how to use open content / open educational resources for management education using social software tool? OpenScout (www.openscout.net) provides access to thousands of hours to freely available management contents - we discuss how to utilize social software in learning scenarios as well as for the adaptation of learning materials

1. Open Education and Social Software – A
Solution for All Education Problems?
Experiences from the OpenScout project
Henri Pirkkalainen & Jan Pawlowski
Global Information Systems
University of Jyväskylä

2. Global Information Systems
Mission Statement
Creating and validating new solutions for Information Systems in a
global context - this includes the support of individuals and
organizations to improve competitiveness, performance, and mutual
understanding
Topics
Designing work and learning processes in globally distributed
organizations
Design & development methods for global information systems
Culture analysis and awareness
Support tools for knowledge intensive processes in global
organizations
ICT4D: ICT for development
E-Learning and knowledge management in global
organizations

3. Open Educational Resources (OER)
Open Educational Resources (OER) have become a
widely discussed and promising concept for educators
Ongoing discussions and past studies regarding open
education often connected to a specific resource or an
artifact
The focus – OER
‖technology-enabled, open provision of educational resources for
consultation, use and adaptation by a community of users for
non-commercial purposes‖ – UNESCO 2002
Such as: digital learning objects (full courses, modules etc.),
articles, textbooks, software tools, simulations or animations,
electronic textbooks, as well as syllabi, curricula and teachers’
guides

4. OER examples
http://openlearn.open.ac.uk/course/view.php?id=4387
Full courses available to be reused or modified to
different contexts

5. OER examples
Presentations such as the one you are looking at or
the one below
http://slidestar.de/main.html#slideware/view:10

6. OER examples
Articles, papers, books or journals etc.
Even material that doesn’t have learning outcomes
attached to them but can be used as support material
Article example

7. OER examples
Even images, links, short texts and similar web assets
that are not usable on their own but can be embedded
to learning materials
http://slidestar.de/main.html#slideware/
view:1051
http://slidestar.de/main.html#slideware/view:1013
http://slidestar.de/main.html#slideware/view:1076

8. But also..
OER is very connected to concept of
open educational practices
includes access to
• instructional designs,
• didactical plannings such as lesson plans, case
studies or curricula
also includes one of the most valuable resource:
sharing experiences about materials and lessons
between colleagues

9. ..and
Closely connected to concept of Open Source
Software tools
Open services

10. Problems related to online content and OER
How do you know which information you can re-use
that you come across online? IPR issues
Where to find good resources?
Currently no ―Google learn‖
Open materials scattered in several repositories and
databases
Single access points needed!

11. Licensing: Creative Commons
You are free:
to Share — to copy, distribute and transmit the work
to Remix — to adapt the work
Under the following conditions:
Attribution. You must attribute the work in the manner
specified by the author or licensor (but not in any
way that suggests that they endorse you or your use
of the work).
Noncommercial. You may not use this work for
commercial purposes.
Share Alike. If you alter, transform, or build upon this
work, you may distribute the resulting work only
under the same or similar license to this one.
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/
http://www.slideshare.net/jan.pawlowski

12. Social Software
Umbrella of technologies under a fuzzy concept
Easy way to spread, distribute, and disseminate
information to a wide community
Encourage people to dialogue and discourse
Easy content creation and sharing
Aggregating wisdom of the crowds
Transparent

13. OpenScout Project
OpenScout is a European project
Co-funded by EU eContentplus Programme
Targeted Project in the area Educational Content
18 partners in 14 countries organized in 8 groups
Duration: Sep. 2009 – Aug. 2012
OpenScout stands for
Skill-based scouting of Open user-generated &
community-improved content for management
education and training

14. OpenScout approach
OpenScout first prototype

15. Supporting internationalization of OER
Aiming to identify usage patterns
how open contents are modified
and applied to new settings
– fitting the requirements of the users
Giving recommendations which
type of tools can be used with
specific type of learning materials Material prepared for different learners
(Blanchard et al. 2005)
– According to the license of the material
– For example Microsoft Word and
GoogleDocs (collaborative writing) for
.DOC-files
– ..or simple web editors for web based
materials etc.

16. Social Software in OpenScout
OpenScout and social software
Community building (social networking functionalities)
Experience sharing possibilities (messaging facilities
offering forums, instant messaging and commenting
etc.)
Offering ways to collaboratively edit materials and
being tightly connected to the interest groups in the
portal

17. Social Software applied to OER processes
Bundling Social Software within the portal
– Some as key components of the portal, some as supportive tools for
specific processes
Using SoSo for communication to support the collaborative
scenarios
..also to adapt materials
Social networking functions as a framework to attract people to
groups and raise awareness and share experiences about OER
– Utilizing blogs, feeds, social bookmarks in the social network to bring
the wisdom of the crows to relevant audience
Also connecting to OpenScout from existing social networks
– LinkedIn, Facebook, iGoogle etc.
– Or from Learning Management Systems (LMSs): Moodle etc

18. Bundling Social Software within the portal
Search
interface
SNS as a framework for Quality and
discourse and competence
networking Material type services
License
Communication
tools Adaptation tools
IM Conferencing Educational
Social software tools
… as collaborative •Packaging
Forums •Learning
adaptation tools
• collaborative design
writing •Knowledge
• Wikis mapping
• Note sharing ….
…

19. Experiences
People want to use familiar tools
– Not willing to change to other tools, even if these would be
more stable or richer on functionality
Having tools available isn’t enough, they have to be
presented in a meaningful way at the right time
Tools have to respond fast and be effortless to use
Tools should have effortless access
Tools should be bundled to accomplish specific action
– e.g. building your own course out of open material

20. Challenges and possibilities

21. Contact us…
Prof. Dr. Jan M. Pawlowski M.Sc. Henri Pirkkalainen
jan.m.pawlowski@jyu.fi henri.j.pirkkalainen@jyu.fi
GLIS on the web…
http://users.jyu.fi/~japawlow
OpenScout
http://www.openscout.net

22. Thank you for your attention