Presentation given to UKCORR on 27 Jan 2012 describing what Open Educational Resources are, who is releasing them, why and how.

1. Managing and disseminating
Open Educational Resources
Phil Barker, Heriot-Watt University
JISC CETIS Learning Technology Adviser
phil.barker@hw.ac.uk
http://www.icbl.hw.ac.uk/~philb/
http://blogs.cetis.ac.uk/philb/

2. Overview
What?
What are OERs?
Who? How?
Who is releasing OERs? How do they do
release them?
Why?
Why do they do want to
release them?

3. What are OERs?
Open:
Easy to define (if dogmatic)
Educational Resources:
Harder to pin down (because pragmatic)

4. Dogmatic definition of OPEN
“open educational
resources should be
freely shared through
open licences which
facilitate use, revision,
translation,
improvement and
sharing by anyone”
Capetown declaration on open education
http://www.capetowndeclaration.org

5. More dogmatic definition of OPEN
“open educational
resources should be
freely shared through
open licences which
facilitate use, revision,
translation,
improvement and
sharing by anyone”
Capetown declaration on open education
http://www.capetowndeclaration.org
So not ND

6. Even more dogmatic definition
“open educational
resources should be
freely shared through
open licences which
facilitate use, revision,
translation,
improvement and
sharing by anyone”
Capetown declaration on open education
http://www.capetowndeclaration.org
So not NC?

7. Define “Educational Resource”
(courseware, learning objects, teaching
resources, educational materials)
Dogmatic definitions don’t
work here

8. Santa’s Chair © Daniel R Blume, CC-BY-SA
http://www.flickr.com/photos/drb62/1099880155/

9. Arts and industries chair © Darren and Brad, CC-BY-SA
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ brad-darren/2329466605/

10. Bench © dcJohn CC-BY-SA
http://www.flickr.com/photos/dcjohn/2946647/

11. from Two Bar Stools © Rennet Stowe CC-BY
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tomsaint/2897079476

12. Tree Stump 2 © Ashish Joy CC-BY
http://www.flickr.com/photos/myguitarzz/155124684/

13. Educational Resources
Something useful for teaching and
learning?
Something designed with pedagogic
intent?
Could be anything.

14. Educational Resources
Whole courses
Lecture notes
Presentation slides
Lecture handouts
Lecture recordings
Assignments
Tests or Exams
Reading lists
Images
Videos
Simulations
Text books
Students’ work
screenshot taken from MIT OCW site © MIT. CC-BY-NC-SA
http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/electrical-engineering-and-computer-science/

15. Who is involved in OER
release?

16. Taken from MIT OCW site © MIT. CC-BY-NC-SA
http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/electrical-engineering-and-computer-science/

17. • MIT OCW was launched in ????
• MIT OCW has ??? Courses
Taken from MIT OCW site © MIT. CC-BY-NC-SA
http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/electrical-engineering-and-computer-science/

18. • MIT OCW was launched in 2001
• MIT OCW has 2000 Courses
Taken from MIT OCW site © MIT. CC-BY-NC-SA
http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/electrical-engineering-and-computer-science/

19. Taken from Berkeley Webcast site © Berkeley university.
http://webcast.berkeley.edu/

20. Taken from Stanford Engineering everywhere site © Stanford University. CC-BY
http://see.stanford.edu/see/courseinfo.aspx?coll=86cc8662-f6e4-43c3-a1be-b30d1d179743

21. Taken from Tufts OCW site © Tufts University. CC-BY-NC-SA
http://ocw.tufts.edu/

22. Taken from Johns Hopkins OCW site © Johns Hopkins University.
http://ocw.jhsph.edu/

23. New Jersey Institute of Technology OCW site © NJIT.
http://ocw.njit.edu/

24. UMass, Boston OCW site © University of Massachusetts.
http://ocw.umb.edu/

25. University of Michigan OCW site © University of Michigan.
http://ocw.umich.edu/

26. Notre Dame OCW site © university of notre dame. CC:BY-NC-SA
http://ocw.umich.edu/

27. UC Irvine OCW site © University of California, Irvine.
http://ocw.uci.edu/

28. Utah OCW site © University Utah
http://my.courses.utah.edu/course/category.php?id=3

29. USQ Australia OCW site © University of S Queensland. CC By-NC-SA
http://ocw.usq.edu.au/

30. UCT Open Content site © University of Cape Town.
http://opencontent.uct.ac.za/

31. Carlos III OCW site © Universidad Carlos III. CC BY-NC-SA
http://ocw.uc3m.es/

32. OUNL OCW site © Open Univeriteit (NL). CC BY-NC-SA
http://www.ou.nl/eCache/DEF/2/19/943.html

33. Farabi OCW site © International University of Iran.
http://farabi.ac.ir/ocw/

34. Open University Israel OCW site © OU Israel.
http://farabi.ac.ir/ocw/

35. Hokkaido University OCW site © Hokkaido University.
http://ocw.hokudai.ac.jp/

36. Korea OCW © Korea University. CC BY-NC-ND
http://ocw.korea.edu/ocw

37. University of Nottingham OCW © University of Nottingham.
http://unow.nottingham.ac.uk/

38. OpenLearn site © Open University. CC BY-NC-SA
http://www.open.ac.uk/openlearn/

39. OpenSpires site © University of Oxford.
http://openspires.nsms.ox.ac.uk/

40. Open Exeter Repository © University of Exeter.
https://open.exeter.ac.uk/repository

41. http://repository.leedsmet.ac.uk/main/index
_oer.php
LeedsMet Repository © Leeds Metropolitan University.
http://repository.leedsmet.ac.uk/main/index_oer.php

42. Curve resource Centre © University of Coventry.
http://curve.coventry.ac.uk/open/access/

43. University of Leicester Repository © University of leicester.
http://www2.le.ac.uk/projects/oer

44. So much for “big OER”,
what about individuals?

45. Khan Academy © Salman Khan.
http://www.youtube.com/khanacademy#p/p

46. Multimedia Training Videos © University of Westminster.
http://www.multimediatrainingvideos.com/

47. brOME © M van Hoor / Bradford University.
http://mvanhoor.co.uk/wordpressoer/?page_id=141

48. http://forensicchemistry.lincoln.ac.uk/
ChemFM © University of Lincoln. CC BY-NC-SA
http://forensicchemistry.lincoln.ac.uk/

49. Core Material © University of Liverpool. CC BY-NC-SA
http://core.materials.ac.uk/

50. HumBox © University of Southampton.
http://www.humbox.ac.uk/

51. OER/OCW Initiatives
HEFCE: UKOER
Aim: institutions to set up sustainable mechanisms for
making a significant amount of existing learning
resources freely and openly available.
Extent:
Phase 1, 2009-10 ~£5.7M;
Phase 2, 2010-11 £5M.
Phase 3, 2011-12 ~£5M

52. Why are they releasing OERs?

53. Why release OERs?
Internally or Externally
Sharing • To Academics
• To Students
• To Others
• Potential students
• Life long learners
• Policy makers
• The casually interested

54. Why release OERs?
Internally or Externally
Sharing • To Academics
But• why share?
To Students
• To Others
• Potential students
• Life long learners
• Policy makers
• The casually interested

55. Why release OERs
The objects of the
University shall be to
advance learning and
knowledge by teaching and
research particularly in
Science, in Technology,
and to enable students to
obtain the advantages of
liberal university education.
Heriot-Watt University charter
Loughborough University charter

56. OERs are good Marketing
Search engine optimization
• OERs are “potentially compelling content, not like
research papers”
(anon., to protect the guilty)
Course “tasters”
• A reasonable estimate of recruitment influenced by
OpenLearn is the approximately 10,500 students
since launch who have made use of OpenLearn
before they register for a course at The OU in the
same online session.
http://newsletter.alt.ac.uk/4ii7jyi4jnx

57. OERs facilitate partnerships
Partnerships with local business
Partnerships with 3rd sector
Partnerships with other (overseas) institutions
• Advertises presence
• Answers the questions “what have you got?”
“what can we use?”
• Provides access without stretching the VLE

58. OERs Might
• Lead to better content
• Analogy with OSS
• Share development effort
• Many eyes see bugs more quickly
• Lead to better / more flexible practice
• Open educational practice
• Peer-to-peer learning
• Massively open online courses
• Provide new approaches to resource
management
• Use of social sharing sites, YouTube, iTunesU, SlideShare
• Reduce the authentication/authorisation burden

59. How are OERs Released?
Summary of what we’ve covered so far:
• Licensing is important
• All sorts of content types and formats
• Complex objects / related resources are normal
• All sorts of users
• Learners as well as academics
• Exposure is important
• On the web not in the repository

60. How are OERs Released?
First catch your rabbit...
• Collect or capture what is in use
• Collect slides, record lectures
• Filter for IPR issues
• Typically institution will own copyright and other
IPR
• Frequently 3rd party resources that have been
licensed-in* will be and issue
(* best case scenario)
• Quality control
• Include authors, title, consistent branding etc.

61. Hosting & Disseminating OERs
“Projects should deposit their content in ... least one ...
openly accessible system or application with the
ability to produce RSS and / or Atom feeds; for
example an open institutional repository, an
international or subject area open repository, an
institutional website or blog, or a Web 2.0 service.”
UKOER programme Technical Requirements
http://blogs.cetis.ac.uk/lmc/2010/12/03/oer-2-technical-requirements/
See also “Then and Now” a summary of technical
approaches of JISC programmes from 2002-2010
http://blogs.cetis.ac.uk/lmc/2010/04/16/then-and-now/

62. What projects did.

63. What projects did.
MIT:
• Many types of
resource
• Targeted at
learners
• Bespoke web CMS
• Arranged by
courses.
http://ocw.mit.edu/

64. What projects did.
Oxford:
• Podcast audio and
video recordings of
lectures (expanding
now)
• Drupal CMS
• Arrange by series,
dept, people.
• Disseminate to
iTunesU
http://podcasts.ox.ac.uk/

65. What projects did.
Nottingham:
• Wide range of
course materials
• EQUELLA
repository platform
• Arrange by faculty,
tags, search.
• Links in to other
services
http://unow.nottingham.ac.uk/

66. What projects did.
HumBox:
• Wide range of
course materials
• Audience:
academics &
students
• ePrints+edShare
repository platform
• Social profiles
• Clone & adapt
http://humbox.ac.uk/

67. What projects did
• CETIS’s UKOER technical synthesis and summary
http://wiki.cetis.ac.uk/UKOER_synthesis
• One Standard to Rule Them All?: Descriptive Choices
for Open Education
http://www.slideshare.net/RJohnRobertson/one-standard-to-rule-
them-all-descriptive-choices-for-open-education