This is a draft of the presentation that will be given at the HEA Social Sciences annual conference - Teaching forward: the future of the Social Sciences. For further details of the conference: http://bit.ly/1cRDx0p Bookings open until 14 May 2014 http://bit.ly/1hzCMLR or external.events@heacademy.ac.uk ABSTRACT The paper presents the findings of a HEA-CLL funded project focussing on encouraging students to cocreate and use OERs via interdisciplinary study guides on research methods. Students were asked to review the tutor-produced study guides developed on a Google website/wiki and to add resources to the study guide via a comments feature. In focus interviews, they were asked if they were willing to take ownership of the guides. Students’ views on student-led guides indicated an interest in this pedagogical approach, but had issues around trusting their peers’ ability to make reliable judgements. These findings will be explored in our paper.

1. Dr Namrata Rao1
, Dr Anesa Hosein2
, Dr Philippa Hunter Jones3
DRAFT PRESENTATION
Passing the baton: Trusting students with
the co-creation and ownership of OERs
1
Liverpool Hope University, UK
2
University of Surrey, UK
3
University of Liverpool Management School, UK

2. This presentation is based on the interim findings of the HEA
funded Changing Learning Landscapes project.
Key aims of the project were to:
To develop a research methods study guide based on OERS for student
use particularly to reinforce their learning about research methods.
 To encourage a culture of use of OERs for student use.
The key guiding principles when developing these OERS were to
encourage:
Experiential learning of research methods via the OERs
Reflective learning of research methods via the OERs

3. What are OER?
“The open provision of educational resources, enabled by
information and communication technologies, for consultation,
use, and adaptation by a community of users for non-
commercial purposes” (UNESCO, 2002).
• Freely accessible and downloadable resources
• Usually released under an open license (Creative Commons)
• Often digitized to allow for ease of access, re-use and re-
purposing.

4. What Are Open Educational Resources?

5. What are Open Educational Resources? (2)
Core attributes:
• Open access
• Open licence
• Open format
• Open software

6. • OER are commonly deposited and
accessed through content sharing
systems, open source platforms, portals
and repositories
• Some of the more popular sites include:
• JORUM
• Scribd
• Slideshare
• Institutional repositories (library?).
Where might we find them?

7. Where might we find them? (2)
• Web 2.0 technologies play a pivotal role in OER.
• These tools include:
• social networking sites (e.g. Facebook, MySpace,
LinkedIn)
• Collaborative tools (e.g. Wikipedia)
• Self-expression tools (e.g. blogs, micro-blogs, vlogs,
podcasts)
• Content tracking tools (e.g. url).

8. Why should we bother with them ?
• Sharing knowledge
• Breaking down barriers to education
• Enhancing formal and informal learning
• Supporting lifelong learning
• Widening participation
• Capacity building
• Quality enhancement
• Financial
• Impact

9. Why should we bother with them ? (2)
• Inspiration
• Reputation
• Marketing
• Publishing
• Challenging thinking
• Public good
• Efficiency
• Ethics
• Networking and connectivity

10. How might our students contribute to their
development?
“Our students have changed radically. Today’s students
are no longer the people our education system was
designed to teach… We need to invent digital native
technologies for all subjects, at all levels, using our
students to guide us”
(Prensky, 2001, p1, 6)
Hence the study guides using OERs

12. Phases of the project ( Sept to May 2014)

13. Key ideas explored in the presentation
 Interest in this pedagogical
approach
 Issues around trusting their
peers’ ability to make reliable
judgments.

14. Developmental Phase (Sept to Dec 2013)
The study guide repurposed OERs
(particularly videos and audio files)
together with guided text from the
co-investigators.
The study guide was developed using
a creative common licence and was
deployed via a Google Sites.

15. An initial evaluation with students from two
universities from Education and Business
Studies disciplines
Students used the study guide in a computer
labs for about 30 to 40 minutes.
 The students participated in two focus group
interviews,.
Students also filled in an evaluation
questionnaire.
Students were also encouraged to put in the
comments box any comments on the guides
and contribute any further resources they
wished to.
Evaluation Phase I (Dec 2013)

16. Evaluation Phase II (Jan to April 2014)
Further development of the study guides
following feedback from phase I evaluations
Integration with undergraduate courses.
Students review of the study guides via:
comment on them via the comments box.
And an online evaluation questionnaire.
Students were also encouraged to share
resources via the comments box.

17. https://sites.google.com/site/researchmethodsoer/
(Each of prepared one study guide: Interviews, questionnaires and observations.)
Introductory page
OER FAQs
Interviews
Observations
Questionnaires
Evaluation of the resources:
General info: University, Level of study, discipline/degree
Order they viewed the resources
Feedback on content and style
Likeliness to leave comments/add resources?
Recommendations for improvements
What did we find?

18. Participation profile
Order of viewing
resources
The order in which they
reviewed the resources in
60% of the cases was the
order in which the
resources were presented.

21. Format and content on the study guides
Similar views on format and
content across the three
different guides
Exceptions:
 one final year student rated the
format and content of the
questionnaires ‘3’
One second year student rated
lay out of interviews as ‘3’ and
content at ‘4’ while for other
study guides lay out and
content were both ‘5’

22. Source of Information
“More information on secondary data analysis.”
“Probably more detailed information for areas
that I may be stuck with.”
“ Just a bit information and more detailed.”
“ Perhaps something that shows what form of
research method is not valid/credible/reliable
to give the researcher better understanding.”

23. Presentation of the study
guides
“The presentation of the guide is a bit
dull, more colour would make the guide
more interesting to look at.”
“Prezi is a good way of making
everything look more interesting. the
font used is boring, and hard to read.”

24. Other comments
“ Embed YouTube videos.”
“ In the recap questions have a brief outline
of the answers so you don't have to go back
and look through every link to check if you
are correct for each section on each page to
use recap reminders at the end.”
“ also for each page to have a reference list
at the bottom of.”
“finally for each page to have a pros and
cons section for each method.”

25. Focus groups?
Useful resource to recap and learn about these
research methods.
Study guides had useful questions to help further
understanding.
 Positive towards lecturers adding OERs to the
guide
 Mixed views towards students adding to OERs.
 Issues of trust/judgement in knowing whether the
resources were reliable.
Lecturers were better able to provide this
judgement rather than their fellow students.
These comments provided some indication on
how best to create study guides to meet the
student needs.

26. Where next?
More responsibility and trusting each other by
co-creating and sharing of knowledge in their
learning probably will probably not exist.
Passive engagement rather than active
engagement with creating resources
A need for someone to sanction the knowledge
which is shared.
 These trustees of knowledge will probably
continue to be the lecturers/tutors who have
done this for generations.
OERs to use as an add-on to a tutor
Information gathering exercise rather than how
to apply it to my context