding appropriate and quality OCW/OER (when attempting to reuse materials produced elsewhere)

Factors

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Benefits of OCW/OER Initiatives for the involved Institutions


• The content used by educators, professionals, and individual users.• Allows to work in a business model.• It increases the quality of education.• OCW has become the KPI of the university.• Medium for sharing information among a community of institutions.• Increased visibility of the university.• Increased visibility of teachers and materials.• Collaboration with other universities.• Teacher recognition (awards).• Attracting new students.• To provide to the society the knowledge generated in the university.• Contribution to national development.• Provide users with materials - free of charge.• Medium to share materials among teachers.• OER integrated into the objectives of the academic or research organizations, scholarships, etc…

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Uses of OCW/OER: mindmap
