Open Knowledge Community session on What has Open Data got to do with Education? Held online on June 26, 2014: 08:00 EDT/12:00 UTC/13:00 BST/14:00 CEST

1. What has Open Data got
to do with Education?
Community Session, 26 June 2014
Marieke Guy
PRESENTED BY
@mariekeguy

2. Open
Education
Working
Group
…established to bring together
people and groups interested in
open education. Its goal is to initiate
global cross-sector and cross-
domain activity that encompasses
the various facets of open
education.
http://education.okfn.org

3. Open Education Pie
• Open data that
comes out of
education
institutions
• Open data that can
be exploited/used
by education
institutions
• Open data that can
be exploited/used
by education
• Open data…

4. Advisory Board

5. General Activities
Areas of interest and ideas
● Community building – making contact
● Open Education timeline
● OKFestival, July, Berlin – Open Education Smörgåsbord
● Support for LMRI initiatives, standards, platform for Open Standards
work
● OER and small languages and cultures (multilingualism)
● Open Education language – making it appropriate for all
● Support for member activities e.g. Open Data Ireland booksprint
● Connections with local groups: Belgium, Finland, Brazil

6. Activities: Handbook
The Open Education Handbook
● A collaboratively written living web document targeting
educational practitioners and the education community at large
● Coverage is broad and determined by authors
● Kick-started at a series of booksprints and events
● Available online for editing in Booktype, open source book
editing software
● Translated in to Portuguese, set on Slidewiki
● Future plans: glossary, universal style, definitions, synergies
between areas, flow, fact checking, more questions, front end

7. Booksprints

8. Working Group
To get more involved…
You can:
● Join our mailing list: http://education.okfn.org/mailing-list/
● Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/okfnedu
● Visit our website/blog: http://education.okfn.org/
● Edit the handbook: http://education.okfn.org/handbook/
● Join our calls: http://education.okfn.org/working-group-calls/
Next one on Tuesday 8th July 3:00pm–4:00pm BST
● See us at OKFest for our Open Education Smörgåsbord
http://sched.co/1hgj0q1
● Email me: marieke.guy@okfn.org

9. Shaping Change
With open education data…
Our opportunities for improvement are immense, and data provide a
powerful lens to understand how we are doing internally and relative
to our peers. This applies across all segments of what we do, from
teaching and learning to administrative support. Performance metrics and
dashboards are the beginning, but using data to understand deeper
correlations and causality so we can shape change will be critical as
we strive to advance our effectiveness.
David Lassner, Interim president and former chief information officer at the University of
Hawaii

10. Terms?
open data in education
Open education data
open educational data
open data from education
open data that can be used in an
educational way

11. Open Education Data
What data are we talking about?
● Student data: attendance, grades, skills, exams, homework
● Course data: employability related to courses, curriculum, syllabus, VLE
data, number of textbooks, skills, digital literacy…
● Institution data: location data, results, infrastructure, location, student
enrolment, textbook budget, teacher details…
● User-generated data: learning analytics, assessments, performance
data, job placements, laptop data, time on tasks, use of different
programmes/apps, web site data…
● Policy/Government data: equity, budgets, spending, UNESCO literacy
data, deprivation and marginalisation in education, participation data…
http://bit.ly/oeh-datasets

12. Open Public Service Network
Empowering Parents, improving accountability
● Report published September 2013 by RSA
● Calls for release of data sets: Ofstead, free & private schools
data, teacher survey, parents views
● “Dangers of overemphasising the role of school choice as the
main driver of parental interest in information about their
children’s schools. It is equally important as contextual
information for parents and children wanting to understand their
own or their child’s educational progress” (Millar & Wood)
http://bit.ly/opsn-accountability

13. Using Open Data
...to meet educational needs
By supporting students
● New tools, enriching resources, exploration, informed choices
By supporting schools and institutions
● Learning analytics, improve efficiencies, benchmarking
By supporting governments and policy
● Change in policy, transparency, education reform

14. Case studies
http://bit.ly/oeh-datacs
Schule.info
Burkina Faso
hoekiesikeenschool.nl
Equipment.data
RMSchoolfinder

15. http://theodi.org/education-open-data-challenge-series
http://bit.ly/massedudata
Data hacking challenges
http://bit.ly/oeh-datacomps
http://www.openstockholmaward.se
http://openeducationchallenge.eu

16. Open Education Data: Qs
Some things to think about…
● Government open data reflects actual public policy – what is
available is variable
● What data should be collected within education institutions or for
assessment?
● How do we evaluate this data? i.e. What makes a good
student/citizen? What makes a good school?
● Can open data open up the debate to a wider audience?
● Can open data lead to policy change and better education
systems? Worldwide?