The document outlines the creation and delivery of an open online course titled 'Enhancing Prostate Cancer Care', designed for healthcare professionals, patients, and carers. The course, developed by Sheffield Hallam University in collaboration with Prostate Cancer UK and PebblePad, included various learning activities and received positive feedback for its content and delivery methods, although some participants found the pace and technology overwhelming. Overall, it reported a positive experience and potential for further engagement in online learning and professional development.

1. Open Educational Practice
“Enhancing Prostate Cancer Care”
through Collaboration, Conversation
and Open Online Learning
Assess
individual
need
Provide
quality
information
Make shared
decisions
Cath Holborn
Twitter: @cholborn
Email: c.holborn@shu.ac.uk

2. What did we do?
• An open, online course
• ‘Enhancing Prostate Cancer Care’
• Designed and delivered by SHU
• Open to healthcare professionals, patients,
carers and others interested in the topic
• Developed in partnership with pebblePAD and
Prostate Cancer UK

3. Aim of Presentation
• Course design
• Course delivery
• Course evaluation
• Key conclusions

4. Course Planning
• The topic / focus needed to be meaningful and of
value (PCUK quality checklist)
• Not just about delivering an open access course
• SHU advisory group established to support
process and ensure quality
• Course delivery team established (individuals from
SHU, pebblePAD and PCUK)
• Other external partners / services engaged
• Roles and responsibilities established, and
timelines set

5. Learning and Teaching Approach
• Week 1 = induction and familiarisation
• Weeks 2-5 = topic delivery
• Workbooks (pebblePAD) released each week containing:
– Learning materials (embedded and via slideshare, YouTube)
– Additional support resources e.g. useful websites
– Open access RLO
– Weekly blog and associated themes (pebblePAD)
– Article of the week
– ‘Webinar Wednesday’ (Bb Collaborate)
– ‘Tweetchat Thursday’ (Twitter and Storify)
– End of week ‘e-tivity’ and ‘open badge’ criteria
– ‘One Word Friday’ (AnswerGarden)
– End of week ‘Round-up’

6. Connectivism - Pedagogy – Constructivist
Diagram produced by C Holborn and S Macwan 2015

7. INFORMATION GIVING
CREATIVE COMMONS LICENSE 4.0 APPLIED TO ALL LEARNING MATERIALS DEVELOPED
Our pedagogy

11. LEARNING ACTIVITIES AND GROUP
CONVERSATION
Our Pedagogy

15. PERSONALISED LEARNING
(IN ADDITION TO PREVIOUS EXAMPLES…)
Our Pedagogy

17. ENHANCED KNOWLEDGE AND INSIGHT
(TUTOR, STUDENT AND GROUP GENERATED)
Our Pedagogy

20. Course Evaluation
• 903 participants enrolled aged 17-69, from
across 35 countries (mainly UK)
• 83.3% healthcare professionals; 8.6% students
(3.2% at SHU); 1.7% patients; 1.2%
carer/widow of a patient; 1.7% PCUK, SHU &
pebblePAD staff; 0.9% other HEI staff
• Student and staff experiences gathered

21. Pre-Course Motivations (510 respondents)

22. Course access stats overview

23. E-tivity completion and badge claims

24. Feedback during course delivery
• Weekly blog included a feedback thread and a
questions & queries thread
• Changes and improvements could be made in
time for the following week (if needed)
• One word Friday also provided a useful insight
into the participant experience

27. Post-Course
• 213/903 completed the end of course
evaluation exploring overall satisfaction and
barriers to completion
• 58/213 were non-engagers
• 155 were active participants in the course

28. Reasons for non-engagement

29. Overall satisfaction (155 participants)

32. Qualitative themes
Positives
• Enthusiasm for course content, it’s
relevance and value
• Patient experiences greatly valued
• Opportunities for communication
• PebblePAD engaging and powerful tool
• Tutor support praised (friendly, helpful
and inclusive)
• The ‘Access all Areas’ induction
resource and YouTube ‘instruction’
videos
• Webinar recordings
• Continued access to materials and
pebblePAD
• Patient, carer, public and HCP
interaction valued by some
Negatives
• ‘Weekly’ pace too quick for
some
• Hard to keep up with all the
resource& activities each
week
• Timing of release for
learning materials
(Mondays)
• PebblePAD and the variety
of technology used, was
overwhelming for some
• Technological issues for
some e.g. hospital firewalls,
slow internet connections
• Some found patient/care –
HCP interaction limiting

33. Costs
• Low in comparison to other MOOCs investigated
• Helped by:
– Platform hosting, technical support and
registration provided by pebblePAD
– Experience and expertise of SHU staff (with
technology & topic)
– Experts time given freely i.e. webinar speakers,
PCUK nurses for the blog
– Free access to the journals (JRP and JMIRS)
– Free services from the end of week ‘artist’
– A focus on ‘the conversation’ rather than lots of
glossy content

34. Recognition of Learning
• 6 participants have since submitted a Recognition of
Prior Learning (RPL) claim to SHU
• 15C at level 7 have been awarded in lieu of our ‘Prostate
Cancer’ MSc module
• Claimants had to submit evidence of completing all
badges for weeks 1-4 and submit a 2500 word essay
that addresses similar learning outcomes
• 2 are existing MSc students, 4 will now join one of our
MSc courses
• In addition, we have also had new ‘module’ applications
from individuals who had completed the MOOC and
now want to try further ‘formal’ online (DL) study

35. Concluding Remarks
• A very positive experience overall (for all involved)
• Collaboration with external organisations a worthwhile
benefit
• A great staff development opportunity
• Good for marketing our expertise and providing a ‘taster’ of
online/DL study
• Quality and relevance of learning resources and the
‘conversational’ aspect to course delivery was valued
• Engagement with synchronous communication could be
improved
• Initial induction and tutor support (at start and ongoing) is
vital
• Use of open badges and links to ongoing CPD a strong feature
• Investment required for future projects may differ depending
on support, resource and expertise available

36. With thanks to…
• pebblePAD
• Sheffield Hallam University
• Prostate Cancer UK
• Patients as Educators Volunteers (PCUK)
• PCUK specialist nurses
• Expert webinar presenters
• SHU course delivery staff
• David Eddy (co course lead and project lead)
• Matthew Wheeler (pebblePAD)
• Sarah Smith (SHU student and MOOC artist)
• Sue Beckingham (SHU )
• Ian Glover (SHU)
• Graham Holden (SHU)
• Helen Parkin (SHU) – production of the evaluation report