cetis « Li’s work blog

February 19, 2010

Institution strand of UKOER programme meeting

Filed under: OER, cetis, teaching and learning — cetisli @ 11:14 am

Last week, seven OER projects from the institution strand of UKOER pilot programme gathered together at Nottingham University to share the outcomes of the projects and common issues they are trying to address which I found very useful and stimulating. The meeting started with OER showcases in which each project presented two resources they have made available through their project. Some of the examples are available on the project websites and JorumOpen. Here is the list of the projects and the features of the resources that were presented:

BERLiN (University of Nottingham) – a 6 credits PGCE international course and resources created in the Second Life;
Unicycle (Leeds Metropolitan University) – virtual maths, a 6 credits course;
Open Exeter (University of Exeter) – a complete modular for self-paced learning;
OpenStaffs (Staffordshire University) - Individual images for reuse and repurposing;
OTTER (University of Leicester) - a framework for transforming teaching materials into OERS;
OpenSpires (University of Oxford) – Oxford seminars and public lectures-based resources;
OCEP (Coventry University) - diverse content types, such as Second Life machinima, looking into how one set of resources could be used in different ways.

The meeting also provided an opportunity for projects to share experiences and discuss issues on reward and recognition for producing OERs, developing sustainable OER models, resources discovery and copyright clearance, etc. There were several themes raised during the presentations and discussions:

Quality control: how should institutions control the quality of OERs provided by lecturers? On the one hand, quality is very critical from the marketing perspective since these resources are showcases of universities’ courses. On the other hand, if the goal of OERs is to promote sharing, reusing and repurposing, then the quality of the resources should be judged by the end users rather than institutions.
Centralised and distributed models: it has been reported that some projects have adopted a centralised model which means that staff have been employed by the project to provide technical and other supports for procuring and releasing OERs. However, there are concerns about whether universities would continue fund this support when the project finished. One of the projects adopted a distributed model for which no additional staff has been recruited and the responsibilities for producing OERs have been located to representatives from different faculties. It is hoped that these people would continue to do so after the OER programme ends.
Shrinking credits: there have been concerns about producing 360 credits equivalent teaching and learning resources at the end of the programme. Some projects found they are struggling to meet this requirement. One of the reasons mentioned was “shrinking credits”. For example, a lecturer may promise to provide 30 credits course materials, however, when the course materials turn to OERs, it might turn out to be much less than 30 credits. This is understandable, when we talk about credits which involve content, teaching and learning process and assessment. In this sense, if it is content alone, credits may be not the most appropriate way to measure the OER projects. However, it is agreed that the UK OER programme does expect to make significant amounts of teaching and learning resources freely available.

According to The New Media Consortium the Horizon Report 2010, open content is expected to reach mainstream teaching and learning within one year or less. In this case, what these institution projects have learned from the UK OER pilot programme would be really valuable to this movement.

Comments (1)

September 3, 2009

CETIS visits China for conferences and seminars

Filed under: OER, cetis — Tags: cetis, OER — cetisli @ 2:07 pm

xuzhou-conference2 Two weeks ago, I joined my colleagues, Oleg Liber, Director of JISC CETIS and Sarah Holyfield, Communications Director of JISC CETIS to present at the 8^th International Educational Technology Forum in Xuzhou, JiangSu province, China. The conference is organised by the National Colleges and Universities of Educational Technology Direction Committee and it provides a platform for experts and scholars in China and abroad to discuss the latest issues on the use of technology in education, and to learn from practice, exchange ideas and share mutual interests. About 500 experts, researchers, teachers and students frome China, UK, US and Japan attended the conference. Professor Liber was invited to give a keynote lecture on “Cybernetics and Education: Insights from the Viable System Model” with a focus on Cybernetic Modelling as an approach to designing educational technology intervention. I gave a presentation on Open Educational Resources initiatives and the UK JISC-funded OER Programme at the conference.

I also attended the Chinese Government Funded Educational Technology Programmes & Innovative Use of Technology in Education conference which higher-education-press1 was organised by the Higher Education Press in Beijing on 24^th August. The speakers from different Chinese universities reported findings from their projects and research on use of technology to enhance teaching and learning. I was invited to give a presentation on the UK OER Programme and Innovation in HE and this provided an opportunity to discuss some mutually interesting issues with Chinese colleagues, such as copyright, interoperability and standards, etc. Not surprisingly, some other presentations at the conference also looked into models for sharing educational resources and the various barriers that prevent sharing and using teaching and learning resources, etc.

After the conference, we visited East China Normal University, Shaanxi Normal University and Beijing Normal University, all of these a sarah1 re universities which specialise in teacher training, and we ran seminars with staff and students from the Institute of Educational Technology in each of them. In these seminars, Sarah gave an overview of JISC and CETIS’s missions and aims, along with their programmes and activities to the audience of Chinese colleagues and students. Oleg talked about the major projects and development work that CETIS and the Institute for Educational Cybernetics (IEC) are working on, and the Inter-disciplinary, Inquiry–based learning programme (IDIBL)based at the IEC at Bolton; I t beijing-discussion-21 hen followed up with an input about the UK JISC-funded OER programme and the main challenges this is addressing. These seminars also initiated very interesting discussions with Chinese colleagues and students on various topics, and there is clearly a great deal of interest among colleagues in China in the whole question of Open Educational Resources and what these imply.

It was very impressive to learn that universities in China have developed a comprehensive degree system for teaching, learning and research on education technology in order to service the needs of using technology to extend access to education and improve the quality of teaching and learning in China. In the field, there are 224 universities with bachelor degree programmes, 83 universities offer master level programmes and 8 universities are qualified for PhD programme, whilst 6 universities provide research fellowships. It is clear that the rapid development of education technology as a subject in Chinese universities also poses big challenges on curriculum design and student recruitment. For example, how to keep up with changing technology; how to meet students’ expectations and the needs of the job market in the field.

During the visit, we discussed a wide range of issues with the Chinese colleagues, learnt from different perspectives, shared mutual research interests, and explored opportunities for developing collaborative research projects and partnerships. Sarah and I will write more about our visit to China and what we have learned.

powerpoint1 Finally and most interestingly, we found a street storyteller using an old fashion technology –“Magic Lantern” to present Chinese history stories which attracted many people (different age, gender and culture) who came to visit the modern Shanghai.

Comments (0)