Update on open content/open practices
A high-octane meeting this week with the folk from the TALL team and their OER Impact Study http://oerblog.conted.ox.ac.uk/. It let me to sketch out the area that I think we are gathering evidence about in the Eval and Synth team, which is a more detailed picture of the two right-hand quadrants in the diagram posted below (features of open content, and aspects of open practice). On the left side are some emerging practices in learning and teaching that could arguably be called ‘open’. OERs are *involved* in these practices, sometimes as signs that they are going on, sometimes as drivers to make them happen, sometimes just in the background. So OER practices are a sub-set of these more open learning and teaching practices and it’s our task in the Eval and Synth team to gather evidence about whether and how the subset of practices promoted by UK OER are supportive of these larger movements. On the right hand side are some features of content that arguably makes it more reusable in an educational context – makes it more likely to partake helpfully in some of the practices on the left. We are familiar from UK OER pilot projects with the challenges and costs of moving content in these directions. However, we need more evidence of whether – and how – these features of open content actually support educational re-use. We have focused a lot on open licensing, which is critical for repurposing, but the focus in this phase is more on reuse and it may be that other features of open educational content are actually more significant here. The ‘E’ may be just as important as the ‘O’.
Printable version OER venn (pdf)
Impact model diagram
This is the current version of our UKOER impact model. We have included a description of this and have identiified emerging issues from phase 2 of the programme in more detail on our wiki https://oersynth.pbworks.com/w/page/40291776/UKOER-Impact-Model
From the literature we know that OER release is influenced by the nature of the resources and the practices around OER creation, release and reuse. Resources release and the practices around them can be considered individually (ie the practices of an individual learner or teacher releasing or reusing resources) or socially (ie the practices of groups or collectives releasing or reusing resources).
The release of OERs and practices around these is situated within the wider educational context of Further and Higher Education. Within this broad context individual and social practices influence the release of different types of OERs, and the release of these resources, in turn, affect the institutionally based practices associated with them. Further, we recognise that these practices and resources exist within a wider societal context in which open practices and resources are evolving rapidly. These aspects of OER release are integrated in the UKOER Impact Model below.
Individual impact (the left hand side of the model) is being explored by other parts of this landscape are being explored by other funded projects, for example the OER Impact Study, led by the TALL group at the University of OxfordOER Impact Study, and Open Resources: Impact on Learners and Educators (ORIOLE), led by the UK’s Open University). Through our evaluation of the whole JISC UKOER programme, we are focusing on examining the right hand side of the model, taking a social focus.
UKOER Impact Model
The team recently prepared a presentation for the programme’s Senior Advisory Committee. Allison Littlejohn presented on behalf of the team.
We took this opportunity to present our new model which attempts to illustrate our current thinking at this stage of phase 2 of the programme. A copy of the prezi is embedded below…
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UK OER phase 2: synthesis and evaluation on Prezi
We have put a more comprehensive page describing our thinking and outcomes from the programme so far on our wiki – https://oersynth.pbworks.com/w/page/40291776/UKOER-Impact-Model. This page brings together some of the thoughts previously shared on this blog.