Igor Lesko: The Use & Creation of Open Educational Resources & OpenCourseWare in Teaching in South African Higher Education Institutions (Case Study)

Open Sharing, Global BenefitsThe OpenCourseWare Consortium

www.ocwconsortium.org

advancing formal and informal learning through the worldwide sharing and use of free, open, high-quality education materials organized as courses.

The Use & Creation of Open Educational Resources & OpenCourseWare in Teaching in South African Higher

Education InstitutionsCase Study

Igor LeskoHELTASA, November 28-30, 2012, Stellenbosch, South

[email protected]

Unless otherwise noted, the presentation “The Use & Creation of Open Educational Resources & OpenCourseWare in Teaching in South African Higher Education Institutions” by Igor Lesko is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.

advancing formal and informal learning through the worldwide sharing and use of free, open, high-quality education materials organized as courses.

Aim of the Presentation

Report on the results from a case study on the use & production of OER/OCW amongst academics based at SA HEIs including:

• Motivation• Benefits• Challenges

advancing formal and informal learning through the worldwide sharing and use of free, open, high-quality education materials organized as courses.

Structure of the Presentation

• Definitions: OER and OCW

• Milestones: Open Educational Resources (OER)OpenCourseWare (OCW)

• Justification for the case study

• Methodology

• Results

• Conclusion

advancing formal and informal learning through the worldwide sharing and use of free, open, high-quality education materials organized as courses.

Definitions: OER & OCW

• OER are commonly referred to as “digitized materials offered freely and openly for educators, students and self-learners to use and re-use for teaching, learning and research.” OECD, 2007: http://tiny.cc/onq7lw

• An OpenCourseWare (OCW) is a free and open digital publication of high quality college and university level ‐educational materials. These materials are organized as courses, and often include course planning materials and evaluation tools as well as thematic content: http://www.ocwconsortium.org/en/aboutus/whatisocw

advancing formal and informal learning through the worldwide sharing and use of free, open, high-quality education materials organized as courses.

Definitions: OER & OCW

Both OER and OCW are licensed under conditions that permit their use, reuse, redistribution and/or adaptation.

See Creative Commons: www.creativecommons.org. The producers of OER/OCW determine which copyright permissions are granted to users of OER/OCW:

• CC BY• CC BY-SA• CC BY-ND• CC BY-NC• CC BY-NC-SA• CC BY-NC-ND

advancing formal and informal learning through the worldwide sharing and use of free, open, high-quality education materials organized as courses.

OER, OCW & OCWC Important Milestones I

• 2001 – Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) – decision to make courses from its entire curriculum available online for free, under open licenses, known as OpenCourseWare (OCW):http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2001/ocw.html

• 2002 – Term OER adopted during the “The First Global OER Forum” organized by UNESCO: http://portal.unesco.org/ci/en/ev.php-URL_ID=2492&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html

advancing formal and informal learning through the worldwide sharing and use of free, open, high-quality education materials organized as courses.

OER, OCW & OCWC Important Milestones II

• 2005 – Launch of International OER Community by UNESCO IIEP: http://www.unesco.org/iiep/virtualuniversity/

• 2007 – Cape Town Open Education Declaration:http://www.capetowndeclaration.org/

• 2007 – OECD: Giving Knowledge for Free: The Emergence of Open Educational Resourceshttp://www.oecd.org/edu/ceri/givingknowledgeforfreetheemergenceofopeneducationalresources.htm

advancing formal and informal learning through the worldwide sharing and use of free, open, high-quality education materials organized as courses.

OER, OCW & OCWC Important Milestones III

• 2008 – Global OpenCourseWare Consortium established www.ocwconsortium.org

• 2012 – Paris OER Declarationhttp://oercongress.weebly.com/paris-declaration.html

advancing formal and informal learning through the worldwide sharing and use of free, open, high-quality education materials organized as courses.

Who we arewww.ocwconsortium.org

Over 250 institutions and organizations worldwide supporting open sharing in education

21%

13%

2%

22%

1%

1%

32%7%

1%

More than 20 000 courses

advancing formal and informal learning through the worldwide sharing and use of free, open, high-quality education materials organized as courses.

Two Important Invitations

1. OCWC Global 2013 Conference Date: May 8-10, Bali, Indonesia. OpenCourseWare Consortium Global Conference: opportunity to learn from practitioners in the field and learn new ideas: http://conferences.ocwconsortium.org/

2. Open Education WeekOpen Education Week takes place online and in locally hosted events around the world. The purpose of Open Education Week is to raise awareness of the open education movement and its impact on teaching and learning worldwide. For more information visit http://www.openeducationweek.org/ or email [email protected]

advancing formal and informal learning through the worldwide sharing and use of free, open, high-quality education materials organized as courses.

Justification for the Case Study I

With thousands of OER/OCW having been produced and shared under open licenses thus far, the focus of the open education movement has shifted on the need to demonstrate the impact of open education initiatives worldwide:

• Who are the users of OCW/OER?• For which purpose (s) do they use OCW/OER?• With what impact?

advancing formal and informal learning through the worldwide sharing and use of free, open, high-quality education materials organized as courses.

Justification for the Case Study II

Challenge: Obtaining feedback from users of OER/OCW

• No need to log into specific websites reliance on voluntary feedback

• Reliance on website user statistics for data number of downloads, time spent on websites, users’ geographical location

• Despite emerging studies lack of data who the users are, how they are using OER/OCW and with what impact

advancing formal and informal learning through the worldwide sharing and use of free, open, high-quality education materials organized as courses.

Justification for the Case Study III – Example: OCWC User Feedback Survey

Source: OCWC Feedback Survey March 2011 - August 2012, CC BY, OCWC

advancing formal and informal learning through the worldwide sharing and use of free, open, high-quality education materials organized as courses.

Justification for the Case Study III – Example: OCWC User Feedback Survey

- Feedback survey active on the OCWC website since April 2011

- Data gathered from 1037 respondents from over 80 countries

- Nearly half of all the users (43%) are students currently undergoing secondary or university-level education

- Self-learners represent 22% of all the respondents followed by a group of working professionals (22%)

- Teachers and faculty members forming 9% of all the respondents.

- 20% of respondents indicated that they use OCW to supplement or create teaching materials

advancing formal and informal learning through the worldwide sharing and use of free, open, high-quality education materials organized as courses.

Methodology I

• Research carried out as part of a project on Emerging ICTs in Higher Education (http://www.emergingicts.blogspot.com/)

• National survey conducted in 2011 with academics and e-learning practitioners based at various HEIs in SA, probing respondents on innovative teaching and learning practices using Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) over the past 3 to five years

• Purposive and snowball sampling methods

advancing formal and informal learning through the worldwide sharing and use of free, open, high-quality education materials organized as courses.

Methodology II

• Out of 261 respondents, 120 indicated that they used OER/OCW on a regular basis (24%) or at least once (22%) in 2011

• During the period 15 February 2012 – 31 March 2012, a subsequent survey was distributed to 97 respondents who had agreed to be contacted for follow up questions

• Lime survey, a free open source survey application, was used to develop the survey instrument: http://www.limesurvey.org/

advancing formal and informal learning through the worldwide sharing and use of free, open, high-quality education materials organized as courses.

Methodology III

Survey questions related to:

• Characteristics of respondents; • Characteristics of OER/OCW materials used in teaching; • Ways of using OER/OCW in teaching and with what impact; • Rationale for using OER/OCW; • Creation and rationale for the creation of OER/OCW; • Practices related to using of OA journals; • Respondents’ understanding of regulations (license terms)

that govern ownership and use, reuse or modification of OER/OCW and of course materials produced by faculty;

• Challenges related to using or producing of OER/OCW

advancing formal and informal learning through the worldwide sharing and use of free, open, high-quality education materials organized as courses.

Results: Characteristics of Respondents

• Responses received from 48 respondents

• 17 Higher Education Institutions in SA

• Level of Appointments: Ranging from junior lecturer – professor – non academic

• Teaching undergraduate, postgraduate or a combination of undergraduate and postgraduate courses

advancing formal and informal learning through the worldwide sharing and use of free, open, high-quality education materials organized as courses.

Results: Characteristics of OER/OCW used in Teaching I

Note: Respondents could choose more than one option so totals/percentages do not add up to 48/100%

advancing formal and informal learning through the worldwide sharing and use of free, open, high-quality education materials organized as courses.

Results: Characteristics of OER/OCW used in Teaching II

• OER/OCW in teaching:

- video and audio lectures (47%) & images, graphs or data representations (47%)

- 40% use free quizzes, exercises, assessment tools or worksheets

- Full free courses (known as OCW) have been used by 25% of all the respondents

• Sources of OER/OCW: Various OCW websites (such as MIT OCW, OU UK); YouTube, SlideShare, Institutional Repositories, Vimeo, or Flickr

advancing formal and informal learning through the worldwide sharing and use of free, open, high-quality education materials organized as courses.

Results: Characteristics of OER/OCW used in Teaching III – Most Useful Resources

Note: Respondents could choose more than one option so totals/percentages do not add up to 48/100%

Images and video resources (42% & 42% respectively) identified as the most useful OER/OCW in classroom setting. Images and video resources are followed by lecture slides (33%), tutorials & learning exercises (27%) and theoretical or conceptual explanations (23%).

advancing formal and informal learning through the worldwide sharing and use of free, open, high-quality education materials organized as courses.

Results: Rationale for using OER/OCW in Teaching I

Note: Respondents could choose more than one option so totals/percentages do not add up to 48/100%

advancing formal and informal learning through the worldwide sharing and use of free, open, high-quality education materials organized as courses.

Results: Rationale for using OER/OCW in Teaching II

• 69% making OER/OCW available as additional resources to their students

• 56% use OER/OCW to improve their knowledge in the field

• 46% include OER/OCW in their teaching materials or course syllabus

• 33% of respondents have used OER/OCW to help develop or revise curriculum for their departments or schools

advancing formal and informal learning through the worldwide sharing and use of free, open, high-quality education materials organized as courses.

Results: Rationale for using OER/OCW in Teaching III

Further elaborations on the educational rationale for using OER/OCW in teaching:

• Scarcity of content in certain subject areas • To enhance teaching practices - a variety of perspectives

related to a specific subject matter • To encourage supplemental independent learning and to

develop skills needed in order to evaluate appropriateness of online content

• OER/OCW save time to develop teaching materials • To encourage a more learner-centered learning approach • To share expertise in specific fields or because of

respondents’ beliefs related to benefits of open sharing in education

advancing formal and informal learning through the worldwide sharing and use of free, open, high-quality education materials organized as courses.

Results: Rationale for using OER/OCW in Teaching IV – Selection of Quotes I

“I am experiencing a shocking level of "ability to study", "ability to critically assess materials" etc, even at post-graduate level. Scarcity of resources in

South African Education could at least partially, be overcome by encouraging students to discover certain aspects of content for themselves”.

“For me knowledge is a commons and knowledge creation is and should be an open collaborative process. In sharing of content and skills via teaching I

believe in promoting open and collaborative efforts”.

“Get better insight and information on the subject I teach”.

“Anyone can look up the material I choose to use. The challenge is to make sense of what is out there and I can use class time to help students learn to

do this actively, discussing and questioning selected material. I want them to learn life-long study skills as well as the topics we're studying”.

advancing formal and informal learning through the worldwide sharing and use of free, open, high-quality education materials organized as courses.

Results: Rationale for using OER/OCW in Teaching IV – Selection of Quotes II

“Enhances self-study and online learning”.

“It is important that I provide various avenues for participants to engage with the content material and add their own understanding and using OER/OCW

helps me do that”.

“Saves time having to design/develop own materials”.

“Remaining current and evaluating the contextual relevance of the OER for our learning purpose”.

“Student centered learning - the student is in charge of their studies and

knowledge creation. To find knowledge and to create knowledge now a days is so very easy. I am just the facilitator, students need to use all available

information”.

advancing formal and informal learning through the worldwide sharing and use of free, open, high-quality education materials organized as courses.

Results: Rationale for using OER/OCW in Teaching IV – Selection of Quotes III

“OER fits my philosophy of teaching and learning i.e. that knowledge is for the public good. Why should privileged people have more access? I believe in

using interactive participatory approaches that empower students to find their content for learning then use the classroom for critical discussions. OER

broadens the scope for learning. It offers students and teachers greater opportunities to do this”.

“Using these resources expands the dialogue within my discipline by

connecting other disciplines and countries to my own context. This enables students to visualize their role in the international dialogue and evidence

based practice”.

“The best reason to use OERs in SA is to share expertise with similar context, or to develop South African contexts for various educational resources, but using the best quality content from around SA, around Africa & the world”.

advancing formal and informal learning through the worldwide sharing and use of free, open, high-quality education materials organized as courses.

Results: Use of Open Access (OA) Journals

In addition to using OER/OCW, 75% of respondents indicated that they had used Open Access journals in the past year, with 42% of those who had used information obtained from OA journals for teaching and nearly 71% who had used OA journals for research purposes.

Note: Respondents could choose more than one option so totals/percentages do not add up to 48/100%

advancing formal and informal learning through the worldwide sharing and use of free, open, high-quality education materials organized as courses.

Results: Reported Benefits to using OER/OCW in Teaching I

Note: Respondents could choose more than one option so totals/percentages do not add up to 48/100%

advancing formal and informal learning through the worldwide sharing and use of free, open, high-quality education materials organized as courses.

Results: Reported Benefits to using OER/OCW in Teaching II

• 52% stated that their classes are more interesting and/or engaging for their students

• 48% and 44% of those who state that they are able to improve their teaching materials or incorporate new concepts into their teaching

• 34% of respondents claim that OER/OCW help them to save time preparing course materials

• 31% state that they are more motivated to teach • 25% of the respondents stated that they have more

content to teach with an equal number stating that they are able to use their class time more effectively for class discussions as a result of using OER/OCW

advancing formal and informal learning through the worldwide sharing and use of free, open, high-quality education materials organized as courses.

Results: Production of OER/OCW I

• 33% of respondents stated that they have also produced or contributed to the production of OER or OCW

• Such materials would include lecture presentation slides, lecture notes, tutorials, handbooks and more. Most of the resources have been licensed under creative commons licenses

advancing formal and informal learning through the worldwide sharing and use of free, open, high-quality education materials organized as courses.

Results: Production of OER/OCW II – Qualitative Comments from producers of OER/OCW I

“…IMBOK handbook was a key deliverable from the …project at UWC/CPUT, using CC – more than 2000 downloads recorded

from www.imbok.org…”

“After my paper explaining my innovative teaching was rejected by a journal I chose to publish it as an OER. It is on UCT

OpenContent website. I used CC BY-NC-SA. I was thrilled with this option. I’ve enjoyed watching the clicks grow, having the opportunity to take control of my contribution and so able to update the material, using it as an example to promote OER. I

am busy working on my next resource.”

advancing formal and informal learning through the worldwide sharing and use of free, open, high-quality education materials organized as courses.

Results: Production of OER/OCW II – Qualitative Comments from producers of OER/OCW II

“I use, and therefore I share. I created slides and used Creative Commons Licensing. It was great!”

“In my research by publishing journal articles. Posting my lecture slides and videos using creative commons license.”

“There was nothing usable out there. OER materials were mostly in the form of video, audio and images. The licensing was

creative commons. It felt liberating as I was able to contribute without all the usual bureaucratic processes we have to go

through.”

advancing formal and informal learning through the worldwide sharing and use of free, open, high-quality education materials organized as courses.

Results: Reported and Identified Challenges to using or producing of OER/OCW

A number of challenges that have implications for using or for producing OER/OCW have been identified. These could be organized into the following categories:

• Lack of knowledge related to regimes governing ownership and use, reuse, modification of OER/OCW

• lack of awareness about policies/regulations that govern ownership and use of course materials created by faculty

• Institutional support/infrastructural challenges

• Lack of knowledge about the existence of OER/OCW

advancing formal and informal learning through the worldwide sharing and use of free, open, high-quality education materials organized as courses.

Results: Reported and Identified Challenges to using or producing of OER/OCW: Copyright I

• Only slightly more than half (52%) of all the respondents (users of OER/OCW) are aware of license terms that govern ownership and use, reuse or modification of OER/OCW and have correctly identified a range of CC licenses to this effect.

advancing formal and informal learning through the worldwide sharing and use of free, open, high-quality education materials organized as courses.

Results: Reported and Identified Challenges to using or producing of OER/OCW: Copyright II

• only 31% of respondents are aware of policies and regulations that govern ownership and use of course materials created by faculty

advancing formal and informal learning through the worldwide sharing and use of free, open, high-quality education materials organized as courses.

Results: Reported and Identified Challenges to using or producing of OER/OCW: Copyright III

Context of OER/OCW producers (see also slides 32-34):• Majority (75%) - aware of license terms governing the

ownership, use, reuse and modification of OER/OCW • Lack of knowledge about licenses that govern production and

use of OER/OCW might lead to confusion when deciding how to license the materials (choosing an appropriate license) or not licensing the content at all (in which case the all rights reserved license applies). Examples:

“I created Lecture slides/notes. I used no license. It has proven to be very useful.”

“I created OER (visual and audio) to improve retention. License: Copyright. It improved attention and interest.”

advancing formal and informal learning through the worldwide sharing and use of free, open, high-quality education materials organized as courses.

Results: Reported and Identified Challenges to using or producing of OER/OCW: Copyright IV

Context of OER/OCW producers (see also slides 32-34):

• Only half of the producers of OER/OCW (50%) are aware of institutional policies that govern ownership and use of materials created by faculty

advancing formal and informal learning through the worldwide sharing and use of free, open, high-quality education materials organized as courses.

Results: Reported and Identified Challenges to using or producing of OER/OCW: Institutional/Infrastructural challenges, Lack of awareness about OER/OCW I

• Institutional challenges (such as existing IP policies or blocking of certain sites), infrastructural challenges (such as internet speed), ability to find appropriate OER/OCW and lack of awareness about the existence of OER/OCW have been reported to be some of the main challenges related to using or producing of OER/OCW.

advancing formal and informal learning through the worldwide sharing and use of free, open, high-quality education materials organized as courses.

Results: Reported and Identified Challenges to using or producing of OER/OCW: Institutional/Infrastructural challenges, Lack of awareness about OER/OCW II

Selection of Comments to this effect:

“My university blocks many sites, amongst them YouTube, not only for students, but also for staff. Furthermore, whilst we have many computer labs and computers many of these are not open to the Internet, and access to the internet is thus not as easy as

it should be for students.”

“Time is the biggest challenge. Sometimes I cannot find what I am looking for.

advancing formal and informal learning through the worldwide sharing and use of free, open, high-quality education materials organized as courses.

Results: Reported and Identified Challenges to using or producing of OER/OCW: Institutional/Infrastructural challenges, Lack of awareness about OER/OCW III

“Sometimes difficult to upload and download big files dues to bandwidth problems.”

“It is a wonderful pathway towards better education for all. However, many teachers and people in powerful positions such

as those with vested interests in traditional publishing are creating barriers to further its (OER/OCW) use.”

“More awareness of its existence to lecturers at Universities is needed.”

advancing formal and informal learning through the worldwide sharing and use of free, open, high-quality education materials organized as courses.

Results: Reported and Identified Challenges to using or producing of OER/OCW: Institutional/Infrastructural challenges, Lack of awareness about OER/OCW IV

“Institutionally, I think many universities in SA are way behind in enabling the use of OER/OCW by staff and students for teaching and learning. For one, open access to all Internet sites in all labs

at my university would be a great start.”

“Their use could be more widely advertised in HEIs and rated in some way to indicate how authoritative or useful they are. More free courses could be made available to students and lecturers. Some credit could be given in the HE system for engaging in the

use and development of these resources. A critique is that someone is taking their time to develop these and this is not

acknowledged.”

advancing formal and informal learning through the worldwide sharing and use of free, open, high-quality education materials organized as courses.

Results: Reported and Identified Challenges to using or producing of OER/OCW: Institutional/Infrastructural challenges, Lack of awareness about OER/OCW V

“The institution holds copyright on all the materials produced as part of my work, so it is not clear if I can make it freely available

without consulting the IP office.”

advancing formal and informal learning through the worldwide sharing and use of free, open, high-quality education materials organized as courses.

Conclusion I

• The findings have provided important insights into practices related to using and producing (motivation, challenges, benefits) of OER/OCW among academics based at SA HEIs

advancing formal and informal learning through the worldwide sharing and use of free, open, high-quality education materials organized as courses.

Conclusion II

In order to advance the use and production of OER/OCW in SA HE a number of challenges will need to be addressed related to:

• Institutional & Infrastructural challenges• Lack of awareness pertaining to OER/OCW licensing regimes• Lack of awareness pertaining to regulations that govern

ownership and use of materials created by faculty • Lack of awareness about the existence of OER/OCW and

about the benefits of engaging in the production of OER/OCW

Note: A full report with findings will be available on the OCWC website (www.ocwconsortium.org) in January 2013

advancing formal and informal learning through the worldwide sharing and use of free, open, high-quality education materials organized as courses.

Acknowledgement

This research has been made possible through the financial support of the National Research Foundation in South Africa (http://www.nrf.ac.za/) and through the support of the Higher Education Teaching and Learning Association of South Africa (

www.heltasa.org)

advancing formal and informal learning through the worldwide sharing and use of free, open, high-quality education materials organized as courses.

Activities of the OpenCourseWare Consortium are generously supported by:

The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation

Sustaining Members of the OCW Consortium:The African Virtual University China Open Resources for EducationDelft University of TechnologyFundação Getulio VargasJapan OpenCourseWare ConsortiumJohns Hopkins Bloomburg School of Public HealthKorea OpenCourseWare ConsortiumMassachusetts Institute of TechnologyNetease Information Technology Co.Open UniversiteitTaiwan OpenCourseWare ConsortiumTecnológico de MonterreyTufts UniversityUniversiaUniversidad Politécnica de MadridUniversity of California, IrvineUniversity of MichiganUniversity of the Western Cape

And contributions of member organizations

advancing formal and informal learning through the worldwide sharing and use of free, open, high-quality education materials organized as courses.

www.ocwconsortium.org

[email protected]

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