Changing the learning landscape Learning to Share: Collaboration & (Open) Quantitative Methods Teaching Resources Online

Changing the learning landscape Luke Sloan School of Social Sciences Cardiff University Luke Sloan School of Social Sciences Cardiff University

Changing the learning landscape 3 Known Difficulties in QM Teaching Teaching QM is hard work & takes time Difficult to engage students Many examples needed (surveys, data) Finding interesting data Finding interesting findings (e.g. heteroscedasticity)

Changing the learning landscape 4 However REF pressures divert time and effort from teaching Often given to junior members of staff Thrown in the deep-end with other duties Career development requires scholarship in substantive areas, not generic methods

Changing the learning landscape 5 The Result… We do the ‘best we can’ (but not the ‘best we could’) Tendency to teach what we already know Scores of individuals in scores of institutions recreating QM materials on the same topics We could save ourselves much time and effort by pooling our resources To a certain extent this can apply to all modules, but the level of difficulty and anxiety students experience with QM exacerbates these issues

Changing the learning landscape 6 An Effective QM Curriculum Is collaborative Draws on experts from multiple substantive areas (many examples!) Peer reviewed teaching materials? Pooling of assessment regimes (e.g. MCQs)

Changing the learning landscape 7 Dissemination of Materials

Changing the learning landscape 8

9 ACTIVITY: Barriers or Excuses? Barriers to Sharing? ‘Sharing’ suggests a reciprocal arrangement – what’s in it for me? I’ve put a lot of effort into my materials, why would I just let someone else use my work? My materials are very subject specific so they wouldn’t be much use to anyone else Someone might plagiarise my resources There are already examples using t-tests online so why should I upload another version? People learn a subject through teaching it and may be tempted to take shortcuts (i.e. ‘off the shelf’ teaching) Private curriculum providers will have free access to academic materials

Changing the learning landscape 10 Group Discussion Barriers (?)Observations ‘Sharing’ suggests a reciprocal arrangement – what’s in it for me? Reciprocity is not always like-for-like (profile raising, constructive criticism) I’ve put a lot of effort into my materials, why would I just let someone else use my work? We put a lot of effort into our research and publications partly to save others from repeating what we have already done My materials are very subject specific so they wouldn’t be much use to anyone else I’d rather have a skeleton outline of a topic (or pedagogic approach) than nothing at all Someone might plagiarise my resources A Creative Commons license will protect your materials and ensure that you are credited There are already examples using t-tests online so why should I upload another version? Yours might be better! Alternatively your pedagogic style might be easier for some people to learn from People learn a subject through teaching it and may be tempted to take shortcuts (i.e. ‘off the shelf’ teaching) Have you ever tried to teach with someone else’s slides and no preparation? Private curriculum providers will have free access to academic materials Don’t they already? Online resources for core textbooks? “Clients buy the consultancy not the product.”

Changing the learning landscape 11 Protecting Authorship Your materials can be protected under a Creative Commons license Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike (CC BY-NC-SA): This license lets others remix, tweak and build upon your work non-commercially, as long as they credit you and license their new creations under the identical terms. Source: [accessed 22/01/13] This licensing structure is built-in to platforms such as JORUM (

Changing the learning landscape 12 Summary If we’re serious about improving the QM experience for students then why wouldn’t we work together? Imagine the advantages of having a central bank of multiple choice questions (so what if students can access them?) Build a teaching profile online Get added value from all the effort and hard work you put into you teaching materials (what have you got to lose?) Resources sharing is likely to be a future agenda

Changing the learning landscape Learning to Share: Collaboration & (Open) Quantitative Methods Teaching Resources Online Luke Sloan School of Social Sciences Cardiff University Luke Sloan School of Social Sciences Cardiff University