Opening Educational Practices in Scotland Lifelong learning and partnerships: rethinking the university in the digital age Pete Cannell

2 Opening Educational Practices in Scotland Context 1 Scotland - 19 HEIs No fees for full-time undergraduate study but part-time incurs fees The OU in Scotland is part of the OU UK but operates in a distinctly different fee and funding regime; receives almost all of its funding from the devolved Scottish Government through the Scottish Funding Council.

3 Opening Educational Practices in Scotland Context 2 Stubborn persistence of inequality of access to higher education The promise of Open Education is that traditional boundaries and barriers to engagement with higher education can be broken down. The current reality in Scotland and in Europe (recent OECD report) is that Open Education in general and OER in particular is having a relatively limited impact on widening participation and lifelong learning.

4 Opening Educational Practices in Scotland Context 3: Open Education Huge increase in availability of free online resources Online resources OER=open educational resources Typically: Free to use Free to share Free to reversion Free to redistribute

5 Opening Educational Practices in Scotland New project in Scotland Opening Educational Practices in Scotland is a three year project led by the Open University in Scotland but involving all of the higher education sector.

6 Opening Educational Practices in Scotland Origins Strong focus and incentive to work in partnership to widen participation in Scottish Higher Education. Availability of OER resources (OpenLearn …) and high level of expertise within the institution

7 Opening Educational Practices in Scotland OER developed in partnership

8 Opening Educational Practices in Scotland Developing Practice The OEPS focus is on widening participation and transitions from informal to formal education We aim to develop the practices associated with OER that can support participation and transition – OEP not OER Practice is about design, structure and support But also about partnership, networks and social models of learning

9 Opening Educational Practices in Scotland How are we trying to do this? Linking across different educational and user communities Scoping what already exists in terms of practice and understanding – listening hard! Embedded evaluation Researching and reporting Supporting and encouraging the development of new capacity across Scotland Analysing and understanding existing practice Disseminating good practice Developing a Scottish ‘hub’ for OEP

10 Opening Educational Practices in Scotland Example 1 Creating new OER to allow the development of new practice Parkinsons UK – enabling Parkinsons education to be delivered at much greater scale Glasgow University Nuffield Foundation funded programme on ‘end of life care’ – developing a global community of practice Carbon Busters – supporting teachers to develop material around energy and sustainability Women into Science and Technology – working with EQUATE and the OU Science Faculty

11 Opening Educational Practices in Scotland Example 2 Union Learning Representatives into Open Learning Champions Long term partnership (eight years) with Scottish Union Learning

12 Opening Educational Practices in Scotland Example 3 Scottish hub for OEP Iterative development of OLW functionality Scottish hub will sit ‘on top’ of OLW and provide support, community and examples of practice

13 Opening Educational Practices in Scotland Example 4 Existing OER Supporting the development of new practice Evaluating and researching practice

14 Opening Educational Practices in Scotland Conclusions 1 The OER movement’s early focus on licenses and technology was useful, widening participation requires a shift in emphasis, a shift that accounts for peoples, places and the practices of open education Rather than simply looking at the “freedoms” that open licensing affords, the means, it is worth looking at what we want those freedoms to do in the world. The effective implementation of OER is possible through the integration of the processes of identification and co-construction of content with context specific understanding of social relationships and networks. The concept of OEP needs to be understood in the sense of social networks and social context of use.

15 Opening Educational Practices in Scotland Conclusions 2 Partnership working is effective in widening participation but it requires a shift in the traditional boundaries between HEIs – in particular the role of critical intermediaries needs to be recognised and supported. An extended version of this paper can be accessed at: final1.pdf final1.pdf

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