PROWE (personal repositories: online wiki environments) using new networking tools and shared repositories to support part-time distance tutors’ professional development Lara Whitelaw & Anne Hewling Open University

PROWE – what is it? Combines: new communications tools e.g. wikis and blogs part-time distance tutors/associate lecturers continuing professional development needs communities of practice social networking tools repository theory and practice

What drives it? "In what ways could wiki and wiki-type environments be useful and useable as personal and informal repositories to support professional development within part-time tutor communities of practice?"

What does that mean in practice? What are the CPD needs of part-time teaching/tutoring staff? What kind of sharing do these staff already do, or need to do, or want to do? What can new technologies like wikis, blogs etc. offer in response to these needs and wishes?

Institutional context - OU Around 150,000 undergraduate and more than 30,000 postgraduate distance students Nearly all students are studying part-time About 70 per cent of undergraduate students are in full-time employment and more than 50,000 students are sponsored by their employers More than 25,000 OU students live outside the UK

Staffing context: OU More than 7,000 tutors with diverse backgrounds All dispersed around UK, Europe and elsewhere Highly structured learning/teaching/working environment Distance-only institution Moving towards Moodle in 2007

Institutional context - UoL Around 10,000 undergraduate and 8,000 postgraduate 6,000 students are studying part-time distance courses both in UK and overseas 65% of postgraduates are on courses with a significant distance learning, often online, element

Staffing context: UoL Approximately 350 Associate Tutors In at least 11 departments A wide range of tutor roles, duties, activity/involvement levels Blended environment Moved to Blackboard in 2005

What has happened so far? user needs assessment tools assessment elgg and Plone – testing environments metadata and repository set-up

Personal Repository Metadata As these are personal repositories the metadata profile has been developed to be as light as possible The project is looking at the use of folksonomies for the development of a community based vocabulary Librarians will be reviewing metadata and the supporting documentation throughout ensure the profile an vocabularies are appropriate and sustainable once the project come to an end.

Continual Professional Development Personal/Continual Development profiles for users mapped to IMS LIP/UK LEAP/FOAF Further investigation into staff needs regard CPD. Exploring the possibilities of: Developing some form of indicative internal assessment of CDP from activities within the environment Developing mechanism for exporting CPD evidence for external assessors where evidence needs to submitted in set formats Integration with staff management system to reduce duplication and the amount of data asked of the user up front when they first create their user profile

What happens next? bigger and better trialling (more people, longer, more directed activity) development of documentation and models evaluation reaching some conclusions…

Matters arising Is anyone out there interested in sharing? What are their existing pedagogical models and how do they expect things to roll out? what is a typical tutor and what are typical needs? facilitation

PROWE: “A community is like a ship: everyone ought to be prepared to take the helm.” Henrik Ibsen

Contact us: Web page: Project Project Officer (OU): Metadata Development Manager: