1. Involvement of DeFT project team with the UK Open Educational Resources JISC
(Joint Information Systems Committee)/HEA (Higher Education Academy)-funded
programme
Evaluating the Practice of Opening up Resources for Learning and Teaching in the Social Sciences
(April 2009-April 2010)
This project has adopted a critical social science perspective on the
processes of sharing digital educational resources, as well as related
challenges. The project team has endeavoured to explore ways of
making educational resources more “open” and less reliant on tacit
pedagogic practice by using insights gained from the process of peer
review and social science knowledge production. The project team
has also developed a toolkit (available for download from project
website) for capturing pedagogical decisions about release and
sharing of modular teaching content. The toolkit allows users to map
their teaching practice and put together strategies to aid reuse of the
teaching resources.
• Project website: www.c-sap.bham.ac.uk/oer
• Project wiki: http://csapoer.pbworks.com/
Cascading Social Science Open Educational Resources (August 2010-August 2011)
The aim of the project has been to develop a model of release, discovery and reuse of Open
Educational Resources which can be “cascaded”, that is, taken up and incorporated into new
contexts by academics wishing to engage with Open Educational Resources. Through development
of the “cascade framework” the project sought to develop a critical understanding of OERs where
users can examine their own academic practice and subsequently articulate a rationale for using
OERs, with use interpreted quite broadly in terms of identifying, locating, releasing and embedding
Open Educational Resources into curriculum.
• Project blog http://csapopencascade.wordpress.com/
• Project wiki: http://cascadeoer2.pbworks.com
Discovering Collections of Social Science Open Educational Resources (August 2010-August 2011)
the aim of the project was to make open collections of social sciences research methods available by
embracing Web 2.0 technology and OER-related, sustainable solutions. The rationale for the project
stemmed from the recognition that there is a wide range of OER materials available to support social
research methods. However, despite advances across the sector, academics and students often have
problems locating and accessing good quality, peer-reviewed resources appropriate for their
particular needs. The project thus aimed to examine which of the Web 2.0 technologies are best
suited to support dissemination of research methods OERs as well as to explore how staff (and
students to some extent) discover, use, and potentially re-adapt online/digital materials in their
research methods teaching.
• Project blog: http://csapopencollections.wordpress.com/
• Project website: http://methods.hud.ac.uk/