Pete Cannell and Ronald Macintyre How can open educational practices and openly licensed courses support transitions? Pete Cannell and Ronald Macintyre Enhancement Themes conference, Thursday 9 June 2016 John McIntyre Conference Centre, Edinburgh

Hands Up! Hands Up, CC0 Public Domain, Free for commercial use, no attribution required https://pixabay.com/en/hands-hand-raised-hands-raised-220163/

Open Educational Resources (OER) Free educational materials that are openly licensed to allow the 5Rs reuse, revise, remix, redistribute and retain Promise of widening participation

Opening Educational Practices in Scotland (OEPS) Opening Educational Practices in Scotland is a three year cross-sector project led by the Open University in Scotland. The aim of the project is to: Increase awareness and use of open educational resources (OER) in Scotland; Develop greater understanding of OER and promote Open Educational Practices (OEP) in design, production and use. Focus on what OEP can contribute to widening participation and supporting transitions. www.oepscotland.org

What do we mean by OEP? We think of Open Educational Practices as those educational practices that are concerned with and promote equity and openness. Our understanding of ‘open’ builds on the freedoms associated with “the 5 Rs” of OER, promoting a broader sense of open, emphasising social justice, and developing practices that open up opportunities for those distanced from education.

The relevance of OER and OEP to transitions Until recently the use of OER and OEP in WP and transitions has been limited –see Cannell, P http://tinyurl.com/hlbz5k7 In what follows we will look at three ways in which greater use and understanding of OER and OEP can contribute to good practice in transitions www.oeps.ac.uk

Learner Focus Students bring the digital world and experience with them as they transition – Google, YouTube, Wikipedia … Understanding and acknowledging prior experience – which may include ‘open’ Accepting/Supporting the development of digital literacy – which needs to include ‘open’ Understanding student use of online learning resources CC0 Public Domain, Free for commercial use, no attribution required https://pixabay.com/en/notebook-continents-binary-code-1071774/ open infiltrating the classroom

New pedagogical models From resources to practices from ‘content’ to pedagogy? Shifting the boundaries between universities and colleges and providers/facilitators/ organisers of non/in/formal learning Digital Badges

Impact on the curriculum OER/OEP has tended to focus on changes to the way content is “consumed” OEP has the potential to “disrupt” content creation and arguably students are already challenging sites of curriculum production, but it remains invisible within curriculum However, new tools for reversioning and remixing OER courses – bring good quality, contextualised courses into the reach of practitioners. Open licenses allow sharing and collaboration. Badged Online Access and Transition Courses http://www.open.edu/openlearn/comingup

Conclusion OER can help support learners and fill missing steps on learners journeys and/or curriculum supporting transitions. Accept OER and OEP are part of learners journeys, openness is pushing into HE through learners experience, and we need to support and develop learners ability to use these resources. OER and OEP have the potential to reshape the development of curriculum, to help providers reach out, allow communities and learners to reach in, to create curriculum relevant to learners and their context.

QUESTIONS

Contact us Email: OEPScotland@open.ac.uk Social media: @OEPScotland Blog and project progress: www.oepscotland.org Community hub for Open Educational Practice: www.oeps.ac.uk