Open Educational Resources: Recent experience developing university courses in Barbados Griff Richards Director, Technology Enhanced Knowledge Research Institute Athabasca University CANADA ICT & Education Conference, Kazan 21 April 2010

Look OER Participants University of the West Indies (Barbados)

What do we mean by “Open”? Open Education = any adult could enroll, no prerequisite barriers Open Source = anyone could modify/ use computer code for free Open Educational Resources = Free to use/ copy/ modify/ republish

Why Open Educational Resources? 1. The increasing demand for education (especially in the developing world) can not be met with current cost models. OER can reduce costs of course development by using “free” content. 2. Academic papers on research results are mostly paid for by governments, but publishers own the copyright and limit circulation. Open content can increase circulation of scientific knowledge.

OER Pilot Project “Is it practical to develop university courses using OERs?” University of the West Indies and Athabasca University March 2010 – Barbados – Use OERs to develop curriculum outlines for 6 courses Funding from Canada Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade.

UWI-AU Project Team

OER Pilot Project Step 1 - Select 6 modules in area of common interest (Instructional Design) Step 2 - Find and review available OER from list of 30 relevant OER sites Step 3 - Week long workshop of course developers/ experts to integrate OERs

Results of Search for relevant OER 1. Google. Google search is fastest method for finding sources of OER. 2. Repositories (list at ) Repositories provide deeper results, but poor metadata makes them less efficient. 3. Format, Focus and content Quality is varied. An OER may be relevant, but it may not fit the time, scope or audience. 4. Ownership and Usage rights are not clearly indicated. e.g. Can I use it? Does OER contain other people’s content?

Lawrence Lessig: Creative Commons license enables re-use

Results of OER integration into modules 1. Yes, there are an abundance of OER We found OER for almost every topic! 2. Size is varied. Some complete modules, others short resources. 3. Localization is the main issue. Not all the resources could be easily adapted. Language, Context and Length of Object main problems. 4. Introductions needed to provide context An OER may be relevant, but most need explanation of relevance and directions on what learner is to do with them. 5. Most OER text or PPT slides – very little dynamic/ interactive content Social content is difficult to integrate into a course.

Summary YES! OER are a viable option for quick and low cost course development OER provide both content and ideas for content development Providers need to pay more attention to CC licenses If you can’t find it, you should build it and then give it away!

Back to Barbados

Open Educational Resources Griff Richards, PhD Director, Technology Enhanced Knowledge Research Institute Athabasca University CANADA ICT & Education Conference, Kazan, 21 April