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Building a global teaching profile: Showcasing Open Educational Resources at UCT. Michael Paskevicius, Michelle Willmers & Cheryl Hodgkinson-Williams Teaching with Technology Mini Conference 18 November 2009 University of Cape Town. Who are we?.
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Building a global teaching profile: Showcasing Open Educational Resources at UCT Michael Paskevicius, Michelle Willmers & Cheryl Hodgkinson-Williams Teaching with Technology Mini Conference 18 November 2009 University of Cape Town
Who are we? • OER UCT Project at the Centre for Educational Technology at UCT • Funded by the Shuttleworth Foundation, building on a previous research project, OpeningScholarship • OER UCT aims to: • Audit potential OER at UCT • Showcase the teaching of UCT academics • Create a directory listing the UCT collection of OER which will go live from February 2010 • Share lessons learned through a case study
What is OER? Open educational resources (OER) are educational materials (usually digital) that are shared freely and openly for anyone to use and under some type of license to repurpose/ improve and redistribute.
Change in Philosophy • The Open Source Software movement led the way in showcasing the value of openness and the ‘architecture of participation’ (O’Reilly 2003) • OER is based on the philosophical view of ‘knowledge as a collective social product and the desirability of making it a social property’ (Prasad & Ambedkar cited in Downes 2007:1)
Creative Commons: Facilitating Sharing http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3rksT1q4eg
Financial Models • Donor funding – e.g. Hewlett Foundation • Marketing budget – e.g. Open University • Commission – e.g. MIT and Amazon • Endowment – e.g. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy • Membership – e.g. Sakai Consortium • Government – e.g. UK £7.8 million grant
Affordances of the Internet OER is premised on the ‘simple and powerful idea that the world’s knowledge is a public good and that technology in general and the World Wide Web in particular provides an extraordinary opportunity for everyone to share, use, and reuse knowledge’ (Hewlett Foundation)
Why now – institutionally? • Information Dissemination • Student Assistance • Supporting Alumni • Sharing Teaching Practices and Ideas • Program, Department, and Institutional Marketing
Why now – individually? • Profile teaching and pedagogical idea sharing • Create record of teaching for teaching portfolio • Foster connections between other colleagues, departments and even other universities (especially cross-disciplinary studies) • Increase impact of teaching materials • Extend use of teaching materials to high school learners and life-long learners
http://www.usnews.com/articles/education/online-education/2008/01/10/a-new-physics-superstar.htmlhttp://www.usnews.com/articles/education/online-education/2008/01/10/a-new-physics-superstar.html
Building Profiles • Top resources are identified by a natural selection process • Best resources are chosen by the online community • Opportunity to represent local knowledge on an international level
Kevin Williams Higher & Adult Education Studies & Development Unit (HAESDU) Guide For Tutors In Disciplines In The Humanities And Social Sciences Published: March 26, 2009 Format: PDF Link UCT Open Content
Tony Carr, Shaheeda Jaffer & Jeanne Smuts Centre for Educational Technology (CET) Facilitating Online Published: May 6, 2009 Format: PDF + Companion website Link UCT Open Content
Jean-Paul van Belle Department of Information Systems NGO ICT and e-Readiness Self-Assessment Tool Discovering Information Systems Office XP for Business Published: October 14, 2009 Format: PDF Ngo Guide: Link Office XP: Link Info Sys: Link UCT Open Content
Ed Rybicki Molecular and Cell Biology Introduction to Molecular Virology Published: 2007 Format: Website/HTML Link UCT Open Content
Conclusion ‘Today, a confluence of events is creating the perfect storm for significantly advancing education. With a growing inventory of openly available educational tools and resources, and with an increasingly engaged and connected community, transformative opportunities for education abound. The good news is that the emerging open education movement in higher education and beyond is beginning to change the way educators use, share, and improve educational resources and knowledge by making them open and freely available.’ (Iiyoshi & Kumar 2008:2)
Questions for Reflection • Are you already building your global profile? Care to share your experiences? • What are your concerns regarding open scholarship? • What support would you like UCT to provide?
OER UCT Links • The OER UCT Project homepage http://www.cet.uct.ac.za/oer • Read the OER UCT project blogblogs.uct.ac.za/blog/oer-uct • Visit the OER UCT open Vula sitevula.uct.ac.za/portal/site/openuct
References • Attwood, R (2009) Get it out in the open. Online: http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?storycode=40830024 September • Bonk, C. (2009) The World is Open for a Reason-Make that 30 Reasons! elearn Magazine, July 2, 2009. http://elearnmag.org/subpage.cfm?section=articles&article=85-1 • Downes S (2007) Models for sustainable open educational resources. Interdisciplinary Journal of Knowledge and Learning Objects 3: 29-44. • Downes, S. (2009) Open Education: Projects and Potential. ECOO Richmond Hill Presented on November 12, 2009 http://www.downes.ca/cgi-bin/page.cgi?presentation=231 • Iiyoshi, T & Kumar, MSV (Eds) (2008) Opening Up Education: The collective advancement of Education through Open Technology, Open Content, and Open Knowledge. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press. • O’Reilly, T (2003) The Architecture of Participation. Available online: http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/wlg/3017 (Checked 4 October 2009) • Yuan, L, MacNeill, S and Kraan W (2008). Open Educational Resources – Opportunities and Challenges for Higher Education. JISC CETIS. Available at http://wiki.cetis.ac.uk/images/0/0b/OER_Briefing_Paper.pdf [Accessed 4 February 2009].
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