HEFCE/Higher Education Academy/JISC cc-by-sa (uk2.5) Image source – flickr (cc-by) OER and the Open Agenda Malcolm Read, Executive Secretary, JISC The CED image is used under “fair use”. Other images from this presentation use Microsoft Clip art, and thus must be used in adherence to their conditions: (

HEFCE/Higher Education Academy/JISC cc-by-sa (uk2.5) Open Source – software Open Standards – interoperability Open Access – research outputs Open Data – research data, public data, others Open Educational Resources – course material Open Science – and open innovation The Openness Agenda

HEFCE/Higher Education Academy/JISC cc-by-sa (uk2.5) “Open” – What? Why? The internet is changing the nature of information, processes and institutions Higher education is rooted in information its creation, analysis, and transmission the development of the skills required to utilize it for the benefit of individuals and society. "Harnessing Openness to Improve Research, Teaching and Learning in Higher Education," a report by the Digital Connections Council of the Committee for Economic Development nomy/dcc_opennessedu09.pdf

HEFCE/Higher Education Academy/JISC cc-by-sa (uk2.5) Academia and Openness Collegiality Communities of scholars Building on the work of others Consensus decisions Collaboration Reputation built by attribution – and more valuable than material reward

HEFCE/Higher Education Academy/JISC cc-by-sa (uk2.5) The Business of Academia Institutional competition (for students, grants, projects…) Multiple sources of funding The Enterprise Office – knowledge exploitation Employer links and employer “ownership” of information Short term staff contracts – need to “build a profile”

HEFCE/Higher Education Academy/JISC cc-by-sa (uk2.5) The UKOER pilot programme HEFCE funded one year programme – run by JISC with the Higher Education Academy. subject 14 projects institution 7 projects individual 8 projects support function – covering technical, legal, strategic advice, workshops, support for deposit and aggregation of materials, communities of practice. Based around existing JISC services and the OU “SCORE” project. OER infokit – a “how to” guide for future work evaluation & synthesis function Programme Management

HEFCE/Higher Education Academy/JISC cc-by-sa (uk2.5) Unique aspects of UKOER A collection of small pilot studies Low level of funding Embraces plurality of release models Focus on building sustainable practice Low (technical) barriers to participation Projects promoting themselves to their key audience Rather release than not release, even if only a more restrictive license is possible

HEFCE/Higher Education Academy/JISC cc-by-sa (uk2.5) UKOER: new challenges Need to focus on the discovery and use of OER Is there a benefit to the learning processes from OER? Can we use OER availability to support the needs of the sector? How can we learn from the experiences of the pilot (and other projects)?

HEFCE/Higher Education Academy/JISC cc-by-sa (uk2.5) UKOER: new funding £4m from HEFCE over one further year Will incorporate: Cascade model of project support New release projects around sector priorities Aggregation of OER around thematic areas Examination of the effects of OER on pedagogy

HEFCE/Higher Education Academy/JISC cc-by-sa (uk2.5) The OER use case For prospective learners – to get a sense of what studying a particular course at a particular institution is like For formal and informal learners – to get access to a range of material to complement and inform their studies For institutions – to allow the world to see the quality of their learning resources and the learning experiences they offer For academics – to reuse and repurpose material rather than creating new material, saving time and leading to higher quality material

HEFCE/Higher Education Academy/JISC cc-by-sa (uk2.5) Discoverability The Library Way – a directory/database which uses a common hierarchical set of vocabularies. Great when… you know exactly what you are looking for Great when… your conception of what something should be categorised under matches that of the person who filed it The Web Way – powerful (and unrestricted) free text search. Great when… you are looking for information rather than a particular item. Great when… you are capable of validating the quality and utility of material for yourself

HEFCE/Higher Education Academy/JISC cc-by-sa (uk2.5) A third way? Minimal metadata (tagging) Multiple places to deposit material Multiple methods of finding material (including common search engines) Recommendations (from peers? from experts?) Aggregations and collections of material around particular themes OER as one component of what is available (alongside research outputs, news stories, websites, people…)

HEFCE/Higher Education Academy/JISC cc-by-sa (uk2.5) A wider context OER should be seen as one part of a "layer" of open academic and scholarly content, alongside: research outputs (journal articles, monographs etc) research data on-line text books and organised as an international resource to benefit society, education, research and culture. Resources will be world wide or regional/local depending on language

HEFCE/Higher Education Academy/JISC cc-by-sa (uk2.5) Conclusions OER should be seen as a part of a wider movement making information and tools widely available for the greater good. There is unlikely to be one way of organising or discovering OER – we need to consider multiple structures and working with users. The “user” experience of OER is under-researched – some work is ongoing (eg. OlNet) but there is a need for much more. And we need to identify and replicate low-cost, sustainable models of release.