Presentation at the seminar "“Open Education in Minority Languages: Chances and Perspectives”, Leeuwarden, The Netherlands, October 7, 2015 https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B76G8bLgGdJDcG92V1NENG9lVmM/view

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.
Open Educational Practices in small languages:
the role of community engagement
Katerina Zourou and Giulia Torresin, Web2Learn, Greece
LangOER seminar in Leeuwarden, October 7, 2015

2. Setting the scene: OEP and Open
Learning Ecologies
• In favour of a conceptual shift from OER (as
mere content) to OEP (as content situated,
developed and enriched in a given socio-
technical context)
Ehlers, U.-D., Caine, A. (2011) Moving To Open Learning Ecologies: 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
• Adoption & development of OER/OEP:
common issue faced by small & RML
languages

3. Plan
Plan
Community-driven engagement part 1
 Small language communities’ engagement in crowdsourcing
and its value for Open Educational Practices
Community-driven engagement part 2
 Facilitating community-driven engagement through design

4. CROWDSOURCING AND OEP
Community-driven engagement part 1

5. Rheingold’s talk on
the coming world of collaboration,
participatory media and collective
action

9. https://www.ted.com/participate/translate

10. Crowdsourcing
“Engagement of individuals who voluntarily offer their
knowledge to a knowledge seeker (an organisation, a
company, etc. Howe (2006). (…)
It can be seen not only as a movement towards massive user
engagement in an unrestricted and collaborative manner, but
also as a means by which companies exploit users' collective
efforts of knowledge building, without a corresponding
remuneration, "[by] tap[ping] the latent talent of the crowd"
(Howe, 2006, np)”
Zourou, K. & Lamy, M.-N. (2013)

13. See/read also:
•Anna Comas-Quinn talk at 2014 LangOER webinar
https://connect.sunet.se/p502lhe6m8f/
•Beaven, T; Comas-Quinn, A.; de los Arcos, B.; Hauck, M. and Lewis, T.
(2013). The Open Translation MOOC: creating online communities to
transcend linguistic barriers. In: OER 13, 26-27 March 2013,
http://www-jime.open.ac.uk/articles/10.5334/2013-18/
Potential for
small state
and RML
languages?

14. From http://international.khanacademy.org/
Window opener for OEP:
Re-use of open resources in new
educational contexts, including
formal education => Genuine Open
Educational Practices
OER Localisation:
“adaptation of resources to meet the
particular needs of end-users in
several culturally and linguistically
diverse contexts (…) OER localisation
can include changing the language,
pedagogical approach, content,
imagery, and the religious, cultural
and geographical references featured
in resources”. Perryman, L.-A. et al.
(2014)

15. • The TESS-India project is led by The Open
University in the UK and is funded by UK aid
from the UK government. It is working
towards improving the quality of teacher
education in India. Initiated in November
2012, the project focuses on the professional
development of teacher educators and
teachers in 8 states in India

16. FACILITATING COMMUNITY-
DRIVEN ENGAGEMENT THROUGH
DESIGN
Community-driven engagement part 2

17. Designing artifacts to facilitate
community-driven OEP
• ExplOERer: 2-year European Commission funded project
“Supporting OER re-use in learning ecosystems”
• One strand of activities dedicated to “
Social networking and gaming capacities of OER” (Katerina
& Giulia in charge)
– the role of social networking and game mechanics in
(national) Repositories of OER (ROER) and other digital
learning spaces
– An analysis of social networking and gaming features of
ROER (ongoing research)
• http://www.exploerer.gu.se/

18. First results I
Most frequently embedded features
are:
•The possibility of creating a user
profile
•Open APIs

19. First results II
Most frequently embedded
features are:
•The possibility to react or
comment a resource
•The possibility to recommend a
resource to a user

20. Most represented features
Most represented feature Least represented feature

21. -

22. Open APIs
Collecting points according to users’ feebacks

23. Some thoughts to take away:
• Speakers of small and regional languages do engage in
communities around OEP:
– Language preservation
– Collective action
• In some cases community engagement isn’t so natural: role
of expert users and design features in enhancing
community dynamics
• Greater interest in designing features that enhance user-
engagement comes from ROER in small/regional languages

24. Thank you!
References
•Anderson, J. & Rainie, L. (2012). "Gamification and the
Internet". Pew Research http://www.pewinternet.org/~/
media/Files/Reports/2012/PIP_Future_of_Internet_2012_Gamification.pdf
•Howe, J. (2006). "The Rise of Crowdsourcing". Wired, 14 (6.)
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.06/crowds.html
•Perryman, L-A et al 2014 Learning from TESS-India’s Approach
to OER Localisation Across Multiple Indian States. Journal of
Interactive Media in Education, 2014(2): 7, pp. 1-11, http://
dx.doi.org/10.5334/jime.af
•Zourou, K. & Lamy, M.-N. (2013) « Social networked game
dynamics in web 2.0 language learning communities », Alsic,
Vol. 16, http://alsic.revues.org/2642
•Zourou, K.2014. Social networking and gaming capacities of
OER. Work in progress-slides available:
http://www.slideshare.net/ExplOERer/social-networking-and-
gaming-capacities-of-oer-output-3-slides
@web2Learn_eu
Web2Learn_eu
http://web2learn.eu/
Staying in touch

25. Images
• http://www.forbes.com/sites/benkerschberg/2015/02/05/how-strategic-
cmos-use-crowdsourcing-to-win/
• © Khan Academy
• © Amara