Presentation

1. Open Education:
time to act
National Symposium on Open Education,
November 2012

2. OER : A strategic choice for
Otago Polytechnic
• Is a sustainable educational practice, both at macro
and micro levels. Macro: improves educational
access and can lower system costs. Micro: avoids
reinventing wheels and frees academic staff time
• Lower costs
 Of development, through collaboration
 Of resources, e.g. open source texts, open source journals
• Ability to adapt resources encourages innovation

3. OER : A strategic choice for
Otago Polytechnic. Why?
• And because we believe OER is a game changer.

4. Benefits of OER: individuals
• Improved access – including to the world’s best
quality learning resources
• Lower costs – no tuition fees, lower text costs
• Example: Three year business degree:
– Tuition $6000 pa = $18,000
– Assessment (unsubsidised) $6,000
– Savings $12,000

5. Benefits of OER: providers
• Lower costs through collaborative development and
reusing existing resources
• New markets and new revenue streams through
assessment services
• More diversified curriculum

6. Benefits of OER: education
system
• Improved access through more affordable courses
and programmes
• Higher quality learning resources
• Lower costs through lower support to learners and
lower level of subsidies to providers
• Lower costs of resources to compulsory sector eg
open texts

7. Benefits of OER: education
system
• Examples of system wide savings:
1.Three year business degree:
– Reduced subsidy to providers $6,000pa
2.Average degree subsidy:
– Reduced by $12,000pa
If 1000 learners ( less than 1% ) shifted to OER
based learning savings of $12,000,000 pa could
accrue, without taking into account learner financial
support costs

8. Benefits of OER: education
system
Examples of system wide savings:
• If 5% of all tertiary learning shifted to OER learning
$100m ( = 5% x $2b ) would be released for
alternative use, not counting learner financial
support. This may be reinvested in part in subsidies
for assessment, or other forms of learning support

9. Case Study 1:OPs Open
Courseware Initiative
• Ready to launch November 2012
• Free on line learning, volunteer tutors, low cost
assessment
• Successful learners earn credits towards a
recognised qualification
• Those who complete their qualification can graduate
alongside other learners
• Initial focus is on introductory computing, business
administration and foundation skills

10. Case Study 2: OERu
• A comprehensive approach to free and open
learning
– a new model for the mainstream?
• An international collaboration of universities and
polytechnics, with Otago Polytechnic in a lead role
through the OER Foundation, based at OP. Three
other NZ polytechnics.