Eden2014 poerup-bacsich- pepler draft final

POERUP:Initiatives and Policies for OER Uptake –

the final stocktake

Paul Bacsich and Giles Pepler, Sero

EDEN2014Zagreb, Croatia10-13 June 2014

POERUP Partners

1. Sero (coordinator)2. University of Leicester3. Open University

of the Netherlands4. University of Lorraine5. SCIENTER6. EDEN7. Athabasca University (Canada)

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Context and rationale (early 2011)

• Over ten years of the OER movement• OER repositories in many countries, yet…• Lack of uptake by teachers and learners• Foreseen lack of funding (in EU)• Shift from development to community building

and articulation of OER practice

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Focus of POERUP• Stimulating the uptake of OER through policy• Building on previous initiatives (such as OPAL,

Olnet and SCORE)• Through country reports (target 24, now 33) • And case studies, evaluating OER communities• Linked to ODS, IIEP, IPTS and non-EU initiatives• And now to eMundus,….

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POERUP Achievements

• Inventory of more than 500 OER initiatives worldwide (120 notable)

• 33 country reports - most being updated

• 7 case studies including Wikiwijs, ALISON (Ireland), OER U (global) and FutureLearn (UK mostly)

• 3 EU-level policy documents for universities, VET and schools

• In progress: 8 policy documents for UK (x3), Ireland, France, Netherlands, Poland – and Canada

KA3 ICT

This presentation and workshop

• Summarises our process and conclusions• Gives a snapshot of initiatives (Paul)• In the context of “OER mapping”

• Summarises our policy recommendations and gives a snapshot of policies (Giles)

• Encourages you to contribute

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Country reports and initiatives

Then Giles will look at policies(no time to discuss case studies)

Country reports (done by POERUP)

• 33 in all, at least one from each continent• Europe: 15 out of 28 EU states; and Norway• Americas: US, Canada, Mexico, Argentina• Asia: Gulf States, Jordan, Thailand• Africa: South Africa, Rwanda• Australia and New Zealand

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Country reports – conclusions

• Many countries seem to be doing little OER– But a lot under the radar (eg Open Access, teacher

repositories, schools ICT initiatives)– And some formerly inactive countries rushing ahead

• Even fewer have policies about or even directly relevant to OER

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Country reports – issues• Relied on other projects that were claiming to

be doing OER reports, tried to avoid overlap• Worked out well with OER Asia, less well with

other projects• Did not take account of countries entering the

OER scene late or reports going out of date

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Country reports – solutions

• Currently updating most of the country reports• Also reporting on some new countries• Also done rapid continental “helicopter” scans

across Africa, Hispanic America and Asia – Focussing just on initiatives and policies not context

• Produced an OER initiatives map, plus data supplied to collaborators in “common format” –collaboration with eMundus

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OER mapping issues… demo and discussion• Initiatives or institutions?• Institution names – and their addresses• Finding geocodes and nudging geomicrocodes• Pin clustering and separation• The need for a prototyping map • The OER Map workbench – bit.ly/poerupmap

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Policy interventions (Giles)

To foster OER and activities that in turn will foster OER

Current OER policies• In some countries (e.g. Portugal) almost every

university has an open access policy, though not necessarily specifically mentioning OER

• But relatively few national policies• Where there are national policies, these are often

limited in scope and largely concerned with publicly funded research in HE

• POERUP is concerned with national (and regional) policies, not institutional

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European OER policies and other policy sightings ...

• Policies (as against initiatives) detected in 9 European countries

• And in at least 9 countries outside Europe• Lots of policies in USA and China• At least 3 (non-European) countries with proposed

policies• https://mapsengine.google.com/map/edit?mid=z-3iK

lfDOx58.k9cGxYzGNaJw

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Policy interventions?

• interventions that link OER to open access, to research and to standards.

• interventions that foster the phenomena (including access, cost and quality; but also others such as development and informed citizenry) that OER is said to facilitate (even if so far without sufficient evidence).

• interventions that serve to reduce or dismantle the barriers to creation of innovative institutions and innovative practice (including OER, MOOCs and open educational practices).

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Themes for policy recommendations

• Communication and awareness raising• Funding• Copyright / licensing • Reducing regulatory barriers• Quality • Teacher training and continuous professional development• Certification and accreditation• Infrastructure • Further research

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Communication and awareness raising

- Awareness of existing resources- Continued support for existing programmes –

e.g. Europeana

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Funding

Costs and sustainability are still neglected in OER initiatives and there is little of the US

‘Foundation’ resourcing tradition in Europe• Outputs of publicly funded research• Innovation fund(s)• Cost basis of university teaching• Output based funding

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Copyright and licensing• Implement actions on copyright harmonisation –

leading to legislation • Mount a campaign both centrally and via the

Member States to educate all teachers and trainers on IPR issues

• Support the development of technological methods to provide more and standardized information to the users of digital educational content

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Reducing regulatory barriers

• ‘Bologna 2’ – competences gained, not duration of study

• Standardised undergraduate syllabi – and VET?

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Quality• Include OER on approved instructional materials lists• OER to meet (disability) accessibility standards• An OER evaluation and adoption panel• Specialist OER function/post to undertake an in-country cost-benefit

analysis to assess the potential savings (or otherwise) which might be achieved through implementing an OER strategy

• Establish a European quality assurance standard for OER content produced in Europe?

• Quality agencies should consider the effects of these new modes of learning on quality assurance and recognition and ensure that there is no implicit non-evidence-based bias against these new modes when accrediting, assessing and inspecting institutions and programmes

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Teacher training and CPD

Very few programmes of ITT currently include training in teaching and learning online, or the skill set required to manage distance learning

• Establish (and adequately fund) a professional development programme to help teachers and administrators understand the benefits and uses of OER and open licensing. This would support teacher / trainer / lecturer CPD on the creation, use and re-use of OER, with coverage of distance learning, MOOCs and other forms of open educational practice, and also IPR issues

• Establish incentive schemes for teachers engaged in online professional development of their pedagogic skills including online learning.

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Certification and accreditation

• What’s happened to EQF?• Transnational accrediting agencies and mutual recognition of

accreditations across the EU• APL (Accreditation of Prior Learning) including the ability to

accredit knowledge and competences developed through online study and informal learning

• Open Accreditor and Accreditor of last resort

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Infrastructure

• Levelling out disparities across the EU to maximise the potential benefits of OER

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Further researchFocus on sustainable business models for OER and innovation• Research into the verifiable benefits of OER, with greater efforts to

integrate such analyses with its ongoing research on distance learning, on-campus online learning, and pedagogy

• Future K-12 OER research should explicitly embrace Repositories, Federations, Portals and Tools and should consider off-campus learning (both institutional – virtual schools – and self-directed or home-tutor led)

• Support educational institutions in developing new business and educational models

• Launch large-scale research and policy experimentations to test innovative pedagogical approaches, curriculum development and skills assessment

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Themes for policy recommendations• Communication and awareness raising• Funding• Copyright / licensing• Reducing regulatory barriers• Quality• Teacher training and continuous professional development• Certification and accreditation• Infrastructure• Further research

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Thank you for listening – and for contributing!

Paul Bacsich and Giles PeplerFor the POERUP team

http://www.poerup.infohttp://poerup.referata.com/wiki/Main_Page

Email [email protected] [email protected]