The document discusses the role of openness in driving innovation within education, particularly through initiatives like the UK's Open Educational Resources (OER) program supported by JISC. It highlights the importance of making high-quality educational resources freely available and the impact on student learning experiences and recruitment. Additionally, it explores various approaches to sharing content openly and the implications of educational content ownership.

1. This work is licenced under a Creative Commons Licence.
Openness as a catalyst for
innovation in education
R. John Robertson, JISC CETIS
SPU Symposium, Seattle 2011
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2. Context: JISC
• Established in 1993, JISC
is an advisory committee
to the HE and FE funding
bodies across the UK.
• Its mission is: “to provide
world-class leadership in
the innovative use of
information and
communications
technology (ICT) to
support education,
research and institutional
effectiveness”.
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3. Context: JISC CETIS
• JISC CETIS is a JISC
Innovation Support
Centre.
• We provide advice to
the UK Higher and
Post-16 Education
sectors on the
development and use
of educational
technology and
standards.
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4. To return to the beginning
• "Out of every ten • “Make lots of
innovations mistakes and make
attempted, all very them quickly”
splendid, nine will end
up in silliness"
Antonio Machado
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5. Distributed Learning Environments
Timeline
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6. Briefing Papers
http://wiki.cetis.ac.uk/images/6/6c/Distributed_Learning.pdf
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7. Introduction: UKOER Programmes
• The Open Educational Resources
Programme is a collaboration between the
JISC and the Higher Education Academy in
the UK.
• The Higher Education Funding Council for
England (HEFCE) provided an initial £5.7
million of funding, for a pilot programme
(April 2009 to March 2010) and a
subsequent £5 million of funding (August
2010- August 2011) for a follow-up
programme both of which explore how to
expand the open availability and use of
free, high quality online educational
resources.
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8. What effect does openness have?
• Reflections on
innovation seen
through the
programme
Photo credit and license:
‘Open’ Flickr user: mag3737 CC: BY NC SA
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mag3737/1914076277/
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9. Open content as a catalyst for innovation
• I’d contend that we
“The future is already
know lots of ways to here — it's just not very
innovate and improve evenly distributed.”
education – making
William Gibson
any of them happen is
Interview with NPR
a different question
1993
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10. Defining Open
• thinking about
licensing can actually
make it simpler
• Creative Commons
– BY
– SA or ND http://creativecommons.org/
– NC
10

11. What is an OER?
• From this
Image: screenshot MIT OCW http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/
civil-and-environmental-engineering/1-018j-ecology-i-the-
earth-system-fall-2009/ 11
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12. What is an OER?
• To this
Image: screenshot
http://www.flickr.com/photos/core-materials/4599222126/
12
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13. An Open proposition
• Value proposition that
sharing content openly
can provide a greater
return than strict control
• Discussing this as a
catalyst not necessarily
a cause
13

14. education is not primarily about transfer of
information content...
• High quality
educational resources
widely available – a
given academic is no
longer the provider of
knowledge
• Are you a content
provider or provider of
learning experience?
Photo credit and license:
‘Doors Open Toronto’
Flickr user hyfen CC: BY NC SA
14
http://www.flickr.com/photos/hyfen/3562200168/in/set-72157618755740828

15. Social responsibility
• If publicly funded,
should the public
have access?
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16. Managing your educational content
• Where do you find it?
• Who owns it?
• Who can use it?
• If you want to reuse
your colleagues
lecture materials - can
you find them?
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17. Increasing recruitment
• How much do you
spend on recruiting
students and staff?
• How do you help
students decide what
they should study?
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18. Open Textbooks
• WA SBCTC funding
creation of ~80 openly
licensed textbooks for
most popular topics
• Free / Open license
• Innovation
– Updatable
– Adaptable
– Lower barriers to student
enrolment/ completion
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19. Changes in student expectations?
• Does providing more
flexible access to your
resources support
student learning?
• It may be cheaper
and easier to give
content to the world
than manage access
to limited student
body.
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20. Changes in pedagogy?
• If instructor time and peer interaction are key
components of high impact learning
experiences (Kuh) – why are we spending so
much contact time on lectures?
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21. The wider conversation
• How do we draw
students into wider
academic and public
conversations as part
of becoming self-
regulated learners?
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22. There are different approaches to open
• In the wider OER
community there are two
distinct approaches to
sharing open content for
education.
• Martin Weller
characterises these as
Big and Little OER
(http://
nogoodreason.typepad.c
o.uk/no_good_reason/
2009/12/the-politics-of-
oer.html)
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23. Questions
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