OER policy, practices and disciplines: Launching the Sustainable Texts project Dr Jane Hughes and Dr Colleen McKenna Authors: Jane Hughes and Colleen McKenna

What are institutions doing? From JISC OER Evaluation & Synthesis blog: author: Helen Beethamhttp://oersynthesis.jiscinvolve.org/wp/

Sharing resources, opening courses Informal sharing of teaching materials –In departments and faculties –VLE/LMS facilitates Institutional repositories –e.g. OpenLearn, MITOpenCourseWare, Nottingham Disciplinary or national repositories –JORUM, MERLOT, Language Box, HUMBOX Moves towards offering courses –Accreditation? –MITx; the OER University –Case study: Coventry photography Photo by JacquiTnature Creative Commons 2.0 CC-BY-NC

Re-using teaching materials Common in departments and course teams Repositories used by those who have encountered OER Non-text resources particularly useful Concerns: time, copyright, quality Disciplinary differences?

What about the students? What opportunities do students get to share their work, and with whom? Do students mind if learning materials come from other institutions? Should students have open access to all of their university’s online course materials? Should open practices be learning objectives? Photo by anselm23: CC-BY-NC-ND

Questions What, apart from teaching materials, can usefully be shared? Teaching methods and approaches, or experiences? Do we/should we routinely design teaching materials for open release? – e.g. copyright cleared, including creative commons licenses? How can open educational practices support interdisciplinary teaching and learning? How do disciplinary differences or educational values impact on engagement with open educational practices? Open education and research-teaching relationships? How far can open educational practices be embedded in university processes – e.g. new course approval, APL? But also What are the risks?

Links and references Coughlan, Tony and Perryman, Leigh-Anne (2011). Something for everyone? The different approaches of academic disciplines to Open Educational Resources and the effect on widening participation. Journal of Open, Flexible and Distance Learning, 15(2), pp. 11–27. OER Impact Study: Coventry University Photography Case Study: university-summary.aspx OER Synthesis and Evaluation blog: university-summary.aspx Amber Thomas blog:

Sustainable Texts and Disciplinary Conversations: OER in practice and policy Photo: Kathleen Cohen

Project partners UCL - Dr Ulrich Tiedau HEDERA – Dr Jane Hughes and Dr Colleen McKenna Sustainable Texts- background Context JISC/HEA OER phase 3: ‘Institutional OER Embedding’ Building on CPD4HE (OER project, UCL , led by Dr Jane Hughes) Developed M-level resources in CPD in academic practice in HE Early career academics Photo: Andrei Ceru Key Areas of Work OER resource in academic practice Disciplinary focus Emphasis on policy Broadening conversations about OER creation, use and practices

Intended outputs: e-book and related materials E-book: texts about teaching and learning by academics and researchers who teach in HE Related resources: podcasts of interviews with e-book authors, writing prompts, workshop plans, presentations Guidance on using the materials, including advice on incorporating writing into professional education courses A toolkit to support institutional OER possibilities and policy Photo: Paul Slick

Contribute to OER and policy conversations Bring people interested in Open Education together Stimulate and extend OER thinking and practices Support policy surrounding OER Photo: Andrei Ceru

Get in touch Website: Photo: Andrei Ceru