Process.arts, a grass roots web2.0 open educational environment for sharing day-to-day arts practice and research of staff and students, currently provides a new ‘open learning’ space to the University of the Arts London (UAL) that straddles the institution/educational (formal learning) environment and the social (informal learning) environment. It creates an ‘experimental’ space for open educational practitioners to develop and define a new language for open edu-social practice without conforming or being influenced by pre-existing academic structures and processes. The transition of process.arts into an official UAL service will test this model and raise questions as to how institutions successfully support and develop autonomous and independent grassroots innovation without homogenising innovation. Background Chris Follows initially developed Process.arts in 2008 with the support of UAL’s Centre for Learning and Teaching in Art and Design (CLTAD). Chris was awarded a secondment and fellowship to develop his ideas for creating an open educational web environment for arts staff and students to share and cluster rich media content and resources. Process.arts has been maintained and developed by Chris as a sustainable and independent system, through agile experimentation, small project support, voluntary support, stewardship and an open university SCORE fellowship project. In 2012 UAL began the process of rebuilding its VLE framework, and process.arts was identified as a valuable resource that could fit into the University’s new portfolio of tools; consequently, process.arts is due to be officially introduced as a supported ‘service’ in September 2012. However, the structure of process.arts does not map onto courses; meta data links user-generated pieces of openly licensed text, image, video and audio content together through individual profiles and subject specific interest groups. Like many web2.0 environments used for education, process.arts can neither really be described as a repository nor as a VLE. Because of this it provides a novel and alternative VLE environment that encourages and supports rich media experimentation and informal learning, a welcome alternative for many to commercial alternatives. Conversion to a full service will provide a firm foundation for long term stability, integration wth other systems, support and growth. The project team is in the process of integrating the current informal agile development approach into a more formal in-house system. The team are addressing outstanding bugs, monitoring user interface changes and identifying outstanding functionality. There will inevitably be some loss of agile spontaneity although we aim to retain the overall grass root Title: Mainstreaming grass roots innovation in open educational practice: benefits and challenges (ID 171) Authors: Chris Follows Affiliation: University of the arts London, DIAL & SCORE open University Theme:

1. Chris Follows
University of the arts London
Mainstreaming grass roots innovation
in open educational practice: benefits
and challenges
ALT-C 2012 11 September 2012

2. http://process.arts.ac.uk/

3. http://process.arts.ac.uk/
• Open resource for sharing practice/knowledge and creating OERs.
• Not course aligned, alternative VLE environment that encourages and supports
rich media experimentation and informal learning.
• Non-commercial but sector driven/owned.
• Grass roots, innovation & agile development.
• Open to everyone, staff & students: Global and local.
• Straddles the institution/educational (formal learning) environment and the social
(informal learning) environment.
• Experimental’ space for open educational practitioners.
• Defining a new language for open edu-social practice without conforming or being
influenced by pre-existing academic structures and processes.
• Informal learning.

4. Participation May 2012
AVERAGE PER MONTH:
4k visitors a month.
Logged in users = 362
2-3k unique visitors a month.
All content posts = 1450.
Below Analytics May 2012:
• Video direct = 195.
• 3rd Party video posts = 150.
• Image/text/audio = 950.
• Forum topics = 105.
Conversation:
• Comments = 470.
• Tags = Thousands.

5. Connectivity is king?
• ‘Content is not king’ (Andrew Odlyzko)
• ‘Despite the rhetoric of the content industry, the
most valuable contribution to our economy comes
from connectivity, not content. Content is the ginger
in gingerbread—important, no doubt, but nothing
like the most valuable component in the mix.’
(Remix: Making Art and Commerce Thrive in the
Hybrid Economy. Lawrence Lessig)

6. The specialist group sections have continued to develop and we
now have 15 active groups. Once a community can commit and
want to take 'ownership' of a specialist section we have develop
this requirement appropriately.

7. Voluntary soft skills for creating OER &
OEP communities
• Digital Citizenship
• Guidance
• Global and local networks/communities
• Respectful & open aware (content use & IPR)
• Open practice mentor
• Monitoring and supervision
• Acknowledgment (is someone out there)
• Stewardship

8. DIAL Surveys Your Digital World - please tell us more!

9. http://www.metro.co.uk/tech/908698-facebook-sets-out-plans-to-put-adverts-in-users-newsfeeds

10. How do we create places for OER Rich media
communities?

11. Transition into a service

12. Project plan System Documentation
Bugs - document current issues to be fixed and priority
See: http://process.arts.ac.uk/content/high-priority-bug-fix
Planned Features - document new features planned for PA
See - http://process.arts.ac.uk/forum/1894
Functional refinements - document required refinements for PA
User documentation - Create help files and help section for all areas of
user support.
Admin documentation - Create a list of admin tasks, what's
involved, user questions, support, content and comment moderation
etc.

13. Project plan Code review, documentation and recommendations
• Code fix Integration and testing
Migrate to Drupal 7 Moodle
Code fix Workflow (Mahara)
Refine UI/UX
Filestore (edshare)
• Plan training and support
MyBlogs (Wordpress)
Submit code to repository
(live service) Future Development

14. Benefits
• Long term Institutional support
• Long-term future
• Stability
• Improved service
• Development plan (expand)
• Institutional adoption & acceptance
• On the agenda; inform policy, IPR, open agenda
• A live case study

15. Support IPR
policy and
development for
UAL open
educational
practice

16. Challenges
• Lose independent spirit (institutional &
commercial).
• Slow progress (Institutional bureaucracy).
• Maintain agile development (keep up).
• Growth beyond the Institution.
• Danger of having too close an affiliated.

17. Primary Challenge
Motivation to participate

18. Lodger
Visitor
Novice

19. Dynamics
Voluntary participation (Difficult)
What are the rewards?
or
Compulsory participation (Easy & difficult)?
What are the rewards?
Compulsory e.g. part of the assessment

20. UAL new VLE portfolio

21. Thank you
Chris Follows
Email: c.follows@arts.ac.uk
University of the Arts London
272 High Holborn
London
WC1V 7EY
Mobile: 07703 887845