CAS Digital Learning in Emergencies/module4-Shoaib
Module 4: Open Education
Learning outcomes:
· Understand the issues in open education;
· Critically appraise the evidence around open education;
· Experience what it is like to participate in an open course.
Time necessary: 30 - 32 Hours
Detailed description:
I will take part of the course Open Education, modules 1 to 3 and write a reflexive report on the learning documenting the learning activities.
The modules are:
· Module 1: Openness in education
· Module 2: Open education resources
· Module 3: Moving beyond the OER
The 3 stages of Bouds reflective cycle will be followed. For each cycle the brief notes of the 3 stages will be prepared. At the end of the three modules the notes will be compiled in to one reflexive report
Activities:
| Activity | Duration | Date | Product / output |
| Module 1: Openness in education | 6 - 8 h | 1-6 of May 2022 | Notes of the three stages for module 1 |
| Module 2: Open education resources | 8 h | 6-9 May 2022 | Notes of the three stages for module 2 |
| Module 3: Moving beyond the OER | 8 h | 10-13 May 2022 | Notes of the three stages for module 3 |
| Reflective report | 8 h | 14-16 May 2022 | Reflective report published |
Prepared by M. Shoaib Haider
Activity 1: Module 1 of OPEN EDUCATION course offered by The Open University
General reflection:
I am taking the Open Education course offered by The Open University. While the course is set out week by week spread over 5 to 6 weeks, I plan to cover the modules 1 to 3 in about 10 days for the Module 4 of CAS-DLE. I want to explore the flexibility built into the structure of open courses. It will also help me exploring open courses for my future professional and intellectual development.
I also hope to get a better understandings of the following:
• Open educational resources;
• Open licences;
• Open courses or MOOCs;
I hope to follow the three steps suggested by Boud, D (2001) : Reflection in anticipation of events, reflection in midst of action, Reflection after events.
Module 1:
Reflection in anticipation of events:
My expectations are to learn: What are the different interpretations of openness? What are the concepts of openness? What are some of the issues involved in open education?
The learning journey is through a set of activities as set out in the Module 1 of OPEN EDUCATION course. I will be required to read a few articles, search and explore different resources related to open education. Since open education is a rather vast field and ever so evolving so at the outset I am also feeling a bit over whelmed if the short time will allow me to understand the areas of debate and priorities in the changing area of open education. Nevertheless I hope to make an initial consideration of evidence to support priorities in open learning research through the initial readings in open education literature. Hopefully this will help me to create a representation of openness in education.
Reflection in midst of action:
Activity 1: Units 1.1 to 1.3
Blogs and Twitter as open technologies for open education is an interesting and new idea for me.
Created my blog and posted my first ever blog post related to Open Education
Explored tweets using the hashtag #maode and found out it stands for Masters of Arts of Online and Distance Education offered by The Open University. A very wide range of learners taking this masters level course.
Found examples of Learning Designs (similar to our Module 3 assignment). The #maode learners using twitter for feedback and peer to peer support. I find this very interesting mode for peer to peer support and sharing and pushing learners to the higher level of learning on blooms taxonomy (apply, analyze, evaluate).
Activity 2: Unit 1.4
I chose Bates (2015) and Wiley (2010) as reading materials. Adding the article of Bates ‘Making sense of open education resources’ would have enriched the activity (note: am I being biased as we covered this in the Synchronous session on Thursday 05.05.22) .
The readings dating from the period 2010 to 2015 mention the 4Rs: Reuse, Redistribute, Revise, Remix.
Defining OER (UNESCO): Open Educational Resources (OER) are teaching, learning and research materials in any medium that reside in the public domain or have been released under an open license that permits no-cost access, adaptation and redistribution by others.
The resource of NSU was very helpful to clarify some of the concepts (screen shot below). The OER metaphor of cow producing milk, where the milk of the OER is very interesting that can be delivered, shared and can be remixed or reused to make cheese or chocolate.
Reflections after events:
Social media: Need to explore the hidden costs of social media platforms (data protection). The course encourages the learners to create logins and use social media platforms (twitter). This was done without first delving in to and sensitizing the learners about the risks associated with data protection through the use of data platforms.
Creative commons: need to explore further.
OER Dynamic Coalition: Established by UNESCO – explore further.
Learning and education needs to be contextualized. Is open education responsive to the developmental, contextual and ‘environmental’ components that could be unique to a particular region, culture, area or geography?
Open education is not one size fits all. If there is not adequate attention to the contextualization the ‘openness’ may not turn to a useful learning experience.
Activity 2: Module 2 of OPEN EDUCATION course offered by The Open University
Module 2:
I continue to take the Open Education course offered by The Open University. In the activity 2 of the CDLE module 4, I will complete the ‘Module 2 of the Open Education course’. The module 2 of Open Education is spread over one week. I plan to complete this module in 3 days. This module looks at possibly the most prominent expression of open education in recent years – open education resources (OER).
Reflection in anticipation of events:
I hope to build upon some of the initial thinking from the previous module related to open education. In particular open educational resources in more depth. I hope to be go in to their history and evolution, related issues and prospect some OER collections. I hope to build my understanding of OERs and appreciate how to use them.
My expectations are to learn:
- Identification of key issues for OER.
- Analysis of OER literature to identify the issues.
- Is it possible to design a course using OER only?
The learning journey is through a set of four activities as set out in the Module 2 of OPEN EDUCATION course. I will be required to read a few articles, search and explore different resources related to OER and design a course using OER. As with the previous activity I have not yet shaken off the feeling of overwhelm.
Reflection in midst of action:
Activity 5: Units 2.3 Learning objects
I have read the article Learning Objects: Resources for distance education worldwide by Downes (2001). The article is detailed in many aspects.
Applying Rapid Application Design (RAD) principles used by software engineers/developers for course content development - the software engineers were probably the first ones to work on learning objects.
Three major concepts drawn from the world of computing science:
- An online course, viewed as a piece of software, may be seen as a collection of reusable subroutines and applications. An online course, viewed as a collection of learning objectives, may be seen as a collection of reusable learning materials.
- The most basic prototype “object-oriented design” is constructed first.
- Use of open standards in course construction
Activity 6: Unit 2.3 Criticism of learning objects:
Reusability paradox
The purpose of learning objects and their reality seem to be at odds with one another. The size of the learning object design and its applicability and replicability is inversely proportional. The learning objects by smaller designers are more re-useable – humans will be able to assemble them into meaningful instruction.
The higher-level reusability of small objects does not scale well to large numbers of students. There is little economic advantage of reusable small learning objects as it requires teachers or instructional designers to intervene.
I find the thought discouraging: The more reusable a learning object is, the harder its use is to automate. Identically, the less reusable a learning object is, the easier its use is to automate. Facilitating reusability of instructional resources may in fact make them more expensive to use than traditional resources. The least desirable relationship possible exists between the potential for learning object reuse and the ease with which that reuse can be automated.
Objections to learning objects:
1. Somewhat vague definition of learning object: Any entity, digital or non-digital, which can be used, re-used and referenced during technology-supported learning" (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers IEEE, 2001). The definition of learning object can mean or include: "multimedia content, instructional content, instructional software and software tools [and] in a wider sense...learning objectives, persons, organizations, or events" (IEEE, 2001).
I think the definitions of learning objects seem to stem from software developments or developers and computer programming/system designs. The definition is opaque and confusing to practitioners. It does not make its potential benefits clear to teachers. The definition can only make sense only in difficult or perplexingtechnical discussions.
2. The pedagogically neutral learning object is not relevant and does not meet the context specific learning needs of the learners. Pedagogy understood more abstractly as a domain of knowledge and research, as a whole is not something that can simply be understood as neutral in its relation to technology or technical specification.
3. The learning object and e-learning standardization heavily influenced by engineers and the US-military in the 1990’s with emphasis on technical standards and specifications as solutions to pedagogical problems
Interoperability was the buzz word in early days.
Archiving and meta-tagging was in infancy.
Compliance levels were impossible to achieve.
No one was using repositories.
Blogging was coming out in 2007/08, getting comments and support from peers. Share work, foster CoP, real collaboration. High end state of art standardization was not working and goofy/fiddly new tech (blogging) was working.
Activity 7: OER issues
I did not find the resource provided in the course very helpful for the activity. I searched for the issues related to OER and found the EduTech wiki page Open Educational Resources to be very helpful to write the blog post.
Activity 8: Designing an OER Course
I made a quick and dirty design for an online course “digital skills” that runs for 5 weeks. Refer to the Blog Post - Designing a Course on Digital Skills using OER for the course design.
I explored the different open education resources. Some quick reflections on exploring the 5 open education resources is as follows:
- Merlot – has content for pre-K to professional levels. More than 20 material types in 9 disciplines. Has option to create material with content builder.
- MIT OpenCourseWare – has content for undergraduate and graduate level mostly with few non-credit courses. Materials on 16 main topics.
- OpenLearn Create – has content from beginner to advanced levels. More than 23 subjects. Has option to create courses.
- OpenStax – Content organized in 6 main categories of Arts, Business, Humanities, Mathematics & Statistics, Science & technology, Social sciences. There are tens of thousands of learning objectsorganized into pages. These are arranged into thousands of textbook-style books. Generally more suited for advanced levels of learning such as undergraduate and above.
- Saylor – has content in 19 disciplines from basic to advanced levels (graduate and above).
After quickly going through the above resources I found the following 6 OER related to ‘digital skills’ (note: there could be more out there. This is based on my quick and limited search)
- ICT skills facilitator guide
- Being Digital: Skills for Life Online
- Digital Literacy Fundamentals
- ICT and Digital Resources: Post Secondary Resources
- Digital literacy: succeeding in a digital world Introduction
- Digital skills, digital learning
After careful consideration, I would recommend the “Digital skills, digital learning” course by OpenLearn Create as being the most relevant and appropriate.
Reflection after action:
I need to explore further the copyleft vs. copyright and the related issues, challenges, barriers and possible ways to overcome these.
I have this question in my mind “is it possible to replace formal study with low-cost alternatives”?
I need to explore and familiarize with the creative commons and other open licensing options.
I am confused with how to draw a line between what constitutes OER and what constitutes other resources on the web and would like to explore this further.
I am just getting to grasp with the sea of open education resources
Writing the blog post for module 2 of open education course: a very enriching experience. I had to search and go through literature that helped improve my knowledge of some of the issues and examples of strategies to overcome the challenges.
The work related to Activity 8, the blog post - Designing a course on digital skills has opened the sea of open education resources that can be used as is or contextualised as necessary.
Note for teacher:
Your point regarding the open source tool is well taken and I will try my hand at word press. I started today, but then realised that I need to learn a few tricks to be able to publish. Due to the shortage of time, I possed on blogger.com. In am copying the text of the blog post below, in case there are any acess issues with this blog post.
Blog Post - 3 Key Issues in OER
The three key issues in Open Educational Resources are as follows:
1. Lack of awareness regarding copyright issues;
2. Assuring quality in open content; and
3. Sustaining OER initiatives in the longer run.
Lack of awareness regarding copyright issues:
Several literature point out the lack of awareness among the academics regarding the copyright issues as a key issue and barrier. Hassall C. et al (2017) identifies the lack of awareness as the top most issue for the use of OERs as a tool in education, particularly in medical and biomedical education. OER Research Hub’s ‘Evidence Report’ (2013-14) also shares similar findings.
Teachers as well as researchers have access to a wide ranging of publishing and production tools. In addition they have licensing access to a digital, transitory or fleeting product rather than a physical object such as a book or print. This interrelation of teachers as well as researchers with licensing is at a level as never before. For the most part they appear to be either unprepared or unwilling to engage with cumbersome licensing procedures. According to McCracken (2006) while publication, consumption and distribution of texts were mediated through physical media, academics remained for the most part unaware of the licensing that underpinned the exploitation of copyright. Internet and other digital media have changed this.
Several open content licenses have been developed, like the Creative Commons and the GNU Free Documentation Licence, to accommodate this problem. Open licensing provides a way of controlled sharing with some rights reserved to the author.
In the words of Dr. Jan Hylén of OECD’s Centre for Educational Research and Innovation Paris published in Open Educational Resources: Opportunities and Challenges licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution License:
"They have the benefit of introducing certainty and clarity into the process of obtaining permission to use the work of others. They also reduce the administrative burden of having to clear rights before use. This is particularly useful in the educational context where users have little or no inside knowledge of the mechanisms used by the media industries. Finally, open licenses establish a body of works licensed as “open content” that may be freely shared. However, it must also be recognised that they have some disadvantages. Rights holders must be prepared to grant and to live with exercising only a “broad-sweep” control over their works, replacing the case by case control with which they are familiar. Moral rights are waived under licences offering the right to make derivative works and different and often blurred and overlapping boundaries emerge between not-for-profit, educational and commercial exploitation or distribution. Despite some shortcomings, there seems to be a growing interest for open licenses, as shown by the increasing number of objects released under the Creative Commons license."
Assuring quality in open content:
Teachers, self-learners and students look for resources. They should not have difficulties finding resources. Yet they have the problem of judging their quality and relevance. This is a fundamental issue.
Institution-based providers can use the brand or reputation of the institution to persuade users that the materials on the website are of good quality. They are likely of have internal quality checks before the release of the courses.
Peer review is another approach to quality assurance. The peer review process is one of the most used quality assurance processes in academia for research publications. It is a well known and well understood routine and peer reviews can guarantee the quality of resources in a repository. Taylor (2002) argues the process can be used to come to terms with the lack of a reward system by giving recognition and reward to the creator of a learning resource, as well as a dissemination method. Furthermore, there is a need for making the review decisions credible, and for that purpose an open peer review according to agreed criteria is well suited, Taylor claims.
Individual users may also decide on whatever ground they like whether a learning resource is of high quality, useful, or good in any other respect. This is the opposite of the centrally designed approach process. This is a low level bottom-up approach and used on internet based market places for example. Quality may not be inherent part of learning resource but rather a contextual phenomena.
Sustaining OER in the long-run:
There is a strong competition for funding among OER initiatives. Start up funding that may be available for short term may cease after a few years. Therefore long term sustainability needs to be given serious consideration. No single sustainability model will fit all and different approaches need to be explored that might be useful in a local context. Community model and Institutional models are two different approaches with possibilities of inventing other models that are a mix of the two:
Community model of sustainability:
This community model of sustainability is more of a grass roots activity. The individuals contribute with their time, knowledge and resources on a voluntary basis. The production, use and distribution is decentralised in community model. However it is not enough to look at the advantages and disadvantages of different revenue or funding models alone. One need to look into who pays for the resources but also who creates them, how they are distributed and how to work with them. Discoverability of the resources, kind of openness and constraints on access and use, the possibility to localise content, incentives for people to contribute resources, models without a clear distinction between the user and the producer, co-production, maintenance and updating of resources and some of the technical aspects to be considered.
In the community model sustainability is not so much a matter of financial resources as of dismantling barriers that hinders the community to flourish and grow. The enthusiasts and their voluntary work are the building blocks of community model of sustainability.
Institutional model of sustainability:
Institutions need to explore different revenue models for the long term stability and viability of their initiative.
According to Dholakia (2006) the different revenue models that might be considered are:
"- The Replacement model, where OER replaces other use and can benefit from the cost savings which is a result of the replacement. It was noted though that this model has a natural limit since it can only generate the same amount of resources as it replaces.
- The Foundation, Donation or Endowment model, where the funding for the operations are provided by an external actor such as foundations. This model was primarily seen as a start up model that will most probably not be viable in the long run. It might be transferred into a Government support model, which could be a long-term option in some (mostly European?) countries but not others.
- The Segmentation model, where the provider, simultaneously with resources for free, also provides “value-added” services to user segments and charges them for these services – such as sales of paper copies, training and user support, ask-an-expert services etc. This model, together with the conversion model, is among the most used in the education sector.
- The Conversion model, where “you give something away for free and then convert the consumer to a paying customer”.
- The Voluntary support model, which is based on fund-raising campaigns. Another version of this model is the Membership model where a coalition of interested parties – organisations or individuals – is invited to contribute a certain sum as seed money or on an annual basis.
- The Contributor-Pay model where the contributors pay the cost of maintaining the contribution, which the provider makes available for free. This model is used to give open access to scientific publications and might work also for OER."
Blog post: Designing a Course on Digital Skills using OER
I made a quick and dirty design for an online course “digital skills” that runs for 5 weeks. The course design looks like this:
I explored the different open education resources. Some quick reflections on exploring the 5 open education resources is as follows:
- Merlot – has content for pre-K to professional levels. More than 20 material types in 9 disciplines. Has option to create material with content builder.
- MIT OpenCourseWare – has content for undergraduate and graduate level mostly with few non-credit courses. Materials on 16 main topics.
- OpenLearn Create – has content from beginner to advanced levels. More than 23 subjects. Has option to create courses.
- OpenStax – Content organized in 6 main categories of Arts, Business, Humanities, Mathematics & Statistics, Science & technology, Social sciences. There are tens of thousands of learning objectsorganized into pages. These are arranged into thousands of textbook-style books. Generally more suited for advanced levels of learning such as undergraduate and above.
- Saylor – has content in 19 disciplines from basic to advanced levels (graduate and above).
After quickly going through the above resources I found the following 6 OER related to ‘digital skills’ (note: there could be more out there. This is based on my quick and limited search)
- ICT skills facilitator guide
- Being Digital: Skills for Life Online
- Digital Literacy Fundamentals
- ICT and Digital Resources: Post Secondary Resources
- Digital literacy: succeeding in a digital world Introduction
- Digital skills, digital learning
After careful consideration, I would recommend the “Digital skills, digital learning” course by OpenLearn Create as being the most relevant and appropriate.
Activity 3: Module 3 of OPEN EDUCATION course offered by The Open University
Module 3:
I continue to take the Open Education course offered by The Open University. In the activity 3 of the CDLE module 4, I will complete the ‘Module 3 of the Open Education course’. The module 3 of Open Education is spread over one week. I plan to complete this module in 3 days. This module looks at overriding goal of OER – reuse.
Reflection in anticipation of events:
I got the chance to look at OERs last week and hope to go deeper in to some other related issues.
The reuse defines OERs to be taken and reused by others. This is the first issue, that is the nature of reuse. There are too many online resources, such as webpages, researches or videos. What are the copyrights or licenses associated with these resources. Creative Commons Licences to be considered. Are these OERs sustainable and viable for universities?
I hope to get more clarity on my confusion at the end of last activity/module around how to draw a line between what constitutes OER and what constitutes other resources on the web?
So by building on activity 2/module 2, I hope to have a clear understanding of OERs and reuse.
My expectations are to learn:
· Understand the use and application of appropriate licences for Open Educational Resources.
· Awareness of the issues regarding sustainability of OER as a university strategy.
· Can OERs be categorized as big or small?
The learning journey is through a set of three activities as set out in the Module 3 of OPEN EDUCATION course. I will be required to read a few articles, search and explore different resources related to OER and produce three blog posts.
Reflection in midst of action:
Activity 9: What does reuse mean – choosing the right license
This is a familiar subject as this was covered during the synchronous session on 05.05.22.
5th R
I have read the article 4R of Reuse by David Wiley (2007). The article clarifies the 5th “R” Reuse.
I am learning about the new ‘ALMS Framework’. ALMS stands for
A: Access to Editing Tools - format that can only be revised or remixed using tools that are extremely expensive (e.g., 3DS MAX), format that can only be revised or remixed using tools that run on an obscure or discontinued platform (e.g., OS/2) or format that can be revised or remixed using tools that are freely available and run on all major platforms (e.g., OpenOffice).
L: Level of Expertise Required - format that requires a significant amount technical expertise to revise or remix (e.g., Blender) or the format requires a minimum level of technical expertise to revise or remix (e.g., Word)
M: Meaningfully Editable - open content published in a manner that makes its content essentially impossible to revise or remix (e.g., a scanned image of a handwritten document) or is the open content published in a manner making its content easy to revise or remix (e.g., a text file)
S: Self-Sourced - format preferred for consuming the open content the same format preferred for revising or remixing the open content (e.g., HTML)? Is the format preferred for consuming the open content different from the format preferred for revising or remixing the open content (e.g. Flash FLA vs SWF).
The article The Access Compromise and the 5th R, David Riley (2014) makes the argument for the 5th R – Retain.
Retain: the right to make, own, and control copies of the content. Many resources I encounter online have no rights information associated with them, for example YouTube clips.
Creative Commons Licence
The creative commons website gives an overview of the licenses together with the design and rationale, the layers of licensing (legal code, human readable, machine readable) and the brief about the 6 types of licenses.
They are currently testing a beta version of the License Chooser. I found this tool helpful in determining and assigning a creative commons license for my work on EduTechWiki page.
I am learning about the new concept of public domain: release all control of your work to the public, with no control whatsoever. Public domain dedication is different from a license. It is a simple declaration ‘No Rights Reserved’. Creative commons website can be used for public domain declaration.
I find the slides Creative commons spectrum of rights by Yann Geffrotin (2007) very helpful to explain the licenses in lay-mans language.
Attribution, Non-commercial, No Derivative Works and ShareAlike: These four options can be combined into Eleven combinations licenses.
I also find the infographic from the OER Research Hub useful to explain the licenses to teachers.
I was not sure during the synchronous session on 05.05.22 that why NC (non-commercial) license would result in lower level of openness of OERs. Erik Moller (2005) makes a strong case that The use of an -NC license is very rarely justifiable on economic or ideological grounds.
I had to search for the different models of the OER initiatives. Based on this research, I have produced the blog post - Sustainability models for OER initiatives.
I produced a Blog post - Choosing a Creative Commons License. The text of the blog can also be found further below.
Activity 10: Applying sustainability models to OER
| Model | MIT Model | USU Model | Rice Connexions |
|---|---|---|---|
| Characteristics | Highly centralised
Tightly coordinated in terms of organisation and the provision of services Rely almost exclusively on paid employees. |
Hybrid of centralisation and decentralisation of both organisation and services
Work is distributed across some employed staff and a number of volunteers. |
Almost fully decentralised
Volunteers provide almost all services. |
| Goal | Publish each and every course in the entire course university catalogue in a fixed period of time
Continually republish new versions of courses and archive older versions. |
Publish as many of the courses in the USU course catalogue as possible | Enable the collaborative development of educational modules and courses by authors from around the world.
No target number of courses to be developed |
| Human resources required | Massive undertaking and so is the organisation that supports it.
MIT OCW employs at least 29 people in service of the opencourseware project. |
One full-time project director and five part- time student assistants who are integrated into the university’s Faculty Assistance Center for Teaching.
A number of student volunteers also work on USU OCW in the context of digital media or instructional design studio classes, Practicum experiences, or Creative Projects. Faculty volunteer to coordinate this work as part of their teaching or advising responsibilities by making USU OCW-related work eligible for credit in their courses. |
Courses and modules are not all from courses taught at the host university – authors from around the world contribute material to the site.
Totally self-organising. No one coordinates what courses or modules are being built. No one provides technical or pedagogical support to individuals who author content on the site, or helps authors identify and remove third-party owned content. Extensive documentation provided on the site in these areas. |
| Technology partners | MIT OCW also contracts with a number of vendors to gain access to additional services. For example, Sapient Corporation
Other vendor partners include Microsoft, Maxtor, Hewlett- Packard, Akamai, and NetRaker |
The Center for Open and Sustainable Learning manages USU OCW technology as part of its day-to-day responsibilities
Development and production environments run entirely on free and open source software Identifies and immediately removes all third-party owned content from courses, replacing some of this content with equivalent materials owned by USU |
Excellent job of facilitating the gathering and collaborative authoring of individuals from around the globe.
Digital Signal Processing has become a particularly popular area in part due to the efforts of founder Dr. Richard Baraniuk, who has authored 215 modules and five courses, and maintains another 93 modules and six courses. |
| Budgets | Annual budgets from 2007 through 2011 average just over USD 4,300,000 per year
Average spend of USD 4,300,000 per year on an average of 540 courses produced per year makes for an average cost of just under USD 10,000 per course. |
Annual projected budget in 2007 is just over USD 127,000
An average spend of USD 127,000 per year on an average of 25 courses produced per year makes for an average cost of just over USD 5,000 per course. |
Of the 179 courses and 3,525 modules currently available from Connexions, only a handful of the materials have had any financial backing.
The average cost per course under the Connexions model is, then, extraordinarily low. |
| Funding | Acquired foundation and private donor support (dozens of millions of US dollars over the life of the project) | Acquired foundation support (more than USD 250,000 over the life of the project). | Very little to negligible
One example is Brandt’s Introductory Music Appreciation course which receives funding from the US National Endowment for the Arts. |
| Analysis | MIT has made an institutional commitment to sustain the project over the long term
Little chance that any other institution will be able to replicate the MIT model. |
Operates at a miniscule scale compared to MIT OCW in terms of courses developed per year (25 per year as opposed to 450 per year),
Model appears to be sustainable for USU and, importantly, may be replicable by other universities. |
Sustainable
Driven by an individuals passion plays a large part in the success of the project. |
I produced a Blog Post: Sustainability models for OER initiatives. The text of the blog can also be found further below.
Activity 11: Different types of OERs
I have already seen some examples of big and small OER. For example MIT OCW is an example of BIG OER. And the courses on Rice Connexions can be categorized as examples of small OER.
I produced a Blog post: Different Types of OER. The text of the blog can also be found further below.
Reflection after the action:
I have gained more clarity on the concept of licensing. In my past works the licensing was almost always an after thought. I am now convinced that choosing the right license needs to be prioritized at the beginning of the design stages.
I would like to explore further on the NC-Non-commercial angle of the licenses: does NC make the resource more open or otherwise?
In the previous activity I had looked at the endowment, membership, donations, conversions, contributor-pays, sponsorship, institutional and Governmental models.
I found the details about the MIT, USU and Rice models interesting that forced me to look through the models of other platforms such as Coursera, BAcampus etc.
In most models there is no clear distinction of following one or the other but mostly these are a mix of the endowment, membership, donations, conversions, contributor-pays, sponsorship, institutional and Governmental models and somewhere in between the three MIT, USU and Rice models.
Blog posts for Activity 3:
Blog post: Choosing a creative commons license:
I have considered the different options from among Attribution, Non-commercial, No Derivative Works and ShareAlike for the license of choice for my work (blog posts for the OpenLearn course).
Licenses for my blog posts:
I would like to choose “Attribution, ShareAlike” option for the blog posts. Attribution option allows other people to freely redistribute my work as long as they give me credit. If I wanted my work to be widely circulated and acknowledged this is the way to go. ShareAlike pushes the users of my work to share my work with their additions with the wider audience. I will choose not to add non-commercial (as long as permitted) as what constitutes commercial is a grey area. An example can be my blog post is used as educational resource and given out to students for free but a course fee may be charged to the students. I will also choose not to add non-derivative because others can make additions or changes and thus add value that can be helpful and useful for others.
Licenses for previously produced work:
- Linkages report SBDRM and CBDRM: The linkages between school based disaster risk management and community based disaster risk management was published in 2019. I would choose Attribution, Non-commercial and ShareAlike. The reasons for Attribution and ShareAlike remain the same as mentioned above. I will add the Non-commercial use as this was a condition imposed by the donor who funded and supported the study.
- Teacher training manual for SBDRM: The training manuals were produced in 2018/19. I would choose Attribution, Non-commercial and ShareAlike. The reasons for Attribution and ShareAlike remain the same as mentioned above. I will add the Non-commercial use as this was a condition imposed by the donor who funded and supported the study.
Blog Post: Sustainability models for OER initiatives
Coursera:
Closer to the USU model Coursera has 150+ employees. Range of partnerships with universities and technology partners. Started with a seed funding and expanded to public listing. Hybrid of centralisation and decentralisation of both organisation and services. Work is distributed across some employed staff and a number of volunteers. Publish as many of the courses in the Coursera course catalogue as possible. Development and production environments run on free and open source software. Offer basic level courses to undergraduate and graduate degree level courses. Range of free to paid courses.
OpenLearn:
Closer to the USU model. OpenLearn is a free learning platform, delivered by The Open University as part of its Royal Charter commitment to support the wellbeing of the community. Since its launch in 2006, OpenLearn has become an integrated part of The Open University, with the site attracting over 100 million visitors. Many of these visitors go on to make an enquiry about becoming a formal student, strengthening the journey between informal and formal learning.
The OpenLearn team plan, commission and develop content that unites faculty and University priorities with areas of topical and general interest. As well as serving the public, this supports their own student population in their academic, skills and career and personal development (CPD) endeavours, delivering quality assets openly available for teaching and learning.
MIT OpenCourseWare:
The MIT OpenCourseWare is highly centralised. Tightly coordinated in terms of organisation and the provision of services. Rely almost exclusively on paid employees. Publish each and every course in the entire course university catalogue in a fixed period of time. Continually republish new versions of courses and archive older versions. Massive undertaking and so is the organisation that supports it. MIT OCW employs at least 29 people in service of the opencourseware project. MIT OCW also contracts with a number of vendors to gain access to additional services. For example, Sapient Corporation. Other vendor partners include Microsoft, Maxtor, Hewlett- Packard, Akamai, and NetRaker. Annual budgets from 2007 through 2011 average just over USD 4 300 000 per year. Average spend of USD 4 300 000 per year on an average of 540 courses produced per year makes for an average cost of just under USD 10 000 per course. Acquired foundation and private donor support (dozens of millions of US dollars over the life of the project). MIT has made an institutional commitment to sustain the project over the long term. Little chance that any other institution will be able to replicate the MIT model.
BCcampus Open Textbooks project:
A mix of the MIT and USU models (or somehwre between the two). BCcampus Open Education began in 2012 as the B.C. Open Textbook Project with the goal of making post-secondary education in British Columbia more accessible by reducing student costs through the use of openly licensed textbooks and other OER. To achieve their goals and fulfill the mandate, they use a collaborative leadership model. They have a dedicated staff of at least 38 to oversee the BCcampus projects, with project-specific expertise brought in on an as-needed basis. They receive funding from Ministry of Advacned Education, Skills and Training for their core operations, with specific priorities and deliverables. To improve the learning opportunities for post-secondary students, they have created strategic partnerships with leading educational agencies and organizations within the realm of Open Education.
Blog post: Different Types of OER
The broad characterization of the two types of OER can be ‘BIG’ and ‘LITTLE’ OER. According to Hoyle 2009).
Big OERs are led or supported by institutions that arise from projects such as OpenLearn or MIT OpenCourseWare. Their key characteristics are: high quality, contain explicit teaching aims, presented in a uniform style and form part of a time-limited, focused project with portal and associated research and data.
Little OERs are produced individually with low cost resources. They can be are produced by anyone, not just educators or teachers. They may not have explicit educational aims. Their production quality may also be low. They are generally shared through a range of third party sites and services.
The traffic to many of the big OER sites is impressive. Example: MIT OpenCourseWare averages 1 million visitors a month. Most big OER projects have a specific site associated with them. Their content may also be used to populate other portals and repositories as well.
Little OER tends to be found on third party, ‘web 2.0’ type services, such as Slideshare, YouTube, Scribd, etc.
There are advantages and disadvantages to both approaches of putting the resources on dedicated sites versus posting on third part sites. Summary is as follows:
| Specific Project Site (used for BIG OER) | Third party site (used by LITTLE OER) | |
| Advantages | Greater brand link | Greater traffic |
| Link through to courses | Cheaper | |
| Control | Greater serendipity or chances of finding | |
| Ability to conduct research | Expertise in social software development | |
| Disadvantages | Requires specialist team | Can lose service |
| Requires updating | No control e.g. over downtime | |
| Lower traffic | Loss of ownership of data | |
| More expensive | Other non-educational content also present |
Big OER is often found in a specific repository and people have come to it with the intention of learning. It is placed within an educational context. Little OER is often placed on third party services which will contain a range of content and people may not have learning as their goal when encountering these resources. This may mean that a different audience is reached, but it may also result in any educational intention in the content being misconstrued or missed.
Institutionally or individually produced educational resources can be categorized as big and little OER. This categorization provides a lens on some of the issues and uses of the open education resources. One key difference is that of the intention of production. Big OERs are created for the specific purpose of learning. Whereas little OERs may be created from a variety of motivations – with educational intention ascribed to them by someone else.
There are significant differences between the way in which these types of OERs are used and interpreted by audiences. These differences relate to quality, reputation and ease of production. The mix of both types of OERS could be the route to realising open education sustainably. Big OER raises the profile of open education. It can provide direction for reuse and overcome many of the objections based on quality and reliability. Little OER is a dynamic model. It encourages participation, and thus more sustainable. A mix of both has the potential to create a varied, engaging experience for the learners.
Module 4: Final Reflective report
OPEN EDUCATION course offered by The Open University
Reflections before the action:
I set out the module 4 with the learning design of the module. Throughout my life, the learning I had experiences had been through a teacher or facilitator handing down a learning design, setting the learning outcomes and identifying the pathway to achieve these outcomes. This was the first time in my life that as a learner I had to set my own learning outcomes, the design and the pathway. During the first synchronous session of the module different options were shared by Prof Barbara. Of these I chose to register and take the first three modules of OPEN EDUCATION course offered by The Open University. I identified the following learning outcomes:
· Understand the issues in open education;
· Critically appraise the evidence around open education;
· Experience what it is like to participate in an open course.
Based on the time indicated by The Open University for the completion of the course modules and adding in extra hours to write the reflective reports, I estimated 30 to 32 hours as the time necessary for completing the Module 4 of CDLE. However, this time was underestimated. In actual I have spent more than 40 hours in total. The time for reflective reports, and then publishing the same on my wiki page was misjudged.
The 3 stages of Boud reflective cycle have been followed. That is i) Reflections before the action, ii) Reflections during the action, and iii) Reflections after the action. This final work is a reflective report on the overall learning journey and in a way a reflective report on the previous three individual reflective reports.
As I prepare to finish my final reflective report we start discussing the Open Badges. I had not come across the concept of open badges. My guess is this will be the equivalent of a certificate or diploma.
Reflections during the action:
You will find below some of the reflections during the course of taking the Open Education course of The Open University:
I created a blog "Me Experience of Open Education" and posted six posted to date. So far 38 visits to the blog and zero comments (last checked on 26.05.22 at 15.35hrs PST).
I have been able to improve my understanding of the areas of debate and priorities in the changing area of open education. This was mostly possible through an initial consideration of evidence to support priorities in open learning research. I consulted and read through several research papers, publications, blog posts and web portals (list given below). I feel these are only my initial readings in open education literature.
I have been able to identify some of the key issues for open education resources. The analysis of the OER literature helped identify some of these issues.
I found the experience of a course design ‘digital skills’ very engaging and interesting. This particular activity has really opened my perspectives of the use of the OER. I started with designing my own course and as I progressed to search for the OER for the same course, I was able to identify and recommend the “Digital skills, digital learning” course by OpenLearn Create. This recommendation was based on a quick and dirty evaluation. I have now revisited the evaluation in a more structured manner after the discussion during the synchronous session on 16.05.22 and using the evaluation rubric by RCampus. I am happy to note that the initial recommendation “Digital skills, digital learning” course by OpenLearn Create is still my choice number one. The evaluation rubric had 20 paramenters including but not limited to creator (knowledgable, authenticity, bias), Organisation (affiliation, reputation, quality control), Reviews (peer, content), Currency (materials, platform) etc.
I have found the discussions and readings around the licenses for OER very helpful, useful as well as very practical. Following up on the recommendation of Prof Barbara, I chose the license “Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International”. I subsequently read more about the Non-commercial aspects and agree with the arguments that this is a grey area. I have therefore, now changed the license to “Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International”. Going forward I plan to raise awareness about the creative commons license among my own organization where I work and attribute the relevant creative commons license for all publications that we produce as an organization.
I found the discussions around the sustainability interesting and engaging. The sustainability readings and discussions started in unit 2 of the Open Education course and expanded further with the sustainability of OER as a university strategy. The three models of MIT, USU and Rice looked at different angles of sustainability. These three models are also examples of big OER (MIT), mix of big and little OER (USU) and little OER (Rice). Most sustainability models would be a mix of the ‘Big’ and ‘Little’ that embrace not only specifically designed teaching material, but also other types of content that could be used in a teaching context; for example, presentations, articles, blog posts, etc. I can also relate to my own learning experience of the Open Education course of The Open University, where the different activities are designed with specifically designed teaching materials (such as Activity 7 about OER Issues) and other activities that are a combination of dedicated and granular productions (such as Activity 9 about Reuse).
I am only starting to explore the subject of open badges through the Activity 6 of the CDLE and the lecture slides. As I go through this subject I am wondering why does UNIGE not offer badges for each module or activity? I find the badges for the micro-credentials a motivational tool. As I dig deeper into research in this area, such as the article by teachonline.ca it is also becoming clearer about the distinctions of badges and micro-credentials.
Reflections after the action:
I find the Open Education course very helpful to understand the issues in open education, appraise the evidence around open education and experience first hand what it is like to participate in an open course. I will strongly recommend other learners interested in OER to take this course.
After taking this Open Education course, I think the following are the key aspects related to open education: 1) sustainability, 2) barriers 3) rights, 4) quality, 5) supporting learners (peer to peer or learning networks), 6) pedagogy, 7) technology. Out of these 7 aspects, I have gained insights into the first 4 to varying degrees namely 1) sustainability, 2) barriers 3) rights, 4) quality. I am yet to learn about the issues and aspects of 5) supporting learners (peer to peer or learning networks), 6) pedagogy, 7) technology. I intend to continue taking the remaining four units of the Open Education course to further my learning on these topics. Due to some pressing time commitments at work, I will continue with the course in July and will post my reflections on my blog as well as the Edu Tech wiki page. I am encouraged by Prof. Barbara’s suggestion that I can become an ‘influencer’. I think I still have a long way to go, but will continue with this journey.
I will look at “free” elements of resources and different portals from a different angle. In this digital age paying in hard currency (such as dollars) is not the only currency for payments. The data and access to new or existing users is another form of currency that is perhaps more valuable than hard cash.
I have added creative commons licenses to my blog posts. I chose Attribution+ShareAlike for all the blog posts. For example Different Types of OER © 2022 by Mohammad Shoaib Haider is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. I have pasted these licenses within the blog text and also in labels. I certainly need more skills to make sure the licenses and their appearance looks more professional and will make improvements in due course.
I feel it is very important to decide on the type of licensing for your production from the outset whether it is a blog post, a short video or a full-fledged course. This decision can influence the type of OER that you may wish to use or reuse. Of course the decision could change during or after the development of the production. But having a carefully chosen license at the outset of production can set the direction.
As I publish my final assignment work I am only starting to learn about the Open Badges. The open badges at the micro-credentials levels is a very good example of gamification – that is game mechanics that offer the learner a sense of achievement, accomplishment and winning on their journey to learning and applying new skills. The micro-credentials that lead to the award of credits for the CDLE for example, can be a good motivational tool to keep students engaged and reduce drop out. This was my intuitive feeling. I wanted to check if my intuitive feeling was supported by evidence and set about to search this angle. According to Sood I. et. al. (2020) published by MicroHE Consortium and licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International
“Institutional openness towards micro-credentials has the potential to reduce drop-out rates”.
This combined with an open badge at each granular level of completion would give a clear visualization, similar to a mind-map, to the learner of the accomplishments and I would have found this to be helpful to keep me motivated. I also found the presentation by Leaser D. (2017) practical and easy to understand concepts related to open badges.
General reflections about the Module 4:
CDLE Module 4 and OEP
CDLE Module 4 and the five conditions to enable Open Education Practice(s)
1. OER as input and output (teaching and learning material)
I find the intentional design of the Module 4 of CDLE about OER to have been designed where OER is both an input (open resources course materials, repositories) and output (wiki pages of students, blogs etc.) is a very successful approach.
2. Enabling technology to support a connected learning community where OEP can flourish
I find the use of MatterMost as good technology tool to remain connected and have all the resources in one place. The EduTechWiki pages are an excellent option for openness, transparency and sharing of the work of students. I think some of the learners needed quite a bit of support for the use of these technologies as some are still struggling to get to grips with them. I am glad to have been of help to a few of the learners with what little time I could manage. Being a 'peer-tutor' to help the learners overcome some their challenges was a learning experience in itself. As my peers asked questions during these support sessions, both me and my peer learned as we navigated to find answers to their problems jointly.
The learners came from diverse backgounds. Some were already coversant wih the use of technology while others were not. A more structured and focused synchronous session regarding the enabling technologies such as Moodle, EduTechWiki, MatterMost etc. to bring all the leaners at a minimum compatible level within the first few days of the start of CDLE course would have helped all the learners.
3. Open teaching approaches that empower students to construct their own learning pathways
In my entire life, this was my first ever experience of designing my own learning pathway. Only a month ago in the last week of April 2022, before the start of module 4, if anyone would have proposed this approach I would have thrown out the idea. The approach proposed and adapted has allowed each learner to construct their own learning pathway. From the beginning till the middle of the module, I had this feeling of being hugely overwhelmed. But eventually this feeling turned in to a sense of empowerment, thanks to the positive support of the professors.
4. Open collaboration to reach out to concerned communities for students to interact with outside of academic actors
I think this is one area of the module 4 that was weak and needs to be strengthened. A more streamlined approach to enable and promote students to interact outside of academic actors would help the learners. At this point this interaction was very little or next to none.
At the start of the CDLE, I had created a WhatsApp group of the learners to stay connected. It helped share general updates about the course schedules, deadlines and reminders about the synchronous sessions. There were some limited exchanges about the course content as well. The WhatsApp group also helped the learners to reach out to one another on one-on-one basis.
5. Open assessment through peer evaluation, reflective practice and evaluation by third parties
Peer evaluation: I think this is one area of the module 4 that was weak to the extent that it was not there at all. This can be an excellent way of learning from each other. For peer evaluations to work effectively, all the students should stick to similar timelines for the productions of their work, which has not been the case in this module (and also throughout the previous modules) due to various challenges – at least some of which can be addressed. I am taking the 'Learning How to Learn' course by Coursera and find the course to be a good example of peer evaluations buit into the course.
Reflective practice: I find the reflective reporting to be a good form self learning and self evaluation in a structured manner. I have followed the three step approach proposed by Boud, D (2001) Using Journal Writing to Enhance Reflective Practice. New Directions for Adult and Continuing Education, 2001, 9-18. I must say that self-reflection was not something totally new to me as I strongly encourage learners to use self-reflection as part of my time-management coaching. However, the Boud’s approach helped with defining structure to this self-reflection.
Evaluation by third parties: I believe this would be the overall evaluation of the CDLE course by a third party and hopefully the learners will be provided a chance to provide inputs to this evaluation.
Bibliography:
I am listing down the readings, resources and platforms that I have gone through and explored during the course of this module. Maybe this listing could be helpful for other learners, who may be interested in the subject.
Research articles and publications:
Bates, T. (2015) ‘What do we mean by open in education?’, Online Learning and Distance Education Resources
Bates, T. (2015) ‘Making sense of open education resources’, Online Learning and Distance Education Resources
Boud, D (2001) Using Journal Writing to Enhance Reflective Practice. New Directions for Adult and Continuing Education, 2001, 9-18
Broek, Erik van den & Buchem, Ilona (2017). White Paper on Open Badges at Policy Levels (Open Badge Network, Erasmus+)
David Leaser (2017). Dropouts? How to Increase Online Course Completions with Open Badges
Downes, S. (2001) ‘Learning objects: resources for distance education worldwide’, IRRODL, vol. 2, no. 1
Geffrotin Y. (2007) Creative commons spectrum of rights
Hassall C. (2017) 'Institutional and technological barriers to the use of open educational resources (OERs) in physiology and medical education'
Hylén, J Dr. 'Open Educational Resources: Opportunities and Challenges'
Moller, E. (2005) The Case for Free Use: Reasons Not to Use a Creative Commons - NC License
OER Research Hub’s ‘Evidence Report’ (2013-14)
Open Education Resources EduTechWiki
Open Educational Resources by Nova Southeastern University
Sood I., Padrón C. L., Pirkkalainen H., Camilleri A. (2020). D2.2Future Impacts of Modularisation and Micro-Credentials on European Higher education and list of validated scenario by MicroHE Consortium.
Ten facts you need to know about micro-credentials published by teachonline.ca
Weller, M. (2010) ‘Big and little OER’, in: OpenED2010: Seventh Annual Open Education Conference, 2–4 November 2010, Barcelona, Spain.
Wiley, D. (2007) On the Sustainability of Open Educational Resource Initiatives in Higher Education, Paris, OECD
Wiley, D. (2010) ‘Open education and the future’
Wiley, D. (2014) ‘The access compromise and the 5th R’, Iterating toward openness
Platforms, portals, websites
- Merlot
- MIT OpenCourseWare
- OpenLearn Create
- OpenStax
- Saylor
- Creative Commons
- License Chooser. Creative commons are currently testing a beta version of the license chooser.
- GNU Free Documentation Licence
- teachonline.ca
- RCampus
- Evaluation rubric by RCampus
My blog
My experiences of Open Education. I am looking forward to your comments to the blog posts
Module 4 Shoaib © 2022 by Mohammad Shoaib Haider is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0