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Dénes Zarka instructional designer
OERs - The Perspective of the Designer

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Introducing EDEN
 The most comprehensive European association of its kind
 Registered in the UK in 1991
 Platform for professional co-operation and information
exchange www.eden-online.org
 Open for all levels and sectors of education and training
 Open for institutions, individuals and networks
 Informal and formal recognition of excellence
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Who am I?
• Electrical Engineer, 51
• Graduated in ’89 as Electrical engineer
• From ’92: Instructional designer (UK-trained)
• Till ’98: at Budapest Training Technology Center
• From ’98: BME Learing Innovation Center
• Field:
Course development content development, educational
research, training of designers and tutors (TEL)
• Live in Europe – Hungary – Budapest
• Speak Hungarian, English, and French (still some
russian from a dark era)

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Hungary

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I will speak about
• Open things (access, content, course…)
• Is it really new?
• Sharing and media-convergence
• Differences in settings (Australia – EU)
• Why would I design open content?
• Why would YOU design open content?
• So, how does it turn to be sustainable?

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The past meanings of “Open“
• 1970-1990: Open Learning → Open Access Learning;
• Access: breaking down barriers in time, pace and place;
• Access to courses: Fee reduction, no more entry
requirements, eliminating strict evaluation
methodologies;
• Open Learning was: Individual, Paper-broadcast-video-
audio-CBT based;
• The service and the content was NOT open (free)!

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Recent meanings of “Open“
• Open Learning nowadays: Open Content Learning
• Open Educational Resources (OERs) mean:
– Open access: of content, e.g.: articles
– Open source: educational tools, e.g.: Moodle
– Open practices: open architectures of learning: individualised
learning pathways
– Open courses: Open online courses (MOOCs) mostly access is
free only. 
• Different definitions in a recently published material

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More about OERs
Related project currently running in EU:
OpenProf: Open Professional Collaboration for Innovation
Three training materials:
– OER and sustainibility models: click for the link
– ICT tools to develop and adapt OER: click for the link
– Innovative curriculum designing for work-based learning: click
for the link

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Is it really new?
We have always talked about:
– Special design
– Special tools
– Special approach
– Special media
– Special role of teachers/tutors
We still speak about “new” approaches.
In the last 20 years I experienced some changes that
dramatically changed Open Learning.

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Things that affected my designer life
Sharing and networking:
– E-mailing, home computers did not mean methodological change
– Web, portal techniques (LMS), web 2.0 and sharing
– From individual learner to learner communities, co-operation and
collaboration broke out from the minor experience position to
mainstream activity, that we designers can build on.
Media access and convergence:
– Publishing industry tools and products
– Film industry tools and products
– Telecom industry tools and products
Are all on our toolbox, and we can use them all in OERs.

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Possible cultural differences
Australia EU
Language English German, French,
Spanish, Italian,
Polish, many small
languages
Business model Market and Business
oriented, tuition fee,
relatively free, low
regulation level
Mostly free higher
education, strongly
regulated, smaller free
market (corporate ED)
Scale of operation Unique big. Market +
Global outreach
Segmented small
markets, limited
outreach

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Why would I design open content?
• I would not!
• I am making a living from designing.  (As tailors from tailoring, and
teachers from teaching).
• It is time consuming! I still count 40 hours of preparation on 1 hour learning
time.
• But I design most of the time Open courses for learners:
– Public finance for the course – free for the beneficiary
– But the designer is financed!
• I always follow the financer’s requirements.
• Social science is more on the open side, technical science is more on the
restricted side
• Public financing is on open side, business financing on restricted side.

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ICT for Education:
http://moodle.liedm.net/course/view.php?id=15

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Why would YOU design open content?
• Because you are a teacher and:
– Your income is based on other indicators (classes, learner
outcomes, success rate, etc.);
– You want to save time and energy for colleagues;
– The free re-use of your content adds to your reputation;
– When it is a content made by your learner or group of learners,
in case they agree and you can build your “local” repository of
UGC (user generated content);
– When you think the open attitude adds something important to
the learning community.

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So how does it become sustainable?
• With massive financing on behalf of: the University, or
public funding;
• With substantial input on behalf of the authors;
• With a good choice of content (ideal for re-use, edit,
remix);
• With a good answer to emerging needs;
• With a good choice of an industry standard format.

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Checkthe EDEN website orOpenProf website
formore information:
www.eden-online.org http://www.openprof.eu