Open Educational Resources and Open Education

ANITA DECIANNI-BROWNEMPIRE STATE COLLEGE

Open Educational & Open Educational

Resources

Open Educational & Open Educational Resources

What is Open Education (OE) and Open Educational Resources (OER)?

Benefits and Issues/ConcernsMOOCs and the impact on higher education

What is Open Educational Resources?

Open provision of educational resources, enabled by information and communication technologies, for consultation, use and adaptation by a community of users for non-commercial purposes.1

Used by teachers, educational institutions and students; teachers being more primary users, students being secondary users.

Include learning objects such as lecture material, references and readings, simulations, experiments and demonstrations, syllabi, curricula and teachers’ guides. (UNESCO, 2002)2

1 Neary, M. and Winn, J.  (2012)  Open education:  Common(s), commonism and the new common wealth.  Ephemera articles, Theory and Politics in Organizations.  12(4).  P. 406 – 422.2 Wiley, David (2007) On Sustainability of Open Educational Resources Initiatives in Higher Education. www.oecd.org/edu/oer

Benefits of Open Educational Resources

Universal access to learning and enrich the learning experience

Assist with both teaching and learningEase of sharing and distributing materials via

sites such as Creative CommonsLess expensive resources for studentsContinually improved resources

Open Educational Resources Khan Academy Creative Commons

Khan Academy is a OER that uses videos, skill assessment and badging to evaluate

skills and learning. This resources is available for use through funding of the

Gates Foundation. An excellent example of a educational tool/resource that can

help student learn and assess their learning.

Creative Commons’ greatest impact is through the people using CC licenses to transform the worlds of art, business, government, science, education, and

more.

OER and Copyright

Copyright is not necessarily compatible with the principles of sharing, creativity and learner engagementKnowledge should be freeEducators use OER to improve educational systems and

learning opportunitiesThe line between content producers and users is

becoming blurredShould be amendable to adaption and improvement

Bissell, A. Permission granted: open licensing for educational resources. (2009) Open Learning. 24(1). P. 97 - 106

Creative Commons

Widely used works that allow sharing of cultural, educational and scientific contentFree and easy to useGives flexibility to the creator and protects usersOptions for usage: All rights reserved or Some rights

reservedLicensing Choices:

AttributionNon-CommercialShare AlikeNo Derivative Works

Bissell, A. Permission granted: open licensing for educational resources. (2009) Open Learning. 24(1). P. 97 - 106

Disadvantages of Open Educational Resources

Quality and validity issuesTechnological issuesIntellectual property/copyright issuesSustainability

Open Educational ResourcesBlogs

Blogs are self-publishing sites where authors can choose to write and post

about anything: news, personal opinion, pop culture, education, politics, etc. Most often, it is is written as a personal opinion

or perspective on a topic. Information, images and videos taken from these sites

may violate copyright laws.

Wikipedia

Wikipedia is not necessarily considered a reliable source for citing data; however it does continue to improve. Students can

use data collected from reliable cited sources within Wikipedia to research topics and data through journals and

periodicals.

Image by Gavin Blake, based on v:Openness and flexibilityhttps://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=555325557833359&set=a.555325261166722.1073741825.152524824780103&type=3&theater

Open Educational Resources Movement

Around the world there are currently over 2,500 open access courses available (opencoureswares) from over 200 universities: United States had 1,700 courses made available by seven

university-based projects China had 451 courses made available by 176 university

members of the China Open Resources for Education (CORE) consortium.

Japan had 350 courses made available by ten universities participating in the Japanese OCW Consortium

France had 178 courses made available by eleven member universities of the ParisTech OCW project

Wiley, David (2007) On Sustainability of Open Educational Resources Initiatives in Higher Education. www.oecd.org/edu/oer

Open Educational Resources

Advantages for educational systems in developing countries: Help save course content development time and money Facilitating sharing of knowledge and academic information

and resources Addressing the digital divide by providing capacity-building

resources for educators Help preserve and circulate indigenous knowledge Has the capacity to improve the quality of education at all

levels Can be reused, mixed, altered, localized and don’t need

permission to use them.

Olcott, D. Reflection OER perspectives: emerging issues for universities. (2012) Distance Education 33(2). P. 283-290

Open Educational Resources

Barriers: Lack of awareness of what OER really is University elitism Faculty resistance Publishers that lobby against OER because of the impact they

have on their business

Olcott, D. Reflection OER perspectives: emerging issues for universities. (2012) Distance Education 33(2). P. 283-290

Open Educational Resources

Issues facing OER movement: Open Education Practices (OEP) a set of activities and support

around the creation, use and repurposing of OER. Promoting OER to teachers at all levels.

Olcott, D. Reflection OER perspectives: emerging issues for universities. (2012) Distance Education 33(2). P. 283-290

What is Open Education?

Open education is the efforts by individuals and organizations across the world to use the Internet to share the following inside and outside formal educational settings:

KnowledgeIdeasTeaching practicesInfrastructureTools and resources

Murphy, A.  (2013)  Open educational practices in higher education:  institutional adoption and challenges.  Distance Education.  34(2).  P. 201 – 217

Bukola, Ope. Why Open Education Matters: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cHQp33rbg5k

Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC)

According to Oxford Dictionary, a MOOC is a course of study made available over the Internet without charge to a very large number of people

MOOCs are appealing to the massesCan bring a global perspective

Bonvillian, W., & Singer, S. (2013). The Online Challenge to Higher Education. Issues in Science and Technology. P. 23 – 30.

Plourde, M.. Mathplourde on Flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/mathplourde/8620174342/sizes/l/in/photostream/

MOOCs Democratize Higher Education

Represent the latest steps in distance learning development

Through the use of social media and Web 2.0, virtual classrooms have been opened to the masses

Have been legitimized by the courses offered at Stanford, MIT, Yale, Harvard, Duke, and Carnegie Mellon Universities

Allow educational access to students from around the world.

Courses are not constricted by time, place or cost

Carver, L. & Harrison, L. (2013). MOOCs and Democratic Education. Liberal Education, p. 20 – 25.

Lewin, T. Welcome to the Brave New World of MOOCs. (2012) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KqQNvmQH_YM

Benefits of MOOCs

How far reaching can MOOCs be? Stanford University offered a MOOC on artificial intelligence, which had 160,000 students from 209 different countries enrolled.1

MIT and Harvard developed edX, a MOOC platform available to 27 universities, including 6 Asian universities. 2

Offer educational opportunities to individuals who may not otherwise be able to participate 2

1 Carver, L. & Harrison, L. (2013). MOOCs and Democratic Education. Liberal Education, p. 20 – 25. 2 Bonvillian, W., & Singer, S. (2013). The Online Challenge to Higher Education. Issues in Science and Technology. P. 23 – 30.

Disadvantages of MOOCs

Under current structure, very difficult to sustain over time a free education

Poor participation – a MOOC offered at University of Pennsylvania had only half the students who registered for the course view the lecture and only 4 percent completing the course. 1

Loses the opportunity for meaningful discussion and grading/feedback so students have an assessment of their work. 2

1 Data Mining Exploses Embarrassing Problems for Massive Open Online Courses. MIT Technology Review (2013)2 Heller, N. (2013) Is College Moving Online? The New Yorker.

Educause. MOOCs and Beyond (2013) http://vimeo.com/70811271