Open Education into the future

1. Open Education: Into the Future
10th April 2019
OER19
Eamon Costello, Gráinne Conole, Mark Brown
Dublin City University

2. Affordances of digital technologies
−Phases:
− Cultural
− Symbolic
− Communication
− Networked
− Cyber-infrastructure
−Affordances
− Differ according to the
technology, context and use
− Internet most disruptive
technology of last 50 years
https://bit.ly/2O4lngx

3. Opportunities
• Technologies can:
• Enable more interaction &
communication
• Help with retention
• Be engaging & motivational
• Extend the classroom
• Provide timely and targeted feedback
• Personalise the learning experience
• BUT: technology is not a single entity; no
single all-encompassing answer can be
provided to the question of impact on
educational outcomes

4. Top ten trends
− Place an important part of identity
− Connect parents/learners
− Permeable boundaries
− Shift in ownership
− Learners map their pathway
− Abundance of data and AI
− Changing nature of work
− Rethink success
− Impact on health and wellbeing
− Connect the past to the present
http://www.core-ed.org/research-and-innovation/ten-trends/

5. Open practices
− Opening up education
− Facets
− OER
− MOOCs
− E-textbooks
− Use of open practices
complex, personalised
and contextual (Cronin)
− Continuum of openness
and access (Olcott)
https://bit.ly/2gchbww

6. Impact
− Learners
− OER (Wiley’s 5 Rs)
− MOOCs (learning at scale)
− E-textbooks (flexible & cost effective)
− Teachers
− New approaches to design
− MOOCs for CPD
− Researchers
− Data-intensive collaborative research
− Social media
− Open scholarship
https://bit.ly/2VBvFch

7. Future of open learning: challenges
− Lack of digital literacies
− Teaching the poor sister
− New forms of
accreditation
− Senior management
buy-in
− Appropriate CPD
− Unbundling of education
http://e4innovation.com/?p=938

8. Empower staff to create, discover and engage in meaningful
personal and professional development
(National Forum, 2016)
Orna Farrell

9. Textbooks
• What do they cost?
• What do our students think?
• What do Irish HE staff think?

11. What do Textbooks cost at an Irish HEI?

12. Results
3,000 books analysed
.
Prices for 18% of books (596)
Median; $40
Range: 0.99 to >$400

13. Total new cost of books per year
3.96 books per course
$224.41 per course
8.05 courses per year
Cost per year of $1,806.50

14. Availability/Access (n = 2,940 books)
0.00%
20.00%
40.00%
60.00%
80.00%
100.00%
PDF
Available
Ebook
Available
Public
Domain
6 books
(0.18%)

17. ”I am willing to go for digital copies, if I
can get it without paying for it, but my
preference would be a hard copy that I
can own, that I can highlight and make
notes in, that would be my preference”
What do students think?

18. preference.
“… If they're quite marked it
doesn't work for me: I need it to be
clean, with no other people's
writing on it, even a library book
you know, if somebody's written all
over it, is not gonna work.”

19. “… Sometimes I’d wait and see if I
think I'm going to use this, especially
in my first year, I went to the library
and if the book had a teeny-weeny
print that I know I'm not gonna be
able to read anyway I'm not gonna
buy it because I know I'm not gonna
ever look at it you know.”

20. Survey
44 complete
responses

21. 44
responses

22. 44
responses

23. 44
responses

24. Go raibh maith
agaibh
Thank you