The document summarizes an open educational resources (OER) program funded by HEFCE, JISC, and HEA. It describes 12 pilot projects that will release existing educational resources under open licenses. The MEDEV and PHORUS projects were selected to organize OERs and publicly available health resources. They will develop tools to help identify, categorize, and upload appropriate resources while addressing issues like patient consent and quality assurance. The overall goal is to make UK educational content more openly available and reusable worldwide.

1. The HEFCE/Academy/JISC Open Educational
Resources programme: opening access to
educational resources for use and reuse via
JorumOpen: OOER MEDEV!
Suzanne Hardy
Senior Advisor (Information)
July 2009
UHMLG Summer Conference, UEA, Norwich
www.medev.ac.uk

2. Contents
• The HEFCE/JISC/HEA Open Educational Resources
Programme
• OOER and PHORUS – MEDEV and HSaP projects
www.medev.ac.uk

3. The HEFCE/JISC/HEA OER programme
(14/08) - Background
• Higher Education Funding Council for England
(HEFCE) announced an initial £5.7 million of funding
for pilot projects that will open up existing
high-quality education resources from UK higher
education institutions to the world
• Higher Education Academy and JISC will work in
partnership to deliver 12-month pilot projects -
formally launched in April 2009
www.medev.ac.uk

4. The HEFCE/JISC/HEA OER programme
(14/08)
• Aims to make a wide range of learning resources created
by academics freely available, easily discovered and
routinely re-used by both educators and learners.
• Expected that funded projects demonstrate long term
commitment to release of OER resources. Projects
working towards sustainability of long term open
resources release via the adoption of appropriate
business models to support this
• Recommendations may include modifications to
institutional policies and processes, with the aim of making
open resources release an expected part of the
educational resources creation cycle
www.medev.ac.uk

5. The HEFCE/JISC/HEA OER programme
(14/08)
• OER could include full courses, course materials,
complete modules, notes, videos, assessments,
tests, simulations, worked examples, software, and
any other tools or materials or techniques used to
support access to knowledge. These resources will
be released under an intellectual property license that
permits open use and adaptation
www.medev.ac.uk

6. The HEFCE/JISC/HEA OER programme
(14/08)
• Pilot projects to release existing learning resources
under a suitable license for open use and
repurposing under 3 strands of activity:
1. Institutional
2. Individual
3. Subject
www.medev.ac.uk

7. The HEFCE/JISC/HEA OER programme
(14/08)
• Not about creating new content
• Exposing existing content to wider audiences
• Exploring the drivers, challenges and barriers and
making recommendations
• Projects mandated to deposit into JorumOpen
• Evaluation of pilot programme, including synthesis of
project outcomes, to be carried out by Glasgow
Caledonian University
www.medev.ac.uk

8. JorumOpen
• JorumOpen (yet to be launched) - for content whose
creators and owners who are willing and are able to
share their content on a worldwide basis under the
terms of a Creative Commons (CC) licence
• www.jorum.ac.uk
• Limited metadata requirements (yet to be issued)
• Use #ukoer as tag in web2.0 e.g. blogs, Twitter and
del.icio.us
www.medev.ac.uk

9. Successful projects:
1. Institutional
1. Coventry University: Open Content Employability
Project
2. Exeter University: Open Exeter
3. Leeds Metropolitan University: Unicycle
4. Leicester University: OTTER
5. Nottingham University: BERLIN
6. Oxford University: Open Spires
7. Staffordshire University: OpenStaffs
www.medev.ac.uk

10. Successful projects:
2. Individual
1. University of York: Open Source Electronics Learning Tools (Java
BreadBoard)
2. University of Westminster: www.multimediatrainingvideos.com
3. Oxford Brookes University: Food Safety Education Pilot OER
4. University College Falmouth: openUCF
5. Anglia Ruskin University: NumBat (Numeracy Bank)
6. University College London: Open Learning Environment Early
Modern Low Countries History
7. University of Central Lancashire: EVOLUTION: Educational and
Vocational Objects for
8. Learning Using Technology In Open Networks
9. University of Lincoln: Chemistry.FM
10. Bradford University: Open Educational Resources Project (OERP)
www.medev.ac.uk

11. Successful projects:
3. Subject
1. LLAS (Southampton), ENG (Royal Holloway), PRS (Leeds),
HCA (Warwick): The HumBox Project
2. ICS (Ulster): Open Educational Repository in Support of
Computer Science
3. Engineering (Loughborough): Open Educational Resources
Pilot
4. UKCME (Liverpool): CORE-Materials: Collaborative Open
Resource Environment – for Materials
5. Economics (Bristol): TRUE - Teaching Resources for
Undergraduate Economics
6. Physical Sciences (Hull/Liverpool): Skills for Scientists
www.medev.ac.uk

12. Successful projects:
3. Subject
1. GEES (Plymouth): C-change in GEES: Open licensing of
climate change and sustainability resources in the Geography,
Earth and Environmental Sciences
2. ADM (Brighton): Open Educational Resources in Art, Design
and MediaMSOR (Nottingham Trent): FETLAR (Finding
electronic teaching learning and assessment resources)
3. Bioscience (Leeds): An Interactive Laboratory and Fieldwork
Manual for the Biosciences’
4. UKCLE (Warwick): Simulation Learning Resources
www.medev.ac.uk

13. Successful projects:
3. Subject
• HSaP (KCL): Public Health Open Resources in the University
Sector (PHORUS)
• C-SAP (University of Birmingham): Evaluating the practice of
collective endeavour in opening up key resources for learning
and teaching in the social sciences
• MEDEV (Newcastle): Organising Open Educational Resources
(OOER)
www.medev.ac.uk

14. OOER
• Organising Open Educational Resources
• Bid can be downloaded from www.medev.ac.uk/oer
• Focusses on issues relating to consent, securing ER from
staff delivering programmes who are non-HEI employed,
and complements other projects in the programme
• Results of mapping and readiness categorisation together
with development of simple toolkits (to help HEIs, Subjects
and Individuals) will inform identification of ER to be
included
• Uploading OER will test toolkits
www.medev.ac.uk

15. OOER
• 12 workpackages
1. Project Management led by MEDEV
2. Literature and existing project review to document IPR/CC
resulting in toolkit. Led by SGUL
3. Patient consent considering Data Protection, and privacy
issues. Led by University of Bristol
4. Mapping and readiness categorisation: identify and
categorise potential resources. Categorisation toolkit. Led
by Newcastle University
5. Institutional policy development. HR practice related to
IPR. Policy Toolkit. Led by Keele University
www.medev.ac.uk

16. OOER
• 12 workpackages
1. How does OER affect existing collaborations and
international (incl. developing world) markets?
Collaboration toolkit to brief senior managers. Led by
Queen’s University Belfast
2. Establish pedagogy map, quality monitoring/peer
evaluation and ‘best before’ procedures. QA toolkit. Led by
University of Oxford
3. Upload (‘360 credits’?) resources. Document processes
necessary to make ER ‘open’. Led by University of
Southampton
www.medev.ac.uk

17. OOER
• 12 workpackages
1. Evaluate ‘resource discovery’ by staff and students.
Investigate downstream rights for re-use. Resource
discovery and re-use toolkit. Led by Intute: Health & Life
Sciences and University of Warwick
2. Host workshops, dissemination events to raise awareness
of inform and obtain feedback on toolkits to refine them
and encourage uptake of OER. Led by MEDEV
3. Evalutate project, disseminate and publish. Led by Imperial
College
4. Exit strategy and sustainability. Led by University of
Liverpool
www.medev.ac.uk

18. Readiness categorisation pyramid (in development)
www.medev.ac.uk

19. OOER Project: Workpackage flow diagram for uploading a resource – what does the project look like?
Star
t
Identify ontent type
Y Y Refer to
Image/vid Patient WP3
eo/audio? data? workflow
N N
N
Text?
Y
Is the
Refer to Refer to N IPR
WP6 WP5 status
workflow workflow clear?
Y
Refer to
WP2
workflow
Collect basic
metadata about
resource

20. OOER Project: Workpackage flow diagram for uploading a resource – what does the project look like?
Collect basic
metadata about
resource
Map against
readiness scale
Is it a
N Refer to
quality
WP7
resource
workflow
?
Y
Refer to
WP4
workflow
Is the Make any
resource N technical
ready to adjustments
upload? necessary
Y
Choose APIs and
add appropriate
metadata

21. OOER Project: Workpackage flow diagram for uploading a resource – what does the project look like?
Choose APIs and
add appropriate
metadata
Refer to
WP9
workflow
Upload resource
Refer to
WP8
workflow
Syndicate
metadata
End

22. PHORUS
• Public Health Open Resources in the University
Sector
• Health Sciences and Practice Subject Centre (KCL)
• Contacts: Dr Margaret Sills, Dr Marion Helme
www.medev.ac.uk

23. PHORUS
• Aims to:
1. Critically assess the enablers and barriers to releasing
learning resources in public health for open access to
develop a conceptual framework to inform OER
implementation
2. Identify and work towards openly releasing public helth
resources
www.medev.ac.uk

24. PHORUS
• Objectives:
a) Explore and develop business models or approaches
applicable to enabling the release of resources
b) Strengthen the community of practice to encourage
contributions from the Universities Public Health Network
c) Identify and assess enablers and barriers
d) Promote the culture of sharing across various health
related disciplines
e) Use the concept of OER as a vehicle to encourage
teachers to reflect on and develop educational processes
through sharing experiences
www.medev.ac.uk

25. PHORUS
• Resources will be mapped against the recent Public
Health framework of four core and five defined areas
of knowledge and competence that relate to nine
levels of practice.
• Includes a review process and underpinning research
to establish the influences that enable organisations
to release open resources.
www.medev.ac.uk

26. PHORUS
• Partners:
Universities Public Health Network co-ordinated by
Bournemouth University and including: Anglia Ruskin,
Bedfordshire, Brunel, Canterbury Christ Church,
Cardiff, Central Lancashire, London South Bank,
Manchester Metropolitan, Open University, Robert
Gordon, Staffordhsire, St Andrews and Ulster
www.medev.ac.uk

27. Getting involved
• Finance in PHORUS and OOER is fairly well committed
– delivery and testing the toolkits
– uploading 360˚ credits
– testing ‘discoverability’
– evaluation and dissemination
• Projects may be able to accept ‘non-funded’ partners, most of which
could occur on-line or via Skype:
– access to the project website and project documentation
– identifying resources used in teaching where you are that might be able to be
shared
– contribute to the development of the ‘toolkits’
– testing the use of ‘toolkits’ etc.
– advising on the use of metadata to help with resource discovery
– sharing knowledge and expertise
• Partnering any future proposals/projects in this area

28. Further information
• www.hefce.ac.uk/news/hefce/2008/os.htm
• www.jisc.ac.uk/news/stories/2008/10/openaccess.aspx
• www.heacademy.ac.uk/ourwork/learning/opencontent
• www.medev.ac.uk/oer
• www.health.heacademy.ac.uk/
www.medev.ac.uk

29. Call: 0191 246 4550
Email: suzanne@medev.ac.uk
www.medev.ac.uk