Developing Open Practice in Scotland [1077] Members : #OER16

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Wed, Apr 20 2016, 10:30am – 11:30am

Authors: Ronald MacIntyre, and Pete Cannell

Room: Prestonfield

Theme: Strategic and reputational advantages of openness

Type: Presentation

Description

Since it started in summer 2014 Open Educational Practices Scotland (OEPS) has been working across the formal and informal education sectors in Scotland to develop good practice in the use of Open Educational Resources (OER). OEPS has a specific focus on lifelong learning, widening participation and educational transitions (Cannell, 2015). This paper explores four interlinked themes: social pedagogical practices; public facing scholarship; supporting wider engagement OER; and remixing and reversioning content.

OEPS has worked with union and third sector partners to co-create and evaluate practice designed to support non-traditional learners. Social learning practices emerge as a response to the challenge of realising the promise that open education will widen participation (D’Antoni, 2013). In some cases this activity has been designed to support learning for work but frequently the OER are less obviously work related and are part of a broader set of social relations which draws in and is drawn together by OER.

This is part of the broader work with Third Sector and University partners to co-design new OER to create a set of exemplars of new content and new practice, bringing new kinds of voices into the open. Our partners are interested in public engagement often related to research or a social mission. Our collaborative design process looks at how to align the needs of open learners with the capabilities of the organisation (Macintyre 2015) and looks at how we might develop new models for scholarship and knowledge exchange.

Across these areas we are observing evidence of what Wild (2012) refers to as the ‘ladder of OER engagement’ through which tentative engagement with the use of OER leads to exploration of the freedoms that open licensing affords. We explore how this journey is nuanced in different contexts and explore some of the implications for policy, practice and support for the individuals who undertake the journey. We will also discuss how specific examples have informed the design and development of the OEPS online hub for open educational practice (see here http://www.oeps.ac.uk/). We return to the idea of an OER and discuss a shift from a focus on the effective use of OER to ideas about reversioning and remixing as a way of developing well tested and contextualised material in the open, highlighting the affordances of OpenLearnCreate (Page 2015) as a means to enable those practices.

References

Cannell, P. (2015 in press) ‘Lifelong learning and partnerships: rethinking the boundaries of the university in the digital age’ Widening Participation and Lifelong Learning

D’Antoni, S. (2013) ‘Open Educational Resources: Access to Knowledge – A Personal Reflection’ in McGreal, R., Kinuthia, W. and Marshall, S. (eds) (2013) Open Educational Resources: Innovation, Research and Practice. Vancouver: The Commonwealth of Learning and Athabasca University

Page, A. (2015) OpenLearnWorks to OpenLearnCreate http://oepscotland.org/2015/11/05/openlearn-works-to-openlearn-create/ Date accessed: 11 November 2015

Macintyre R. (2015) The Open Design Workshop Structure, http://www.oeps.ac.uk/create-your-own/open-learning-design-workshops-structure Date Accessed 12th of November 2015

Wild, J. (2012) OER Engagement Study: Promoting OER reuse among academics http://www.open.ac.uk/score/files/score/file/Joanna%20Wild%20SCORE%20Fellowship%20Final%20Report%20-%20web%20version.pdf Date accessed: 9 November 2015

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