Hands up for Change #CETIS14 #oer #openscot #oeps

Earlier this year  at the #cetis14 conference in Bolton we were set the task of being from an imaginary country and setting out the case for a national policy on open educational resources around the lines of the Unesco Open Education Declaration . I did a similar presentation at the College Development Network last week.

When you ask most folks if they are prepared to put their hands up for the kind of change that is needed  you get a great response - when you ask the next question about who is prepared to lead or start the change that is needed - the hands stay down.

Here were some of the use cases I made .

Some might see some parallels with real places and people but of course this is purely co-incidental. This is an imaginary country with fictional challenges.

The teacher

If I were a teacher in my imaginary county I would expect a lot of regular open online CPD especially from some of the other institutions  that often knock standards in schools . I'd like teaching resources I can repurpose for my learners . If we start with a shopping list then principally  in areas where human knowledge is moving fast and curriculum is changing .. areas like the Human Genome , HTML5 perhaps how to set up and use a 3D printers but list could really extend into most subject areas .

I do acknowledge that I can already get a lot of these materials from the open web but it would be great if local colleges and universities could do more to help me and my learners particularly as  I've just been asked to look at ways of delivering more vocationally relevant programmes. How could colleges and employers help me here with relevant open materials ?

I'd like to to be able to take and repurpose for my pupils some chunks of the massive open online course I dropped out of as it was running over  a period when I had a full timetable. I need asynchronous access to these resources.

At  the moment this looks as though it is not possible as the licensing of the MOOC materials prevents me from using chunks of the courses with my learners.

I'd be keen too to embed a relevant MOOC in my classroom teaching but I am not sure how this will be regarded by my managers. Will they think I am redundant ?

I'd also like  to be free to share any learning materials I develop openly with both other teachers and learners and not be constrained by a contract that does not allow me to share learning materials with colleagues , beyond my school , beyond my local authority ,  with institutions or individuals that are not schools, or beyond national boundaries.

I am not sure if anyone other than my employers realise that this is currently a major constraint on enabling the sharing of learning materials .

I'd like some more information about Creative Commons licensing so I can share materials non commercially and still receive appropriate attribution.

Ok let's look to an other sector ...

The major employer

I am the CEO of a major company that specialises in .. Take your pick . Engineering , Telecommunications , Hospitality, computing, customer care etc .  We spend millions of pounds a year on the training of staff mainly,  we claim, repairing the damage that  has been done in schools , colleges and universities .  I'd be keen to open up some of our training resources,  they are online already . I can't get anyone in educational establishment to speak to me ?  Why is this the case ?

The school pupil

I am school pupil I am not sure what I want to do when I leave school . I have had lots of information describing lots of different occupations and courses, but I'd really like to try some of these courses before I commit to studying something for the next three or four years . Where can  I experience some of the courses that are not taught in schools ..what is involved in pharmacy , marketing , Webdesign  , this could be a long list..

What is the difference between the maths I do now and maths for engineering or computing ? . I can already sample some of this by looking at materials from a range of international institutions but there is not much experiential material available from my local college or university available on the web ? Why not ?

The school library has not bought any new resources for the last five years and we use 10 year old textbooks in class that are held together by wallpaper book covers.

I know there are a lot of other free resources on the web but they seem to come mostly from other countries and a lot of the really useful stuff still seems filtered out in school.

I have the online skills to do an online course but the school only offers classroom based programmes. I'd like to do some computing courses but our school does not have a computing teacher.

The Academic

I am an academic who despairs at the decline in standards in numeracy , literacy , computational thinking , problem solving , teaching etc ... I regularly vent my anxieties to the national  media . Though surrounded by experts and lots of materials that could support learners in schools , colleges and informal learning    I have not figured out a way to fulfil my social responsibility  beyond a once a year public lecture and the occasional column in the times educational supplement criticising the education system.

 I do publish articles in a well known global social science journal but as the annual subscription fees are £15,000 these articles don't attract a broad readership, beyond my own and the 5 other  reputable elite UK university libraries that subscribe to this journal.

I am deeply suspicious of the open research agenda. Why would anyone ever give away anything ?  I'm thinking about doing a Ted talk but only if they pay me my usual fee.

We do a MOOC a year funded from our marketing budget  to attract high fee paying  international students Openness is just a fad that will pass . 

The Adult learner

I am an adult over the age of 24 sometimes in a low paid job and sometimes out of work . My shift patterns and other family commitments prevent me engaging with education beyond occasionally dipping into Wikipedia and YouTube .  I am looking for some flexible online ways I can update my skills but I can only ever find stuff that is for university graduates or foreign stuff.

The policy maker

I am a senior civil servant . I've signed the official secrets act so I am really very uncomfortable with sharing anything .  The freedom of information act has honed my skills in redacting anything whatsoever that a member of the public might find useful . Open is already a minefield professionally and more openness in Education could,  we've been advised by our external legal advisors, only be dealt with on a case by case basis , any materials, to be made open would need to be scanned by our legal team page by page at a great cost . I've advised the minister that this area is highly controversial and we better take a lead on this from our biggest and richest institutions .Whatever they suggest,   after a few years research, we will then have a look into.

I can see some real benefits in schools , colleges and universities sharing learning materials but I am really not sure that they should be sharing these learning materials with anyone else . Above all, no-one wants the blame if some of these open materials are not very good .  If we open things up then the public and the press will see what schools , colleges and universities give to their learners. That might create some misunderstandings.

Endpiece

I am sure this could strike a few harmonious chords perhaps even some discordant ones.  These are purely imaginary barriers.

I used each of the cases above to make a case for some open educational policy  driven at government level to encourage open practice at institutional and individual level across life long learning It is what prompted the authoring of http://declaration.openscot.net/ and I have great hopes that http://oepscotland.org/   will push things on.

We need to create the next generation of open institutions and of open practitioners and it's not just a fetish for learning content.

The next generation of learners will be designing their own courses ,repurposing and developing their own learning content .. but that is another post.

#FELTAG , #ETAG English FE Going On-line #OER

I was curating some links and advising a colleague this evening on the changing on-line landscape of further education in England tonight .  The ambition providing it is meaningful and rewarding to learners is a noble one - to increase the availability of on-line learning in further education to initially 10% then towards 50% and eventually up to 70% .  If these materials were #OER open educational resources this could benefit all life long learners . 

At moment I am spotting lots of commercial content providers rolling out their stalls .

I do hope it is not simply a cost cutting scheme.

If you want to find out about what is happening in English FE here are some of the key documents and sample  market response.  I am interested in capturing a few more market responses .  Is the content business going into overdrive to supply Colleges with the 10% or are Colleges ready to create their own content ?

Background and ambition

http://feltag.org.uk/etag/

Final Report http://feltag.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/FELTAG-REPORT-FINAL.pdf

English Government Response
 

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/320242/bis-14-841-government-response-to-recommendations-from-the-FELTAG-action-plan.pdf

Including 10% this year and up to 50% on-line by 2017

Becoming policy here

 

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/278529/bis-14-p172a-skills-funding-statement-2013-2016.pdf

Agency and Market Responses

 

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/further-education-learning-technology-action-group-recommendations-sfa-response/delivering-online-learning-sfa-response-to-feltag-report

http://www.trainingpressreleases.com/news/learning-light/2014/learning-light-offers-trainers-practical-expertise-in-the-light-of-bis-feltag-response-(1)

#Oepsforum14 #Openscot Reflections

I enjoyed the aspiration of this week's OEPs Forum http://oepscotland.org/tag/online-hub/    there is a lot of Scottish Funding Council money going into this programme and I am sure we will get something built from this that is distinctly Scottish and reaches into the challenges being faced in schools,  colleges , community learning  as well as higher education across Scotland.  The main thing I think we need to focus on is high level policy change - without this institutional blocks will remain the common denominator for those who wish to open up learning resources. 

The project objectives are here http://oepscotland.org/about/project-objectives/ 

Great too that the OU will match funding from SFC with DFID resources to build a new product for international markets - but would have liked some more focus on acting  local as well as thinking global. 

If Open Education is anything it is about life long learning , its about developing open practitioners and it has got to be about ground up practice and top down policy changes. 

I made point to organisers at end - when we were invited to come back and see them again early in the new year - that what we really need ASAP is an on-line community associated with the programme. There is already a lot of grass roots activity going on in Scotland and across the UK . I hope the partners in the OEPS project harness all of this .  Understandably a lot of focus at event seemed to be around what the Open University could do for us - question for long term sustainability should really be around what can we all do to open up learning.  The other question which I thought was rude to ask on day - was where were the other OEPS partners at the event - some thoughts from Glasgow University , Edinburgh University , Strathclyde or UHI in introductory presentations were missing from day - to make the most of this opportunity really requires broad range of stakeholders and thinkers. 

I highlight below some useful workshops being supported by ALT and JORUM really as indication that there is a lot going on in this space. 

The following webinars run and delivered by the Open Education Special Interest Group of ALT may be useful to members of this list. The content is a mix for those who are both new to and familiar with OER. Jorum will be supporting the webinar on Creative Commons in December.

1. How to write an OER workshop (for staff development)

Wednesday 5th November  13.00 - 13.40

This workshop will look at how advocates of  Open Education can use and reuse existing OER materials for training sessions cascading the OE message.

By exploring the huge variety of materials that exist, this webinar will demonstrate how your workshop can represent the OE agenda itself and act as an example of how reusing materials can be an effective and efficient choice when designing and creating learning activities.

Presenters: Alex Fenlon and Ella Mitchell

Link to webinar:

https://sas.elluminate.com/m.jnlp?sid=7565&password=M.EB5A1870DD4B812AC04FD7BDAD8E0F


2. Title: Creating and using video resources for language teaching.
(Open Educational Practice)

Tuesday 25 Nov  13.00 - 13.40
The University of Warwick Language Centre and the Centre for Applied Linguistics are partners in an EU project called Video for All. The project’s mission is to support language teachers in all sectors in the exploitation of video for teaching. The Language Centre has been innovating in the use of digital media for some time and is the subject of a Jisc Digital Media case study. Video for All will produce exemplar practices for teachers which are searchable and available as Open Educational Resources. However, challenges are evident. The presenter has recently co-authored a submission to the Education Policy Analysis Archives (EPAA) for a special issue exploring “Models of Open Education in Higher Education”. This webinar will discuss some of the issues we are dealing with in the hope that the OER sig will be able to contribute to our discussions and offer feedback on our decision making process.

Key words:

Streaming media; creative commons licensing; repositories; repurposing and remixing; copyright.

Teresa MacKinnon
LinkedIn Profile
Principal Teaching Fellow,
School of Languages and Cultures
University of Warwick.

To join go to:
https://ca-sas.bbcollab.com/site/external/jwsdetect/meeting.jnlp?sid=2012058&username=&password=M.7E015779A2D9581AF91B36BB9F5E97

3. Creative Commons - understanding the basics (CC for Dummies)

Thursday December 11th 13.00 - 13.40

Creative Commons (CC) licences are a simple way of retaining copyright whilst allowing others to reuse your work. The range of licences lets you define how others can reuse your material. This session will demonstrate how simple it is to use CC licences and what they mean in practice.

We will also introduce the UK repository JORUM, demonstrating how to apply CC licences to materials as you deposit.

Presentation: Vivien Sieber and Siobhan Burke
Moderator: Alex Fenlon

Webinar link

https://sas.elluminate.com/m.jnlp?sid=7565&password=M.4F5E50E2B182B1FEE046461D9A8CA6

TECHNICAL NOTE

Please note that the sessions will take place in Blackboard Collaborate. Even if you are familiar with Blackboard, it is important that in advance you check that your system and connection are capable of handling a session, and that you have the (small) Blackboard Collaborate client successfully installed. Do this from the support page at http://www.elluminate.com/support/

#EAIE2014 #Articulate Prague

I In Scotland we call the link that allows a college based HNC or HND candidate progression with advanced standing into a university's second or third year 'articulation' . We have articulation agreements in place all around the globe for both Scottish learners and for our many students who complete our programmes around  the world.  Chinese students want the option of 'articulating' into universities around  the world not only UK institutions  

We as the awarding body broker many of these 'articulation' routes you can see some  examples of these here . These allow students to move around tne world and gain entry to the 2nd and 3rd years of specific degree programmes. We do this by negotiating with individual institutions. 

Yet many of our own learners might call these progression routes rather than 'articulation' routes or agreements .

As I visit #EAIE2014 this year and meet many of our existing and potential new articulating centres I hope I can come up with a new word for 'articulation ' that is easily understood by learners and institutions around the world .

I am also here to build more links to European institutions offering undergraduate degrees taught in English . Agreements here will support the mobility of Scottish students into Europe and build bridges that Scottish Colleges and European Institutions can use for shorter Erasmus funded exchanges .

#oer Universities and Open Education in Scotland

Last week I did a short session in a Scottish University with the head of departments around the challenges and the opportunities around open education.

I did not touch much on massive open on-line courses as in many ways for this and other institutions this could be a step too far. I highlighted that they could do much more by simply opening up more of what they do to the communities they touch already and by doing more to harness the staff resource that they have by encouraging much more open practice across the institution .  This could be the precursor to some MOOCs at a later stage but in the short term it would get academics thinking about how they become open practitioners .

I'll stick up my presentation here when I  get back into the office . I borrowed many of my slides from previous presentations on open education. I spoke about past and current developments in Scotland 

The rest of the afternoon comprised of some excellent presentations from the library and learning resource staff. They are actually well on the way to developing open policies that will permit much more open practices . This is probably the right response from institutions who don't have massive marketing budgets to invest in the development and the staffing of massive online courses. It was good to hear that many of the academics already knew and used resources from services like JORUM the challenge is that none of them had ever deposited a learning resource there.

I hope that the new programme from the funding council led by OU Scotland , Edinburgh , Glasgow and University of Highland and Islands will make its focus - not the creation of massive open on-line courses that may prove hard to sustain  but the creation of an open culture that encourages open practices and the sharing on on-line content.