Slides of the Plenary presentation by Helen Beetham for the event : "Does it make a difference? The impact of repositories and OERs on teaching and learning", March 2011

1. Understanding the
role of OERs in
open educational
practices
Helen Beetham
JISC UK OER Evaluation and Synthesis Team
(Allison Littlejohn, Lou McGill, Isobel Falconer)

2. Open content and open learning
Helen Beetham | OERs and Open Practices
Open content has potentially wide-ranging implications
LORO Event | Milton Keynes | 23/03/11
for education, that is for relationships between teachers
and students, between students and institutions, and
between knowledge and society... not because content
Information by default is openly available
itself is decisive, but because knowledge relations are
embodieddigital networks. 'Open' and label for
in in knowledge artefacts is a in how they
emerging practices of
circulate and are exchanged.
learning, working, researching, sharing
The open content movementthis context. profound
and teaching in partakes of
change in knowledge practices, including open data,
open scholarship, open organisations, open
qualification frameworks and standards, open technical
standards, and open source

3. Open content and open learning
Helen Beetham | OERs and Open Practices
LORO Event | Milton Keynes | 23/03/11
Expectations about learners, their objectives
and contexts of use are inscribed into
(educational) content
OER as 'triggers' for open practices
Content resources may support some
learners, learning activities and contexts
better than others

4. Helen Beetham | OERs and Open Practices
LORO Event | Milton Keynes | 23/03/11

5. Helen Beetham | OERs and Open Practices
LORO Event | Milton Keynes | 23/03/11

6. Assessing impact and use of OERs: challenges
Helen Beetham | OERs and Open Practices
Hard to track quantitative use: what gets used and
LORO Event | Milton Keynes | 23/03/11
when?
Harder to evaluate qualities of use: who uses and why,
with what educational purposes and outcomes?
Uses and impacts in project-funded contexts may not be
highly transferable (??)
Release for re-use offers a different model from open
sharing in communities (different impacts??)
Authentication supports tracking and commenting but
presents a barrier to openness

7. Approaches to thinking about impact and use
Helen Beetham | OERs and Open Practices
LORO Event | Milton Keynes | 23/03/11
Content 1. Track 3. Deconstruct
focus specific OERs the qualities of
in use 'open' content
Use/ 2. Investigate 4. Deconstruct
practice the experience features of
focus of specific 'open' practices/
users experiences
Direct approach Indirect approach

8. 1. Tracking OERs in use (UK OER)
Google analytics, log files and repository/host reports; some
Helen Beetham | OERs and Open Practices
LORO Event | Milton Keynes | 23/03/11
use of search for resource tags
Typically ~20-100 downloads per resource per month, some
in 1,000s (Engineering resources on slideshare and Oxford
resources on iTunesU)
Concerted effort by some HEIs is leading to aggregated
iTunesU downloads in millions (OU 34m, Oxford 8m, Cov
3m)
Downloads and uses differ: re-use often on invisible web
(e.g. VLEs) or personal downloads
Very few feedback comments or ratings from users
Currently analysing metrics, questionnaires, follow-up
interviews at project level e.g. 'Listening for Impact' at Oxford

9. Evidencing use (UK OER pilots)
Vision Extending reputation
Helen Beetham | OERs and Open Practices
Users 'in the wild' typically have a low awareness of
LORO Event | Milton Keynes | 23/03/11
'open' content as a category
OERs can be very intensively re-used with teacher
endorsement or brand/individual trust
SO effective re-use can be small-scale and local
BUT Web 2.0 visibility critical to scale of re-use
Sharing/re-use are influenced by
digital literacies – prior experiences – perceived quality/brand of
OERs – perceived benefits/risks to practice/reputation
Release/repurposing/re-use/sharing are potentially
related but we lack evidence from practice
Impacts of OER have an ethical dimension, in the
context of a global market for education

10. Helen Beetham | OERs and Open Practices
LORO Event | Milton Keynes | 23/03/11

11. Evidencing use: things we Extending reputation
Vision still don't know
Who are OERs used by and why? What are the benefit
Helen Beetham | OERs and Open Practices
LORO Event | Milton Keynes | 23/03/11
models for users, e.g. productivity gains?
How do learners make use of OERs, including sharing
content? With what skills/strategies/attitudes?
How are OERs used by academics in their own teaching?
What new skills and expertise are needed?
How do OERs influence pedagogies in use?
What if any educational information/metadata/rationale
supports effective use of OERs? What hosting and
communication strategies have most impact on use?
What kind of communities benefit from OER
sharing/reuse? How can OERs enhance existing open
practices in learning/teaching/research communities?

12. 2. Investigating specific users
Oxford TALL project: assessing impact of (UK) OERs
Helen Beetham | OERs and Open Practices
LORO Event | Milton Keynes | 23/03/11
ORIOLE project: role of open content in online learning
Research study: impact of OER on learning and
teaching practices
Specific UK OER and SCORE projects
...

13. 3. Deconstructing 'open' content
Capetown Declaration
Helen Beetham | OERs and Open Practices
LORO Event | Milton Keynes | 23/03/11
Open educational resources should be freely shared
through open licences which facilitate
use, revision, translation, improvement and sharing by
anyone. Resources should be published in formats that
facilitate both use and editing, and that accommodate a
diversity of technical platforms. Whenever possible, they
should also be available in formats that are accessible to
people with disabilities and people who do not yet have
access to the Internet.

14. 3. Deconstructing 'open' content
offered freely ... for educators, students and self-learners
Helen Beetham | OERs and Open Practices
LORO Event | Milton Keynes | 23/03/11
to use and reuse for teaching, learning and research (OECD)
released under an open licence (UK OER)
accessible: meeting wide range of end-user needs?
reusable: carrying educational metadata/wrapper to support re-
use, and/or ‘plug and play’?
repurposable: disaggregable, unbranded, 'translateable'?
open platform: iTunesU??
unfenced: open sharing after sign-in or authentication-free?
high quality: existing peer review/academic quality process or
additional criteria?
designed for learning: do we include content with learning value
that has not been so designed e.g. most student-authored
content? Are OERs just RLOs with open licences?

15. 3. Deconstructing 'open' content
Helen Beetham | OERs and Open Practices
For all of these features of content we could ask:
LORO Event | Milton Keynes | 23/03/11
- How does this facilitate learning (how does it 'make a
difference')?
- What practices of educational use (learning and teaching)
are implied, supported or 'triggered'?
- What practices of production, release, hosting and sharing
are required?

16. Ideas from the Cloudworks discussion
'Open' content should be easily adapted to support learner-
Helen Beetham | OERs and Open Practices
xxx
LORO Event | Milton Keynes | 23/03/11
centred approaches e.g. by including relevant texts/tasks
Is 'educational' in the content or in the design or in the
context e.g. sharing community?
'A language teacher can immediately see the potential of a
simple slide with a couple of images and a one line
explanation on how to use this for an ice-breaker. The
teacher will then fill the gaps ...'
Educational value is not the same as production values
(MIT OCW vs Humbox/LORO)
'It's the material that well communicates great knowledge
from the original teacher which seems to work best.'
Open content can support niche/declining subject areas?
(Philosophy, OpenDutch)

17. 4. Deconstructing 'open' practices
Helen Beetham | OERs and Open Practices
Capetown Declaration:
LORO Event | Milton Keynes | 23/03/11
We encourage educators and learners to actively participate in
the emerging open education movement. Participating includes:
creating, using, adapting and improving open educational
resources; embracing educational practices built around
collaboration, discovery and the creation of knowledge; and
inviting peers and colleagues to get involved.
To which we might add:
Open scholarship and research (collaborating openly,
open publication)
Using open platforms, open source tools, open corpora, open
data sets where possible?

18. 4. Deconstructing 'open' practices
Helen Beetham | OERs and Open Practices
Capetown Declaration:
LORO Event | Milton Keynes | 23/03/11
Governments, school boards, colleges and universities should
make open education a high priority. Ideally, taxpayer-funded
educational resources should be open educational resources.
Accreditation and adoption processes should give preference to
open educational resources.
To which we might add:
Open access publishing?
Accrediting to open educational standards?
Open partnerships for content creation and sharing?

19. 4. Deconstructing 'open' practices: benefit
models
Helen Beetham | OERs and Open Practices
Individual showcasing
LORO Event | Milton Keynes | 23/03/11
reputation enhancement, personal/prof rewards, individual values (e.g. openness,
public interest, quality), learner benefits, link to open scholarship
Institutional showcasing
marketing and institutional profile, (international) reputation, potential learners
and partners as end-users, open access=new markets e.g. franchising
Capacity building
staff skills, institutional strategies (e.g. LTA, content), change agendas, focus on
preparing for a more open technical and educational environment
Share and share alike
tightly-knit subject/topic communities, focus on sharing practice, open
scholarship, collaborative development, colleagues as end-users,
open=communal
Public interest
generic open ed values and public intellectual life; specific public interest (e.g.
climate change, health), public access to knowledge; open=democratic and
participatory

20. Ideas from the Cloudworks discussion
Helen Beetham | OERs and Open Practices
LORO Event | Milton Keynes | 23/03/11
Towards wider sharing L&T content (and associated
practices):
By increasing the number of people sharing and the types
of resources being shared, we are being more open.
Towards collaborative development:
Our view of authorship is less proprietorial (at least in the
Department of Languages) than in other institutions.
Towards open conversations about learning and teaching
Humbox, SPACE and LORO as models

21. What features of open content matter?
Helen Beetham | OERs and Open Practices
free | openly licensed | accessible
LORO Event | Milton Keynes | 23/03/11
adaptable/repurposable | collaboratively designed
communally owned and iteratively developed
designed for open learning
For each of these features ask:
- How does this facilitate learning (how could it 'make a
difference')?
- What practices of production, release, hosting and sharing
support this?

22. What difference(s) to practice do we aspire to?
Helen Beetham | OERs and Open Practices
collaborative development of content
LORO Event | Milton Keynes | 23/03/11
more inquiry-based learning ('open curriculum')
borderless institutions
segregation of content and teaching (deskilling?)
widening opportunity for independent learners
developing public intellectuals ('open scholarship')
developing public institutions of learning
open conversations about learning and teaching
- Can we develop open content in ways that amplify or
mitigate some of these effects?