The project aimed to provide open educational resources (OER) to help adults transition successfully to college in the US. Follow up research interviewed students, administrators, and educators and found that the OER led some institutions like the University of Maryland University College to pursue lower-cost course materials. However, educators in different contexts found the content did not always align with their needs and audiences. OER were found to have different usage patterns than other online resources and can help bridge formal education, though content must be appropriate for the target learners and contexts.

1. Reflecting on the diverse innovations and impacts
prompted by an OER project
Beck Pitt, Tim Coughlan & Rob Farrow
OER16, Edinburgh, Scotland
19 & 20 April 2016

2. The project aimed to offer free, open educational
resources to prepare adults to successfully and
confidently transition to a college environment in the
US, to pursue advanced qualifications, or to be
successful in their chosen careers…

3. Next Generation Learning
Challenges

4. OER Hub Hypotheses
Use of OER leads to improvement in student performance and satisfaction.
The open aspect of OER creates different usage and adoption patterns than other online
resources.
Open education acts as a bridge to formal education, and is complementary, not competitive,
with it.
Participation in OER pilots and programs leads to policy change at institutional level.
Use of OER is an effective method for improving retention for at-risk students.

5. Post project impact of Bridge to Success
Follow up collaborative research to assess longer term impact of project during the OER
Research Hub:
• 2013 & 2014
• 15 interviews (students, administrators, educators)
• 1 faculty focus group

11. University Maryland University
College (UMUC)
“…We have decided that textbooks/course materials are very
expensive, and so we as a University want to do whatever we can
to reduce the cost of course materials for students. So much so
that we have another initiative in which we’re trying as much as
possible to put e-resources in every class and not require the
students to buy additional materials. So we would like to go as
close as possible to the zero cost per course. And so this is perfect
because … Bridge to Success kind of got us thinking about that.”
(Assistant Dean, UMUC, June 2013)

13. Different contexts, different audiences
“There is just a huge disconnect between the content in that course
and what our content is here… we can find places where the
curriculum matches, but its not our curriculum… to help students
prepare for credit level math, that means a certain thing to us…
When we saw the content: Great content, but not at all aligned with
what we do here”.
(College educator, June 2013)

14. Different contexts, Different audiences
“But really I’m looking for something that’s easy to use, the reading
level for me is really important because a lot of people coming
through here don’t have higher than a 5th grade reading level and
so that when I look at it I look for is it easy to read, is it easy to
comprehend, is it user friendly because a lot of people are really
intimidated by the computers. Those are the main things that I look
for when I’m looking for resources online. Is it short? Because
people’s attention spans are very short so I don’t want a long
tool…”
(Non-profit facilitator, June 2013)

15. Different Contexts, Different Audiences
“My students liked coming into a class … they could sit at round
tables and we could have 3 or 4 students at a table and they could
sit with their computers in front of them and we could do some of
the work together… I could have small group discussions. I could
have large group discussions. But I just felt like my 18 year old
students would rather have a computer in front of them than a
book.”
(Educator, June 2013)

17. Badged Open Courses (BOC)

18. Concluding remarks
Value of looking back at a project:
- What happens next?
- Capture broader engagement
- Different focus for research
- Opportunity for reflection and perspective
- Capture longer term impacts
- Best practice

19. Bibliography and Acknowledgements
Image Credits
Slide 3 repurposed from Pitt, Ebrahimi, Coughlan & McAndrew: http://www.slideshare.net/BeckPitt/assessing-oer-impact-across-varied-organisations-and-learners-experiences-from-
the-bridge-to-success-initiative-39892305 (Slide 4)
Slide 4 images by Beck Pitt CC-BY 2.0
Slide 5: Resources for learning about open innovation by opensource.com, CC-BY-SA 2.0 https://www.flickr.com/photos/opensourceway/4968547566
Slide 6: Inspire Scrabble by Jeff Djevdet, CC-BY 2.0 https://www.flickr.com/photos/jeffdjevdet/18836102305
Slide 7: Whole earth globe_west_2048 by Jim Forest https://www.flickr.com/photos/jimforest/15783017749/ CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
Slide 8: Badges by Darren Wood https://www.flickr.com/photos/darren/3905141/ CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
Slide 9: 100% by Alberto G. https://www.flickr.com/photos/albertogp123/5843148147 CC-BY 2.0
Slide 11: Plasticine Labyrinth by Peter Shanks CC-BY 2.0 https://www.flickr.com/photos/botheredbybees/1475770502
Slide 13: The Winding Path by Stephen Bowler, CC-BY 2.0 Generic https://www.flickr.com/photos/50826080@N00/9920259196
Bibliography
Assessing OER Impact across organisations and learners: experiences from the Bridge to Success project (Pitt, R. Ebrahimi, N, McAndrew, P. & Coughlan, T.) In: Journal of
Interactive Media in Education (JIME). December 2013. http://www-jime.open.ac.uk/articles/10.5334/2013-17/
Building open bridges: collaborative remixing and reuse of open educational resources across organisations. Coughlan, T. Pitt, R. & McAndrew, P (2013). In: 2013 ACM SIGCHI
Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems Proceedings, 29 April - 02 May 2013, Paris, France. http://oro.open.ac.uk/36473/1/B2S-CHI-2013.pdf
Karen Vignare on UMUC’s move to an 100% e-resources/OER model https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-To9FBi6pU
Self-Study report for the Middle States Commission on Higher Education, UMUC, Spring 2016 http://www.umuc.edu/visitors/about/accreditation/upload/umuc-middle-states-self-
study.pdf
Open Education projects - through the lens of innovation by Vivien Rolfe http://www.umuc.edu/visitors/about/accreditation/upload/umuc-middle-states-self-study.pdf

20. Thank you!
oerhub.net
@OER_Hub
@BeckPitt
@t1mc
@philosopher1978