Open Education: time to act

National Symposium on Open Education, November 2012

OER : A strategic choice for Otago Polytechnic

• Is a sustainable educational practice, both at macro and micro levels. Macro: improves educational access and can lower system costs. Micro: avoids reinventing wheels and frees academic staff time

• Lower costs Of development, through collaboration Of resources, e.g. open source texts, open source journals

• Ability to adapt resources encourages innovation

OER : A strategic choice for Otago Polytechnic. Why?

• And because we believe OER is a game changer.

Benefits of OER: individuals

• Improved access – including to the world’s best quality learning resources

• Lower costs – no tuition fees, lower text costs• Example: Three year business degree:

– Tuition $6000 pa = $18,000– Assessment (unsubsidised) $6,000– Savings $12,000

Benefits of OER: providers

• Lower costs through collaborative development and reusing existing resources

• New markets and new revenue streams through assessment services

• More diversified curriculum

Benefits of OER: education system

• Improved access through more affordable courses and programmes

• Higher quality learning resources• Lower costs through lower support to learners and

lower level of subsidies to providers• Lower costs of resources to compulsory sector eg

open texts

Benefits of OER: education system

• Examples of system wide savings:1.Three year business degree:

– Reduced subsidy to providers $6,000pa2.Average degree subsidy:

– Reduced by $12,000paIf 1000 learners ( less than 1% ) shifted to OER based learning savings of $12,000,000 pa could accrue, without taking into account learner financial support costs

Benefits of OER: education system

Examples of system wide savings:• If 5% of all tertiary learning shifted to OER learning

$100m ( = 5% x $2b ) would be released for alternative use, not counting learner financial support. This may be reinvested in part in subsidies for assessment, or other forms of learning support

Case Study 1:OPs Open Courseware Initiative

• Ready to launch November 2012• Free on line learning, volunteer tutors, low cost

assessment • Successful learners earn credits towards a

recognised qualification• Those who complete their qualification can graduate

alongside other learners• Initial focus is on introductory computing, business

administration and foundation skills

ceo/powerpoint presentations/a polytechnic education-whats different aug 2010

Case Study 2: OERu

• A comprehensive approach to free and open learning

– a new model for the mainstream?

• An international collaboration of universities and polytechnics, with Otago Polytechnic in a lead role through the OER Foundation, based at OP. Three other NZ polytechnics.