OeRBITAL

1. OeRBITAL Open Educational Resources for Biologists Involved in Learning and Teaching Terry McAndrew and Chris Taylor Follow us @terrymc @chr1staylor http://tinyurl.com/bioukoer

2. Task – part 1 • Work as a group/team of 2 • Using paper or card, describe a repository item you feel is of significant value to your discipline, using a diagram or sentence • Using the tools provided, launch your resource into the ‘Universal Repository’ provided in the room. • Plan (3mins) • Build and launch only when prompted

3. GO!

4. Task 2 – part 2 • Using the experiences of the group, and no other resources outside what was used in task 1, improve your design to land in the ‘Universal repository’ • Work in same team • Plan (1 mins) • Launch again only when prompted

5. GO!

6. Task discussion • How many teams achieved the objective? • What tactics were used? • What opportunities were missed? • Post event: Did anyone append a resource on the second attempt to a ‘successful’ entry? Why not? • Our communities may be making similar assumptions

7. A view of the problem • OERs being produced as resources with better licencing • Benefits to framework not being fully acted upon • Attitude or Altitude? • OER aspect was doubtful; no clearer than CC licence • Promotion of own materials via repositories is not significant until community has engaged • Cost-benefit is recognition e.g. if repository content is promoted through Google and major search engines • Senior management remain to be convinced completely • Lack of Learning Technologists role in the production loop • Learning Technologists trade techniques more than content e.g. ALT, but are very lively traders • Academics trade content (overtly or covertly) to build networks and solve problems • Academics do not automatically grant permission to LTs to trade their content, yet it provides evidence of quality for them • Academic institutions need to deliver differentlyto optimise use of resources • Student experiences of OER • How are these being shared? • How is feedback generated and acted upon? • What’s the real difference in Adoption and Adaption?

8. Background • Mixed experiences / perceptions of OER • OER is a great idea - but how is it 'leveraged' for the benefit of the individual, institution and discipline realistically. • Phase 1 outputs created 200+ resources into JORUM • Phase 1 issues included licensing shifts (change of mind or “sleight of hand” ?), lack of collaborators, balance of content delivered and different reasons/drivers. • Phase 1 Bioscience project delivered useful content to the discipline and developed capacity

9. Plan • Get discipline experts immersed – sink or swim! • Discipline Consultants (DCs) appointed • Gather the story • Share experiences throughout(with email/twitter/Skype prompts) • Low technology barriers • Use professional networks; learned societies and colleagues, subject associations • Champion something for ‘boosting’ via specialists • Goal: Achieve sustainable orbit for key resources

10. Environment • What is the current academic practice? • Update to phase 1 survey to follow • Are Learning Technologists repeating unnecessary work in parallel isolation? • Funding for discipline-wide projects is limited • Creating solutions to identified discipline needs • Stakeholder groups need to be made aware of OER benefits and their responsibility to make it happen

11. Wiki • The OeRBITAL Wiki • Work in progress • MediaWiki based • DCs have freedom - differing but similar approaches • Establishing ‘trailblazing’ paradata in the disciplines • Opportunities to expand other discipline practitioners • Get help – enlist colleagues • Potential partnership solutions • OER Glue • Folksemantic / OER Recommender • Learning Registry

12. Issues (phase 1 and 2) • Academic staff use Google – and it works! Other sources are effective but sometimes hard work • Many still complain about lack of time • Academic staff teaching blogs are still not common practice in biosciences – peer asynchronous sharing opportunity missed? • Students not significantly involved in validating content – direct engagement with resources unrecorded • Licence confusion – many available resources have unclear licence info but “you can still use them” • Academic competition / collaboration is “messy”

13. How OERs are used • Adoption examples • Use as is • Use with new context guidance • Used to ‘seed’ in-house ideas – “inspiration” • Adaption • Stripped down for refined application • Improved and distributed ‘downsteam’ for local use • Improved and distributed ‘upstream’ for academic practitioners

14. Progress • Successes • Engagement by key practitioners • Reasonable technical barriers surmounted • Wider networks becoming more aware of OER concepts • Supports existing territories, not competing with them • Paradata encounters • Concerns • Academic overload or Academic habits?

15. Paradata • Learning registry project potential • Use of SemanticWiki markup • Use of RDFa resource descriptions • Learning technologist opportunities for paradata

16. Questions? • Adaption issues in your community? • How does your role expecting to develop with OERs? • Suggestions to maximise outputs and outcomes?