Regional Consultation Workshop on Quality Guidelines for Open Educational Resources on 13-15 March 2013 at Maulana Azad National Urdu University, Hyderabad

1. The Open University of Sri Lanka
(OUSL)
An experiment to excellence
OER Policy & Quality Issues
Dr. Vijitha Nanayakkara
Vice-Chancellor
OUSL
2013

2. Vision of the University
“To be the premier open and distance learning institution
in Asia through excellence, efficiency and equity in life
long learning.”
Mission of the University
“To enhance access to high quality, affordable and
relevant education through Open Distance
Education and ensure life-long learning
opportunities to face challenges in a knowledge.”

3. Faculties
Students
37.93%
Students
16.89%
Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences Faculty of Engineering Technology
Students Students
20.62% 24.56%
Faculty of Natural Sciences Faculty of Education

5. Centre Network of OUSL
Satellite image of The Main Campus, Nawala.
6 Regional Centres
19 Study Centres
6 Teaching Centres

7. Achieving Excellence
Revise all current study
programmes by 2016
Develop New programmes
Transform all printed text based delivery
to blended /online mode by 2016
Improve English and ICT knowledge of the
students
Enhance Quality and Affordability

8. OUSL OER Policy
In principle OUSL accepted the
need of converting all academic programmes
into the form of OER
Initially Corporate Plan states that all
foundation level courses shall be in the
form of OER in 2016
Create conducive environment for OER

9. OER Initiatives
Improve Online Learning Environment
Staff training
Research on OER
Establishment of OER cells at Faculty level
In 2012 Education faculty has taken steps to
implement the OER policy
L3 Farmers Project
Introduction of incentive mechanism
Telecasting of Learning Materials through
Satellite and Terrestrial Television

10. Workshops on OER funded by Commonwealth of
Learning (COL) facilitated by the Open University
of Sri Lanka (OUSL)
• For the 35 participants involved in External Degree
Programmes of all National Universities Funded by
HETC (Higher Education for Twenty-first
Century) 13-14th March, 2013.
• For 40 OUSL Academic Staff – 14-15 March, 2013
Resource Persons :
Prof. Madhulika Kaushik, COL
Prof. Sanjay Jasola, Graphic Era Hill University

11. Staff training
Moodle online course design and
development workshops’ conducted by
the Centre for Educational Technology
and Media (CETMe) (2008 -2013).
YEAR No. of Teachers
Trained
2013 Jan 14
2012 April 12
2012 May 10
2011 20
2008 Jan 26
2008 April 20
2008 Nov 15
Total 117

12. Capacity Building Workshop-1
02nd – 4th January 2013

13. Research on OER
 Developing a Case Study on the use of
OER in e-learning at Faculty of Education,
OUSL.

14. Education faculty Initiatives
OER-based E-Learning Initiatives at the Faculty of Education
- From 2012–
Design, Development and Evaluation of
an Online Learning Environment on
Open Educational Resources for
Science Education
(Faculty Research Project)
Integration of ICT and OER into
Teacher Education Programmes and
Capacity Building of Teacher Educators
at OUSL
(Project in Partnership with COL)

15. Project Objectives
Identify sources of Open Educational Resources
(OER) for Science Education
Design an Online Learning Environment (OLE) on
OER for Science Education
Develop the OLE on OER with the participation of
Science teachers
Evaluate the OLE on OER and make further
improvements as required

16. A Screen Capture of the Home Page of the
OLE on OER for Science Education
April 5, 2013 Shironica Karunanayaka 16

17. Expected Outcomes:
An Online Learning Environment on OER
for Science Education created
Awareness, knowledge and skills on OER
among student teachers developed
A trained group of Science teachers on
using and creating OER produced

18. OER-integrated Online Course Design &
Development
MATE-I – Teacher Educator as an Educational
Technologist
MEd – Psychological Foundations of Education
PGDE – Educational Technology
PGDSNE – Exceptionalities & Learning Needs
BEdECPE – Child Development

19. Future Plans
Integrate ICT and OER in to all Teacher Education
programmes at OUSL
Engage in OER-related Collaborative Initiatives
Engage in Research Activities

20. COL Life Long
Learning (L3F) farmer
project of OUSL
Wathurakumbura
Kandy

21. http://www.ou.ac.lk/col/

23. Maintaining Quality of OER Materials
At OUSL Quality Assurance is looked after at 3 levels
•At Course Team level quality of material content &
Presentation checklist
•At the level of uploading online material to Moodle
Platform – Technical quality of the online converted
materials – checklist
•Prior to opening up online material as OER material –
A thorough quality check of content, presentation and
technical aspects to be carried out together with
licensing mechanism

24. Quality assurance of Online courses
Each year Programmes/ Courses are
evaluated
Following components are evaluated
Subject contents are evaluated by subject
specialists at relevant Departments.

25. Name of the Course:
Course coordinator:
Reviewer/Review Team:
Component Criteria
1. Your Tell us who you are professionally
Profile Tell us any personal interests
(Teacher) Describe yourself as a learner
Upload a picture/image
How that picture reflects you
2. Course (Programme, Level, Credit rating, about the course )
description
3. Welcome Simple, 3 paragraphs – maximum, welcoming students,
message purpose, teachers, Name of the person responsible)
Pictures inserted as a banner
4. Start Here Navigational guide to the online course

26. 4. Start Here Navigational guide to the online course
5. Announcements Welcome message
at least another message
6. Help wanted forum Message for technical support
7 Contact Information Name, address , email, Tel. number
8. Course Information Advance organizer to the course, Syllabus,
Activity Schedule, Assessment criterion and any
other required material
Date, Contact person, Meaningful file name,
Additional information

27. 9. Assignment
At least two assignments with clear instructions
Instruction about how to submit the assignment
Due Date, Contact person, Meaningful file name,
Additional information
10. Learning resources
At least two resources (PPT, multimedia,
supplementary reading material, research papers
etc.)
At least one web resource (links)
Date, Contact person, Meaningful file name,
Additional information

28. 11. Class At least one message to start a discussion (first
discussion discussion should be a teacher guided discussion).
Motivation, clarity of instructions
12. Assignment Instructions
Drop Box Set the availability dates
Feedback and grade the submitted assignment

29. Introduction of incentive
mechanism
•OUSL has introduced awards in
order to motivate staff
1. Best Audio-visual materials
2. Best Multimedia production
3. Best online course
CONCERN - If it is OER then how
can we motivate staff who reproduce
something created by
others and to maintain the
sustainability

30. Incentives..
Introduction of considerable point
scheme for the promotion of the
University Teachers who
are working on online learning and
OER
 Introduction of grading system and
resource allocation mechanism for
the Departments and Faculties who
promote OER

31. Challenges for Quality
Improvement of OER
Traditional mindset
Negative attitudes of the academic
Lack of trained staff
Poor infrastructure for
online learning
Lack of material resources
Legal barriers
Lack of government policy on OER

32. Traditional Mindset
• Traditionally education was restricted to
certain social groups
• The concept of “Guru Mushti”
• Traditional teacher-student relationship
• Knowledge and social prestige

33. Negative Attitudes of the Academics
• Online learning needs dedication
and commitment inter alia
• The OER initiatives including
online teaching interfere with
comfort zones of academics
• OER needs very stringent quality
assurance mechanisms to
safeguard the quality and the
accuracy of the content of the
course materials
•Lack of confidence in the accuracy of facts
• Knowledge as a private property

34. Lack of Trained Staff
• The education system is highly teacher
centered
• School teachers and University teachers
are trained by conventional universities
• Most of the teachers have a little
knowledge of IT

35. Poor infrastructure for
online learning
• Successful OER programmes need online
learning environment
• Regional disparity in computer literacy
•Colombo 20%, Gampaha, Kandy, Kalutara, Matara 10%, Monaragala 3%
• Computer Availability
•Urban sector 23.6%
•Rural Sector 9.2%
•Estate Sector 3.1%

36. Lack of Material Resources
• To implement OER project need
adequate IT related resources
and equipments
• Initial cost is very high
• Who is going to bear the cost?
• Marginal areas are excluded
from even the basic amenities

37. Legal Barriers
• The current intellectual
property rights in Sri Lanka is
governed by the Intellectual
Property Act, No 36 of 2003
• Only texts can be used for
the face to face teaching
• The copy right and publishers
are the greatest obstacles

38. Lack of Government Policy on OER
• Sri Lanka Government policy
emphasize the future knowledge
hub in the Asia
• More concentration has been
given to the IT and English
• No OER related policy framework

39. Sri Lanka
The Emerging Wonder of Asia
“ I firmly believe that a country’s achievements are
based on organizing its manpower efficiently and
effectively. In this context, the university is the centre
of generating and disseminating knowledge. I always
believe that the aim of university education is to
create someone who could see the world beyond its
horizon. Universities should not be factories that
create technicians for employment”
(Mahinda Chinthana 2010, p 75)

40. Improve Online Learning
Environment
Even though there is no
Government policy at the
national level to
introduce OER, a
number of steps have
been taken to improve
the OER supportive
environment in the
country

41. Sri Lankan Initiatives of
Online Learning
The National e-Learning Movement in Sri Lanka
The National e- Learning
Project attempts to
maintain a sustainable
National e- Learning Centre
in Sri Lanka

42. e-Sri Lanka
The Nenasala Project is one of the
projects implemented under the e-Sri
Lanka Initiative. Formally known as
the “Vishva Gnana Kendra Project
(Nenasala)”, ICTA has incorporated it
under the “Nenasala” label to
introduce several models of the
telecentres or knowledge centres to
be established in all parts of Sri-
Lanka to spread ICT services to the
rural and semi-urban population.

43. Open Source Learning Object
Repository
It is an open source
Learning Object Repository
developed in collaboration
between: University of
Colombo School of
Computing (UCSC), Sri
Lanka Stockholm University
and Orebro University,
Sweden.

44. The National Online Distance
Education Service
Nodes Access Centres (NACs)
equipped with 25 multimedia PCs
with video conferencing facilities