This document discusses a project funded by the European Commission aimed at enhancing the teaching and learning of less used languages through open educational resources (OER) and practices (OEP). It includes insights from a webinar on the differences between OER in Europe and the US, as well as preliminary research findings on the use of OER in foreign language education, focusing on educators' perceptions, needs, and the challenges they face. Key issues addressed include policy recommendations, the role of national priorities, and the necessity of fostering linguistic and cultural diversity through open educational practices.

1. This project was financed with the support of the European Commission. This publication is the sole responsibility of the author and
the Commission is not responsible for any use that may be made of the information contained therein.
Out in the Open, reaching for the stars:
EU-US insights into Open Educational Practices
for language education
Webinar, September 15, 2015

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3. The term ‘Open Educational
Practices’ (OEP) is understood in its
wider sense as using Open
Educational Resources (OER) and
working with open learning, open
technologies, open pedagogies and
open research and scholarship
(Beetham, Falconer, McGill and
Littlejohn, 2012)
Poll question 1: What is your
main role?
(Please use the polling tool to
communicate your answer)
a.Teaching
b.Researching
c.Administration/Policy making
d.Support services (e.g. library, IT)
e.Other (please give detail in text
chat)

4. Poll question 2: How aware are you of OER?
(Please use the polling tool to communicate your answer)
a.Use and create OER
b.Regular user
c.Occasional user
d.Little or no experience of OER
e.Other (please give detail in text chat)

5. Why this project?
LangOER: Enhancing teaching and learning of less used
languages through Open Educational Resources (OER)
and Practices (OEP)
Deals with 3 main questions:
•How can less used languages, including Regional
and Minority languages, benefit from OEP?
•How can OER be shaped to foster linguistic and
cultural diversity in Europe?
•What policies are favourable to the uptake of
quality OER in less used language communities?
Fryske Academy, The Netherlands
Web2learn, Greece
European Schoolnet, Belgium
University of Gothenburg, Sweden
Jan Dlugosz University, Poland
Mykolas Romeris University, Lithuania
International Council for Open and
Distance Education, Norway
Linnaeus University, Sweden
Rezekne Higher Education Institution,
Latvia
European Commission co-funded project (2014-2016)

6. 6 strands of activities
1. State-of-the-art of OER in less used languages
2. International policy maker capacity building
3. Teacher training
4. Regional and minority languages & OER
5. Challenges for language learning
6. Mainstream good practice at European policy making level

7. Why this webinar?
Topics to address:
•How are OER understood in the US and in
Europe and what kind of OEP emerge for
language learning and teaching?
•What kind of research has been conducted
so far?
•What are the similarities and differences
between the US and Europe and how should
they be tackled?
Joshua Thoms, US
Carl Blyth, US
Katerina Zourou, GR
Teresa MacKinnon, UK

8. This project was financed with the support of the European Commission. This publication is the sole responsibility of the author and
the Commission is not responsible for any use that may be made of the information contained therein.
Insights into the US landscape
Carl Blyth, Ph.D
Director of the Center of Open Educational Resources and
Language Learning (COERLL), US, and Associate Professor of
French Linguistics in the Department of French and Italian.

9. Introduction to COERLL
• Center for Open Educational Resources and
Language Learning (COERLL)
• One of the 16 National Foreign Language
Resource Centers, Title VI grant from US
Department of Education (2010-2014, 2014-
2018)
• Located at The University of Texas at Austin
• Focused on Open Educational Resources (OER)
for Language Learning

10. Mission
General Mission: to improve the nation’s “foreign language
capacity.”
•LCTLs (e.g., Portuguese, Czech, K’iche’, Mandarin)
•Applied Linguistic Research
•Materials Development
•Assessment Instruments
•Professional Development Events
•K-12 and Higher Education
Specific Mission: to produce and disseminate Open Educational
Resources (OERs) (e.g., online language courses, reference
grammars, assessment tools, corpora, etc.).

11. SpinTX: Video Archive for Heritage
Spanish

12. eComma: Online Space for Social
Reading

13. FLLITE: From OER to OEP

14. This project was financed with the support of the European Commission. This publication is the sole responsibility of the author and
the Commission is not responsible for any use that may be made of the information contained therein.
Insights into the US landscape II
Dr. Joshua Thoms
Assistant Professor, Utah State University
.

15. Research Project #1
An OER/OEP Survey: How Open is Foreign
Language Education in the United States?
Sponsored by the Center for Open Educational Resources
and Language Learning (COERLL)
The University of Texas at Austin
Project Director: Dr. Joshua Thoms
Utah State University

16. Reason(s)/Rationale for Research Project #1
 To date, no wide-scale study has been carried out in the
United States (US) regarding (a) how FL and ESL educators
perceive and make use of open educational resources (OER)
in their classrooms, and (b) the nature of and reasons for the
rise in open educational language practices (OEP) in the US.
 Connexions, Merlot, and OER Commons showing two to
three times as many entries for science, technology,
engineering, and mathematics categories as compared to
the arts, humanities, and social sciences (Thoms & Thoms,
2014).
 FL OER/OEP issues represented far less at open education
conferences (e.g., upcoming Open Education 2015 in
Vancouver, BC, past Open Education Global conferences)
when compared to other fields.

17. Survey Details
 Survey created in Spring 2015 and distributed early Summer
2015
 Survey partially based on 2014 survey Opening the
curriculum: Open educational resources in U.S. Higher
Education
 Targeted survey respondent populations:
 FL and ESL educators at the K-16 levels (e.g., primary, middle and high school
teachers, instructors/lecturers/professors at community colleges and at public and
private four-year colleges and universities)
 A wide range of FLs represented
 Diverse group of educators (various educational backgrounds, teaching experience,
etc.)
 Number of respondents: 1,972

18. Sample questions posed in survey
 What are the reasons why FL and ESL educators are using
OER/developing OEP in their classes?
 What are the barriers to widespread adoption of FL and ESL
OER/OEP?
 What are the areas of content and training that might result
in more FL and ESL educators using OER and/or adopting
OEP in their courses?
 What are the primary differences between traditional,
publisher-produced FL and ESL materials/content when
compared to FL and ESL OER?
 If you have incorporated OER in your FL or ESL course(s),
how it has changed your teaching practice?

19. *Preliminary* Results (i.e., trends)
 Educational context of respondents

20. *Preliminary* Results (i.e. trends)
 Awareness of OER

21. *Preliminary* Results (i.e. trends)
 Reasons why OER resources are used in FL and ESL classes
1. Addresses aspect of my course not found elsewhere
2. More current than publisher-produced materials
3. Easy to find/locate

22. *Preliminary* Results (i.e., trends)
 OER vs. traditional publisher-produced content

23. *Preliminary* Results (i.e., trends)
 OER vs. traditional publisher-produced content

24. *Preliminary* Results (i.e., trends)
 Deterrents to using OER in FL and ESL classes
1. No comprehensive catalog of resources
2. Too hard to find what I need
3. Not knowing if I have permission to use or change

25. Research Project #2
Assessing the OER Needs of FL and ESL
Educators in the US: High Schools,
Community Colleges, and Four-Year Colleges
 Focal group interviews to better understand and specify
what FL and ESL educators need regarding OER (i.e.,
materials and technological tools).
 Tentative time frame for data collection: Fall 2016

26. This project was financed with the support of the European Commission. This publication is the sole responsibility of the author and
the Commission is not responsible for any use that may be made of the information contained therein.
The European landscape: short overview of
research on OEP in language education
Katerina Zourou, LangOER project manager

27. “European” landscape: how homogeneous?
• 28 EU countries, each having own national (+regional)
policies on OER: dependence on national priorities in
education/ on political choices regarding public
investment
• No central policy (EU) that mandates open policies in
education and/or other fields
• At EU level: the Communication “Opening Up
Education” (2013): recommendation that proposes
actions at EU and national levels
• Within member states: regions in Europe, with
discrepancies in terms of OER adoption differs
dramatically, see:
Bradley, L., & Vigmo, S. (2014). Open Educational Resources
(OER) in less used languages: a state of the art report.
http://langoer.eun.org/resources
Study available for free in EN, EL, PL, LV, LT, NL, SE & Frisian.

28. “European” landscape: how homogeneous?
Subtitle
• Fred Mulder (2013): OER expansion in 2001-2010
through some large scale projects run by national
policies or small groups of pioneers.
Example: Wikiwijs: a ground-breaking iniative in the
Netherlands (funded by NL MoE in 2009) enhancing
OER uptake in formal education. Funding reduced in
2014 due to new policy priorities.
=> Today’s imperative: sustainability to mainstream the
OER approach.

29. Several challenges still…
Persistent confusion
Alek Tarkowski at webinar "Moving towards Open Educational Practices“, April 21,
2015
https://eu42.spreed.com/c/740774990/spreed/100/recorder?recording=1#ok

30. Several challenges still…
Engaging in OER creation/re-use and its implications on professional
identities: fear of criticism/ fear of not being acknowledged
“Many colleagues still feel an enormous amount of pressure or sensitivity
in relation to critique of their teaching or teaching materials - anyone who
is truly invested in their teaching cannot help but be emotionally invested.
A low rating on a teaching material may devastate the contributor, and it
may not even be their fault (e.g. a resource intended for an upper primary
class cannot be expected to work well in a tertiary environment, etc.). This
sort of system does not encourage sharing but serves to make people
nervous about doing so” (Zourou, in press).
=> See also Pulker (2013); Whyte et al. (2014).

31. A “European” research on OEP in language education?
• No common European research agenda:
– Research teams often follow national and institutional timing and priorities on
OER. UK being a pioneer (also: 2 language ROER, LORO and Humbox)
• Increasing number of cross-national and cross-institutional synergies (e.g.
ITiLT, LangOER, ExplOERer projects).
• Most common research topics include
– OER for less used languages (Borthwick & Dickens, 2013; Tiedau, 2013; Bradley
& Vigmo, forthcoming),
– crowdsourcing and social networking practices (Lane & al., 2013; Beaven &
al., 2013; Tarasowa et al., 2014; Zourou, in press),
– the use of OER-based language corpora (Fitzerald, 2013)
– OEP from a teaching perspective (Calvi et al., 2013; Beaven, 2015; Borthwick &
Gallahger-Brett, 2014).

32. Some research trends
• “How to embrace openness” (Comas-Quinn & Borthwick, 2015) =>
approaches to sharing and reusing open content
• OER remix from a design perspective (Colpaert, 2015- MOOCs as OER
mashups-; Murray 2015)
• Collective learning and communities of practice (online and offline) around
OEP, including badging (Kurek, forthcoming; ExplOErer project)
http://www.exploerer.gu.se/
Moving To Open Learning Ecologies: not a brand new idea!
Ehlers, U.-D., Caine, A. (2011) : From Open Educational Resources To Open
Educational Practices. In A. Szucs and M. Paulsen, Proceedings of EDEN Annual
Conference, 316-323.

33. Expert videos
Series of interviews with:
Linda Bradley
Kate Borthwick
Carl S. Blyth
Cristobal Cobo
Anna Comas-Quinn
Ed Dixon
Alannah Fitzgerald
Gosia Kurek
Teresa MacKinnon
Fred Riley
Shona Whyte
Anna Skowron
Sylvi Vigmo
What are the challenges and the benefits of OER/OEP for language learning?
http://langoer.eun.org/videos

34. Recorded webinars
Strand5:RegionalandMinoritylanguages
Webinar, (Sept. 2014):
OER for less used languages in an increasingly
digital everyday culture
Open translation and the power of the crowd
OER: potential enabler and lifeline
https://connect.sunet.se/p502lhe6m8f/
Webinar (April, 2015):
How can OER enrich your teaching practice?
With Robert Schuwer, Ebba Ossiannilsson, Maarten
Zeinstra
http://blogs.eun.org/langoer/2015/06/19/webinar-series-how-can-oer-enrich-your-teaching-practice/

35. • Calvi, A., Motzo, A., & Silipo, S. (2013). Designing OERs to Teach Italian Pronunciation in an Open Educational Environment: A Case Study. In A. Beaven, A. Comas-Quinn, & B.
Sawhill (Eds) (Ed.), Case Studies of Openness in the Language Classroom (Vol. 4, pp. 70–82).
• Beaven, T., Comas-Quinn, A., & Arcos, B. de los. (2013). The Open Translation MOOC: creating online communities to transcend linguistic barriers. JIME, 1–14. Retrieved from
http://oro.open.ac.uk/37583/
• Beaven, T. (2015). OER (re)use and language teachers’ tacit professional knowledge: Three vignettes. In K. Borthwick, E. Corradini, & A. Dickens (Eds), 10 years of the LLAS elearning
symposium: Case studies in good practice (pp. 77-88).
• Borthwick K., Dickens A. (2013), The Community Café: creating and sharing open educational resources with community-based language teachers, Journal of e-Learning and
Knowledge Society, v.9, n.1, 73-83.
• Borthwick, K., Gallahger-Brett, A. (2014). ‘Inspiration, ideas, encouragement’: teacher development and improved use of technology in language teaching through open
educational practice. Computer Assisted Language Learning, 27(2), 163-183.
• Beetham, H., Falconer, I., McGill, L. and Littlejohn, A. Open practices: briefing paper. JISC, 2012 https://oersynth.pbworks.com/w/page/51668352/OpenPracticesBriefing
• Bradley, L., Vigmo, S. Forthcoming. Sharing of Open Educational Resources - Language teachers’ activities in an online repository. In Zourou, K., & Vigmo, S. (Eds.) “Social dynamics
in Open Educational Language Practice”, special issue of Learning, culture and social interaction journal.
• Comas-Quinn, Anna and Borthwick, Kate (2015). Sharing: Open Educational Resources for Language Teachers. In: Hampel, Regine and Stickler, Ursula eds. Developing Online
Language Teaching: Research-based Pedagogies and Reflective Practices. Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 96–112.
• Cobo, C. (2013). Exploration of Open Educational Resources in Non-English Speaking Communities. IRRODL, 14 (2), June 2013.
• Colpaert, J. (2014).Conclusion. Reflections on Present and Future: towards an Ontological Approach to LMOOCs. In Martín-Monje, E. & Bárcena, E. (Eds) Language MOOCs:
Providing Learning, Transcending Boundaries. De Gruyter Open, pp. 161–172 http://www.degruyter.com/view/product/455678
• Ehlers, U.-D., Caine, A. (2011) : From Open Educational Resources To Open Educational Practices. In A. Szucs and M. Paulsen, Proceedings of EDEN Annual Conference 2011.316-
323. http://toc.proceedings.com/12713webtoc.pdf
• Fitzgerald, A. (2013). TOETOE International: FLAX Weaving with Oxford Open Educational Resources. Case Study with the University of Oxford. The Higher Education Academy.
http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/projects/detail/oer/OER_int_006_Ox%282%29
• Kurek, G. forthcoming. Addressing cultural diversity in preparing teachers for open education. In Zourou, K., & Vigmo, S. (Eds.) “Social dynamics in Open Educational Language
Practice”, special issue of Learning, culture and social interaction journal.
• Lane, A., Comas-quinn, A., & Carter, J. (2013). The potential of openness for engaging communities. Journal of Interactive Media in Education, 1–3.
• Mulder, F. 2013. The LOGIC of National Policies and Strategies for Open Educational Resources. IRRODL,14 (2). http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1008095.pdf
• Murray, L. (2015). MOOCs for Language Acquisition (LMOOCs): design and quality issues. EUROCALL 2015 presentation.
• Pulker, H. (2013). Further investigation into the reuse of OERs for language teaching. In Bradley & S. Thouësny (Eds.), 20 Years of EUROCALL: Learning from the Past, Looking to the
Future. Proceedings of the 2013 EUROCALL Conference, Évora, Portugal (pp. 226-230).
• Tarasowa, D., Auer, S., Khalili, A., & Unbehauen, J. (2014). Crowd-sourcing (semantically) Structured Multilingual Educational Content (CoSMEC). Open Praxis, 6(2), 159–170.
Retrieved from http://openpraxis.org/index.php/OpenPraxis/article/view/117
• Tiedau, U. (2013). Open Educational Practices in a Lesser-Taught Language Community. Journal of E-Learning and Knowledge Society, 9(January 2013), 47–57. Retrieved from
http://je-lks.org/ojs/index.php/Je-LKS_EN/article/view/801
• Whyte, S., et al. (2014). Open educational resources for CALL teacher education: the iTILT interactive whiteboard project. Computer Assisted Language Learning, 27 (2), 122-148.
• Zourou, K. in press. Identity and engagement in networked Open Educational Practice. International Journal of Applied Linguistics.
References

36. Questions

37. LangOER- forthcoming activities
Subtitle
•Seminar “Open Learning in Minority Languages”, taking place on the 7th
and 8th of October in Leeuwarden (The Netherlands).
http://blogs.eun.org/langoer/2015/09/04/seminar-open-learning-in-
minority-languages-chances-and-perspectives/
•Special issue “Social dynamics in Open Educational Language Practice”,
Learning, culture and social interaction journal. Expected in 2016

38. http://langoer.eun.org/
#langOER
LangOER
OER and languages
OER and languages
LangOER Teachers
Interested to join a
forthcoming EU-US
cooperation on
OER/OEP for language
education?
Get in touch through this
form: http://tiny.cc/OEP