Slides for Wed PM session. OER research project update.

1. OER Research Interviews
Discussions from two HEA research
project interviews

2. HEA Research Projects
• Academic Practice team requested support
• Time and Opportunity to conduct research
– Keep up to date
– Represent with some authenticity
– Promote practices
– Engage HEA with community interest, and vice versa
• Gather various leading practitioners to reveal
issues together.
• Drive HEA towards an ‘Open’ strategy ?
– No ‘business opportunity’ perceived

3. Further
restructure
in 2015
Academic
Practice
team
reduced
Left HEA
September
2015

4. 4
Subject Centre - sharing
practices
Search Engine replaced
for all HEA

5. Avalanche or Flood?
Steady state or fluid?
– Don’t re-position, learn to float/ swim/ submerge!

6. 6
Recent adventures with OER for
DL

7. Dave Lewis (Leeds) – Bioscience Education
Kay Hack (Ulster) – Employability in Biosciences
Bob Newmann (Newman) – Health Psychology
Jane Guiller (GCU) – Cyberpsychology
Kate Borthwick (Southampton) – XML project for
Languages
Jamie Wood (Lincoln) – Making Digital History
Abbie Thomasson (Myerscough) – Teacher Training
Sarah Atkinson (Brighton) – Digital Practice and
Pedagogy (MA)
XERTE OER Project participants

8. Rapid ‘Solution’
• Gather representatives of roles
• Fund meetings
– Two: Edinburgh and Bristol (UWE)
– HEA involved in the ‘mix’
– HEA Output into community
– Inform OER strategy
– Meetings part of the goal
• Capture audio and transcribe (~100 pages)
• Analyse for patterns with Social Science methods
/ Software (Nvivo, NacTem)

9. Keyword Hypothesis
Performance OER improve student performance/satisfaction
Openness People use OER differently from other online materials
Access OER widen participation in education
Retention OER can help at-risk learners to finish their studies
Reflection OER use leads educators to reflect on their practice
Finance OER adoption brings financial benefits for
students/institutions
Indicators Informal learners use a variety of indicators when selecting
OER
Support Informal learners develop their own forms of study support
Transition OER support informal learners in moving to formal study
Policy OER use encourages institutions to change their policies
Assessment Informal assessments motivate learners using OER
OERResearchHub2015

10. NVIVO Coding

11. Intelligent Word Cloud
Word Cloud using NacTem Termine + Wordle custom

12. Word Trees

13. Context Queries

14. JORUM

15. Meet #1 Edinburgh
• Policies for practices
– Getting Institutional Alignment
• Teaching practices
– Greater opportunities, TEF
– Productivity gains
• Reward and recognition, Careers
– UKPSF, Institution awards
• Business models
– Dark arts
– Funding objectives understood? No JISC/HEA expectations
• Expenditure

16. Awards
• Martins ‘Battle for Open’ – what are the ‘Battle honours’?
• Leading OE forward as part of your SFHEA rather than retrospective
recognition works better for developing institution
• Maximise practice in your role e.g. Open Press (library)
• Institution awards bring out practitioners (three for price of one
etc.)
– Spotlight practitioners
– Progress award levels the field
– Enhancement-led Institution Award (QA driven)? Would raise
awareness at senior levels
– Institution rewards department as “beacon of openness” so colleagues
work together (vs individual awards)
– Influence Award – improve staff recognition

17. Dark Arts (identifying barriers)
• How to “mess up” OpenNess
– Not reading the restrictive digital contract (that
actually closed the resource)
– Managerialism and metrics
– Lack of evaluation
– Organisational boundaries muddied – where do I get
funding/recognition?
– Buried under other ‘impact’ metrics - KPIs
– Buried under MOOCs
– Buried under VLE habits
– Lack of HEA Academic exemplars
– Competition not collaboration

18. General Tactics
• In UKPSF (K, Values etc)
• In PGCERT (with using resources)
• Sharing Policies e.g. Leeds Ed+Gla informally
• Calculate £ saving (as USA with textbooks) but
be aware of difference in models (better for
colleges)

19. JORUM to ‘Retire’!
Meeting 1 - Edinburgh
Meeting 2 - Bristol

20. Meet #2 Bristol (UWE)
• Policies
• Assumptions
• History and pre-histories
• Standards and frameworks (Digitally capable
organisation)
• Infrastructure
• Research and Impact
• Pedagogy
• KPIs
• Roles

21. Barriers and Challenges
• WikiPedia – a modern miracle
– Needs to tackle misconceptions with quality examples and academic
exercises
– Illustrates policies from outset
– Doesn’t hide dirty laundry (not image obsessed like HE can be!)
– Free time contributions from Academic are reducing
• Acronym soup!! JORUM, JISC, UKOER
• Is OER a ‘discipline’ too hard to define?
• Has to be frictionless
• Jorum – undermined by competitors e.g. HEA, local repositories,
federated search engines e.g. SOLVONAUTS
• Google – good enough, quick enough? ‘In there somewhere’ factor
– LRMI Markup – will it catch on?
• Link ‘evaporation’ – we are learning how fluid resources are.
• SEO is not academically driven – swamped with KHAN etc

22. Open Policies
• Funder mandates
– Requirements for Openness
– DEFRA, TAACCT, Research Councils, Welcome
trust, EPSRC, DCS (Jisc)
– Open Research data sources mandated
• Funding strategies
– c/OER/MOOC/* gets new money!

23. Communities
• OER conference community is strong and
sustainable
• New communities spring up or ‘lurking’
– Open is everywhere
• Development of a “new cultural practice”
through emergent Open subject communities

24. Open Profiles
• Academics and other roles keeping their options ‘open’
• Highlighting Open connections
– Using existing data and practices
• Funding
• Orchid, LinkedIn, ResearchGate and profiles to get jobs
(better than a PhD)
• Discipline contributions are OK – not anti or pro
institution
• Student progression is the key impact – individual and
team metrics

25. Career/Culture issues
“So actually when we’re pushing forward open
practices and open education values we’re actually
pushing traditional academic ethos against the
more sort of corporate ethos.”
“I wonder if there is a kind of a cultural thing as M
said that in research you kind of want to be seen to
be standing on the shoulders of giants whereas in
teaching it feels slightly dirty to be using someone
else’s stuff.”
HE VS FE – FE culture shares to cope !

26. Assumptions & expectations
• RLO Dream – lots,
easy to find and fit
• Democratic access to
knowledge
• Senior academics
NOT obsessed by
numbers
• Students can be
primary producers
• Classroom exhausts –
take them afterwards
• Diversity of
motivations exists:
belief is strong
• Numbers are vital
• Students are here to
be consumers

27. Ways forward
• Friendly policies to all roles
• Not an aim, but a highlighted clear OPEN benefit
– Similar tactic to Accessibility
• Personal Profiles of Open works encouraged
• PG Cert - highlight Open Practices
– CC licences for self, discipline and institution
• Academic role has too much influence – weighted
towards robust historic practice not innovation
• Trust – Paradata value. Profile building.
Sustainable resources as DOIs

28. Ways forward
• Mandate Deposit 5-10% from funded projects
• Student-led production to discipline community
• Separate recognition unlikely – only institutional
objectives matter. OER is a tactic within Digital
Practice and Scholarship
• Get on with it in your role as a productivity and
digital practice benefit. Share through internal
means building social practice.
• Policies matter – write a better one to get what
you want for your role

29. XERTE tactic
• Free software for existing servers
– Apereo backed
https://www.apereo.org/content/projects-communities
• Changes the model of production
– Builds demand for LT skills, improves employability
– Production for community (discipline) output requires
thinking differently for a wider audience
– More course content for next year
– Teaching students to be open producers requires academic
investment in the principle - through to assessment (EE
– Significant disruptor
• CC licence included
• Accessible practitioners – HE very poor at teaching this
to students