Open Educational Resources in Aquaculture Education and Training

OPEN EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES IN AQUACULTURE EDUCATION

AND TRAININGWorld Aquaculture 2015

John BostockUniversity of Stirling, UK

LLP – Erasmus – Erasmus Network

What are Open Educational Resources?

OER are teaching, learning, and

research resources that reside in

the public domain or have been

released under an intellectual

property license that permits their

free use and re-purposing by

others.

Source: The Hewlett Foundation. http://www.hewlett.org/programs/education/open-educational-resources

OER have been

defined in various ways

but a key concept is

that they can be

adapted by others

What does OER include?

Open educational resources

include full courses, course

materials, modules, textbooks,

streaming videos, tests,

software, and any other tools,

materials, or techniques used to

support access to knowledge

Source: The Hewlett Foundation. http://www.hewlett.org/programs/education/open-educational-resources

OER can include

any resources used

in teaching or for

personal learning

How are OER licenced?

Image source: http://www.creativecommons.org

The use of Creative Commons licenses is not

essential, but these have been widely adopted for

use with OER

How are CC licences specified?

Image source: http://www.creativecommons.org &

http://www.masternewmedia.org/how-to-publish-a-book-under-a-creative-commons-license/

The 4 basic questions covered by

Creative Commons licenses can be

combined in six ways which can be

displayed as a logo and included in

web page and other computer code

Where can I find OER?

http://www.merlot.org/

OER can be found in many different

places on the Internet. There have been

substantial efforts to create and curate

OER repositories such as MERLOT

(California State University) or portals that

provide access to resources elsewhere on

the Internet such as TEMOA (Latin

America) or OER Africa.

http://www.temoa.info/ http://www.oerafrica.org

Where can I find and contribute OER?

There are also

independent projects

to create open online

learning resources

such as Wikiversity – a

side project to

Wikipedia – inviting

contributions from

anyone with relevant

expertise

http://www.wikiversity.org

Searching for CC licensed media

Media with CC licenses and hence potential for use in OER can also be found

through various search tools such as the one at http://search.creativecommons.org

or by using appropriate rights filters with Google

When searching for images on Google, you can select “Search tools” and then

“Usage rights” to filter the results according to CC license

e.g. image search on Google

Why use OER?

Image source: http://www.unesco.org/new/en/communication-and-information/access-to-knowledge/open-

educational-resources// http://openeducationeuropa.eu and http://icore-online.org/

The development and use of OER is strongly supported by

the European Union, The United Nations Education,

Science and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) and many

other organisations for a range or reasons including:

• Belief in a principle of wide and free access to learning

• Potential for cost saving in education if efficiency in

producing materials is improved

• Potential for increased quality through peer review and

community improvement

• Opportunities for industry to contribute to enhancing

relevance of available materials

Why aren’t all learning materials OER?

Image source: Internet search - http://farm9.static.flickr.com/8508/8383353010_c394f891ef.jpg

Despite much policy support, most teaching and learning

materials are not published as OER. Reasons for this

include:

• Without potential for direct financial return the

production of materials by the private sector or

individuals will be inhibited

• Individuals may see little benefit and potential risks in

releasing their own materials for peer use and review

• OER threatens competition between institutions based

on the materials they produce and may alter existing

funding arrangements or hand more power to a smaller

number of global players

• A focus on open access to materials encourages

learner-centred pedagogies and diminishes the role of

teaching

MOOCs and other free education

Image sources: claxtoncreative.com & http://ielanguages.com/blog/open-lectures-course-materials-moocs-

itunes-u-the-internet-is-for-learning/

The Open Education Movement is part of a wider

ecosystem of free or low-cost education

provision. The most widely publicised and

debated initiatives in recent years have been the

Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) from

some of the leading universities. In most cases

the materials are provided free of charge, but

remain the copyright of the author or publishing

institution, so are not OER. An increasing

number of institutions are also providing

materials through Apple’s iTunesU or Google’s

YouTube EDU. In the long-term participants in

these projects expect to make financial returns

through attracting students to other courses or

charging for additional tuition, accreditation or

other additions to the free offering.

OER and Open Access Publications

Image sources: http://www.lotpublications.nl/ & http://www.aston.ac.uk/library/additional-information-for/open-

access-publishing-for-aston-authors/open-access-how-to-publish/open-access-compliance-form/

Open Access is related to OER as it aims to

make the results of research available to

everyone and allows redistribution. However it

does not generally allow repurposing (altering the

content)

Nevertheless, Open Access references fit well

with OER as part of a broader learning package

and are included in portals such as Temoa

Why OER can only be part of the picture

Image source: http://cde.athabascau.ca/online_book/ch2.html

Good access to high quality

teaching and learning materials can

only be part of the answer to

building knowledge and skills,

particularly if they need to be

accredited.

Much of the process of learning

exists in the type and quality of

interactions that the learner has with

other learners and the people they

are learning from as well as the way

the whole learning process is

managed and the feedback and

support that is available.

OER granularity and use in context

Image source: Krull & Mallinson 2001 reproduced at:

http://classroom-aid.com/2013/05/25/what-you-should-know-about-learning-object-part-ii/

OER resources

vary from single

images, through

complete lessons

to all the materials

needed for a

taught course or

guided learning.

Using appropriate

OER in the right

context greatly

enhances their

value (i.e. focus

on pedagogy first)

So how about OER for

aquaculture teaching and

learning?

Testing the portals – search “aquaculture”

MERLOT – www.merlot.org6 hits for materials, 401 hits for members

OER Africa – www.oerafrica.org2 hits

OpenEducationEuropa – openeducationeuropa.eu

5 hits (3 projects, 1 MOOC, 1 News item)

TEMOA – www.temoa.info364 hits (290 English, 36 Spanish, 32 Portuguese)

Testing media search – “aquaculture”

(reuse allowed)

Flickr – www.flickr.com2,186 hits

Google Images – www.google.com 103 hits

Wikimedia Commons – commons.wikimedia.org

643 hits

YouTube – www.youtube.com1080 hits (all Creative Commons)

Google Scholar – aquaculture + “open

educational resources”

52 hits (some broken) including:

Reference to the EU VOR3R project - http://voa3r.eu/(Virtual Open Access Agriculture & Aquaculture

Repository)

Links to resources in DOER - Commonwealth

Universities directory of OER

Policy Document from the Tasmanian Government promoting use of OER and eLearning

Aquaculture industry case studies as Open Educational Resources with learning activities and supporting country profiles on video

Example: AQUA-TNET Collaborative Learning Platform

A 5 ECTS course has been developed to introduce European Aquaculture, making use of the resources on the web site. There are also some presentation slides and other materials on research project management, data management and communication of results. Most materials have a CC licence.

Example: AQUA-TNET Collaborative Learning Platform

www.aquacase.org

Conclusions

Image source: http://pixabay.com/en/learn-note-sign-directory-64058/

To date, relatively few aquaculture oriented learning

materials have been explicitly published with a CC

license that encourages adaptation and reuse.

With the exception of the AQUA-TNET project there

seems to have been relatively little debate and

focus on the potential benefits of OER for the

aquaculture industry and few directly funded

projects or collections of aquaculture OER

Many teachers and learners use OER, but also use

other accessible materials that are not specifically

labelled for re-use. Conversely few teachers publish

materials as OER (and/or may be prevented from

doing so by their institution)

Further exploration of the potential benefits of OER

for the aquaculture sector and how this can be

developed is strongly encouraged.

Thank you for your attention

Email: [email protected]

Website: www.aquatnet.com

Slideshare: http://www.slideshare.net/jbostock

• The Open Educational Resources Movement has gained momentum in recent years, facilitated by Internet technologies and supported by many universities and international institutions including at the policy level, the European Commission. Open Educational Resources (OER) can be distinguished from other free educational materials through a licence that enables their repurposing and reuse by others. OER can help teachers develop courses more efficiently and potentially with higher quality; whilst their free availability opens up educational opportunities for people who would otherwise be excluded for reasons of finance, location or personal situation.

• Although OER offer significant social benefits, there are many barriers to widespread adoption. These range from issues of funding, a desire to protect individual or corporate copyright, concerns over greater transparency, academic and institutional competition, and critique on the basis of pedagogical principles.

• The availability of OER for aquaculture education is limited, although increasing through project initiatives such as Aqua-tnet. Potential drivers for further development include the increasing support for open access publications, the evolution of MOOCs, the activities of online communities of practice and the widespread sharing of photos, videos and presentations online.

• Examples of OER for aquaculture are identified and considered in relation to the wider OER movement, and prospects for increased uptake within the aquaculture sector are discussed with reference to industry benefits and wider community engagement.

Abstract

Aqua-tnet project – http://www.aquatnet.com

Aqua-tnet AquaCase website – http://www.aquacase.org

Aqua-tnet photo share on Flickr - http://www.flickr.com/groups/aqua-tnet/

Aqua-tnet video share on YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/user/aquatnet

Aqua-tnet links share on Diigo - https://groups.diigo.com/group/aqua-tnet

Aqua-tnet discussions on LinkedIn - http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=4447985

Aqua-tnet discussions on Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/groups/aquatnet/

Aqua-tnet news on ScoopIt! - http://www.scoop.it/t/aqua-tnet

Aquaculture International Special Edition on Advances in Teaching & Learning from Aqua-tnet -http://link.springer.com/journal/10499/23/3

Wikiversity - https://www.wikiversity.org/

Open Education Europa portal – http://openeducationeuropa.eu

Temoa - http://www.temoa.info/

OER Africa - http://www.oerafrica.org/

African Virtual University Resources - http://oer.avu.org/

OER from the UK Open University - http://www.open.ac.uk/about/open-educational-resources/

Creative Commons Education - http://creativecommons.org/education

UNESCO OER - http://www.unesco.org/new/en/communication-and-information/access-to-knowledge/open-educational-resources/

Martin Weller book: The Battle for Open - http://www.ubiquitypress.com/site/books/detail/11/battle-for-open/

Useful web links

This presentation is based on work carried out within the framework of the AQUA-TNET project which received funding from the European Union’s Lifelong Learning Programme, Erasmus Thematic Networks under grant agreement No. 2011-3997/001-001 and Project No. 518700-LLP-1-2011-1-UK-ERASMUS-ENW. This presentation reflects the views only of the author, and the European Union cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.

Graphic images used in this presentation were sourced from the Internet with the origin cited on the appropriate slide.

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