Description
In 2013 UTAS developed a technology enhanced learning and teaching White Paper that provided centrally endorsed strategies for the implementation of sustainable Open Educational Practices (OEP) (Brown et al., 2013). At its heart, is an examination of how UTAS can use technology to extend its influence and contributions to teaching and learning locally, nationally and internationally through the sharing of learning and teaching resources. The White Paper recommended the development of a high quality learning resources repository that provides for the sharing of learning resources across the University and openly. It was submitted that this provides for an economy of scale in the production of teaching resources, quality improvement and the opportunity for communities of teaching practice to develop. However, past UTAS experiences in making learning resources available to various user groups raised numerous challenges relating to active management of object rights and the development of cultural change within the university to encourage the sharing of such resources. A second recommendation of the White Paper was to facilitate, and recognise through performance expectations, the role of all staff in developing their digital scholarship practices. In this respect the challenge for UTAS was a lack of technological means to recognise OEP through performance expectations.
To address these challenges a small team from across UTAS established and conducted the Sharing Learning Resources Project (SLRP) during the course of 2015. The aim of the project was to establish a staff culture of sharing learning resources through the use of a UTAS Learning Object Repository (LOR). A purpose built repository was developed with functionality for UTAS academics to deposit and create learning resources that enhance curriculum offerings and meet Teaching Performance Expectations (TPEs) through a repository based openly accessible peer review process. This presentation provides an overview of results from SLRP with a focus on findings from embedding peer review processes within a repository and how they have been used to address UTAS TPEs.
BROWN, N., KREGOR, G., WILLIAMS, G., PADGETT, L., BOSSU , C., WARREN, V. & OSBORNE, J. 2013. Technology enhanced learning and teaching white paper 2014-2018 [Online]. Hobart: University of Tasmania. Available: http://www.teaching-learning.utas.edu.au/news/news/telt-white-paper [Accessed 28 Aug 2015].