The overall aim of POERUP is to carry out research to understand how governments can stimulate the uptake of OER by policy means, not excluding financial means but recognising that in the current economic situation in Europe the scope for government financial support for such activities is much less than it has been in some countries.
We do not want to formulate policies based on informal discussions. We want the policies to be evidence-based policies – and based on looking beyond – beyond one’s own country, region or continent, and beyond the educational sector that a ministry typically looks after.
One aspect of this is to foster the potential of new technologies for enhancing innovation and creativity, in particular by researching policies designed to foster a lifelong learner mindset in learners – leading to curiosity, creativity and a greater willingness to consume OER.
We also want to provide education authorities, the research community and OER initiative management with trustworthy and balanced research results, in which feedback from all stakeholder groups has been incorporated and which can be used as standard literature. A specific objective is to help readers in charge of OER initiatives to foresee hidden traps and to find ways of incorporating successful features of other initiatives. POERUP is about dispassionate analysis, not lobbying.
We aim to provide policymakers and education authorities above institutions, but also OER management and practitioners within institutions, with insight into what has been done in this area, plus a categorization of the different major initiatives and the diverse range of providers. Policy advice is needed explicitly to address Issues like critical thinking in the use of new technologies/media, risk awareness, and ethical/legal considerations. Our review will provide practical and concrete information in order to contribute towards a more informed approach in the future.
POERUP is doing this by:
• studying a range of countries in Europe and seen as relevant to Europe, in order to understand what OER is going on, and why it is going on (or might soon cease to be going on) – and taking account of reports from other agencies studying OER in other countries;
• researching case studies of various end-user–producer communities behind OER initiatives in order to refine and elaborate recommendations to formulate a set of action points that can be applied to ensuring the realisation of successful, lively and sustainable OER communities;
• developing informed ideas on policy formulation using evidence from our own and other studies, our own experience in related projects and ongoing advice from other experts in the field.
Finally, these results are being disseminated and maintained in a sustainable way.
The project has a web site http://www.poerup.info and a wiki http://poerup.referata.com for country reports and other outputs. This wiki will be sustained after the end of t
OCWC POERUP external evaluation of FutureLearn communityPaul Bacsich
FutureLearn is a private company wholly owned by the UK Open University. It has partnered with over 20 leading UK universities to form the FutureLearn consortium. Since October 2013 this has offered a range of MOOCs focussed at informal learning on subjects typically taught at university level. FutureLearn has partnered also with three UK institutions with archives of cultural and educational material - the British Council, the British Library, and the British Museum - and with a few non-UK universities, so far the University of Auckland, Monash University and Trinity College Dublin.
This paper is a case study of FutureLearn. Unlike many case studies of such MOOC-based and OER initiatives, it is not from a member of the consortium. Indeed the case study will not use any privileged information. In evaluation terms it is carried out from an “external observer” standpoint, not from a “participant-observer” standpoint.
The key research question for this case study is to establish the strength and functions of the FutureLearn community - the community of staff at institutions who are engaged, increasingly collaboratively, in creating the FutureLearn courses, supporting the students, and co-developing the FutureLearn software systems and procedures.
The reason for this case study is to test one of the fundamental hypotheses of the POERUP project. POERUP, Policies for OER Uptake, is a study project funded by the Lifelong Learning Programme of the European Commission, running from late 2011 until June 2014. Among the core tasks of POERUP are to produce seven in-depth case studies of OER and MOOC communities. In addition to FutureLearn these include OER university (global), Wikiwijs (Netherlands) and ALISON (Ireland).
The research methodology involves so far:
1. documentary analysis of the FutureLearn project, involving what it says about itself and what others say about it, and a preliminary set of informal discussions with stakeholders.
2. in-depth interviews, using an interview template, with key staff at FutureLearn partners.
There will be a final phase of documentary analysis in the May-June 2014, before the end of the POERUP project.
The communities in the POERUP case studies are being analysed using Social Network Analysis, to varying degrees of depth depending on the activity within the communities. Bieke Schreurs the co-author of the presentation is responsible for this aspect of the research (Schreurs et al 2013).
The evidence we have gathered in the POERUP project indicates that at least within the European Union the era of large state-funded OER content initiatives is almost over. Our hypothesis is that a development such as FutureLearn is much more the kind of partnership - public and private, ambitious but not unrealistically so, nationally based yet not nationally bounded - that will succeed - and we want to understand and document why this is so in order that others can learn from it.
Ocwc2014 policies-bacsich final and refsPaul Bacsich
This presentation responds to the challenge of developing policies for OER uptake in the higher education sector of a given country, with particular reference to the smaller countries of the European Union (countries with no more than around 10 million people). It takes a case study approach, reviewing how the POERUP project (Policies for OER Uptake, part-funded by the Lifelong Learning Programme of the EU) is developing policies for three smaller countries: Ireland (an EU member state) and Wales and Scotland (two semi-autonomous regions of the United Kingdom, fully autonomous in educational terms). The inclusion of Wales and Scotland also throws light on the challenge of developing policies for federal countries where higher education is developed to the province/state level.
Factors that seem to be of particular relevance to smaller states include:
1. less money for extensive research and policy analysis
2. more influence of regional and isolated areas
3. easier decision-making, at least in theory
4. issues of lack of economies of scale, in particular if the national language is state-specific
5. greater interest in collaboration with some nearby states on educational issues
6. a smaller set of institutions, causing issues with generating or maintaining institutional diversity of mission unless the process is managed
7. potentially greater danger of dominance by private sector interests
8. potentially large edge effects of student flows from nearby states, potentially made worse if funding and regulatory regimes are attractive to incomers.
The analysis includes studying the interplay between the recommendations produced by international policy work relating to OER and the national policy context (which in some cases makes no mention of OER, in others makes considerable mention but not always correlated with or aware of international issues).
The starting point within POERUP is the document "Policy advice for universities" of which release 1 is currently available, but which is being updated in the light of comments and incoming data. This reviews recent international policy (e.g. COL, UNESCO); EU policies (including Bologna, Europe 2020, Recognition and validation of non-formal and informal learning, European higher education in the world, and most recently, Opening Up Education), relevant to OER and consolidated evidence from a variety of national contexts, to make a set of (currently) 18 recommendations designed not only to foster OER but also the changes in higher education that OER is foreseen as helping to foster - such as more flexible accreditation, encouragement of a wider community to take part in higher education, and a vision of higher education focussed more on competences and skills gained and less on duration of study. See Policies at EU-level for OER uptake in universities - http://www.scribd.com/doc/169430544/Policies-at-EU-level-for-OER-uptake-in-universities
Policies for uptake of OER in the UK home nationsPaul Bacsich
This paper from POERUP provides a set of 16 or so recommendations designed to foster the use of open educational resources and open educational practices in the UK higher education sector, in particular England, Scotland and Wales.
The study method was to review the full range of OER activity in the UK HE sector in the last few years (such as the JISC/HEA OER Programme), take into account the policy environment in the home nations for HE in general and online learning in particular, and correlate these both with developments in over 30 other countries deemed to be of relevance to Europe and the emerging policy environment at EU level (to which the POERUP project contributed, as the author was both a member of the EU’s Open Education Experts Group and a contributor (Bacsich 2013a) to the Open Education 2030 workshop on higher education).
This paper focuses only on higher education in the UK but companion papers focus on further education and on schools.
In addition the project is also preparing policy papers on Ireland (by the same author), Netherlands, France, Spain, Poland and Canada. This set of studies and papers provides massive capability for cross-correlation and triangulation.
Our first EU HE OER policy paper (Bacsich 2013b) was made available publicly in September 2013, in advance of the EU’s Opening Up Education report (European Commission 2013). Ours has now been updated to take account of that and refine the EU’s recommendations for the HE sector. The first summary version of a UK HE policy paper has been produced for internal discussion in the POERUP project and then in the Advisory Committee.
Our UK HE presentation aims to take into account the different home nations’ HE systems and the different state of policy development in England and Wales (BIS 2013; HEW 2013) and working groups such as Open Scotland.
The POERUP project takes care not to focus on OER as an end in itself, but on the agendas that OER is said to be able to foster and on the wider agenda (called by the EU “opening up education”, but equally well called by others “open and distance learning”, “open educational practices”, or “flexible learning”) within which OER is embedded. Paradoxically perhaps, this makes it much easier to make recommendations and to ensure stability in the recommendations and consistency with other existing policies.
In its current draft form, the recommendations are formulated as 16 in a “home nation neutral” fashion, but the number of recommendations will no doubt change as the document splits into three versions. It is still felt to be valuable to produce a UK-wide synthesis, not least because several key agencies such as HEA and QAA have a UK-wide remit.
The project is willing to work with other home nations/regions/mission groups, Crown Dependencies and other EU countries to co-create similar documents. It already has some experience of this developed in the last few months.
Quality in e-learning - a view for ENQAPaul Bacsich
A view from a benchmarking e-learning perspective of how to initiate a synthesis of approaches to quality in e-learning for use Europe-wide within the ENQA Standards and Guidelines
The overall aim of POERUP is to carry out research to understand how governments can stimulate the uptake of OER by policy means, not excluding financial means but recognising that in the current economic situation in Europe the scope for government financial support for such activities is much less than it has been in some countries.
We do not want to formulate policies based on informal discussions. We want the policies to be evidence-based policies – and based on looking beyond – beyond one’s own country, region or continent, and beyond the educational sector that a ministry typically looks after.
One aspect of this is to foster the potential of new technologies for enhancing innovation and creativity, in particular by researching policies designed to foster a lifelong learner mindset in learners – leading to curiosity, creativity and a greater willingness to consume OER.
We also want to provide education authorities, the research community and OER initiative management with trustworthy and balanced research results, in which feedback from all stakeholder groups has been incorporated and which can be used as standard literature. A specific objective is to help readers in charge of OER initiatives to foresee hidden traps and to find ways of incorporating successful features of other initiatives. POERUP is about dispassionate analysis, not lobbying.
We aim to provide policymakers and education authorities above institutions, but also OER management and practitioners within institutions, with insight into what has been done in this area, plus a categorization of the different major initiatives and the diverse range of providers. Policy advice is needed explicitly to address Issues like critical thinking in the use of new technologies/media, risk awareness, and ethical/legal considerations. Our review will provide practical and concrete information in order to contribute towards a more informed approach in the future.
POERUP is doing this by:
• studying a range of countries in Europe and seen as relevant to Europe, in order to understand what OER is going on, and why it is going on (or might soon cease to be going on) – and taking account of reports from other agencies studying OER in other countries;
• researching case studies of various end-user–producer communities behind OER initiatives in order to refine and elaborate recommendations to formulate a set of action points that can be applied to ensuring the realisation of successful, lively and sustainable OER communities;
• developing informed ideas on policy formulation using evidence from our own and other studies, our own experience in related projects and ongoing advice from other experts in the field.
Finally, these results are being disseminated and maintained in a sustainable way.
The project has a web site http://www.poerup.info and a wiki http://poerup.referata.com for country reports and other outputs. This wiki will be sustained after the end of t
OCWC POERUP external evaluation of FutureLearn communityPaul Bacsich
FutureLearn is a private company wholly owned by the UK Open University. It has partnered with over 20 leading UK universities to form the FutureLearn consortium. Since October 2013 this has offered a range of MOOCs focussed at informal learning on subjects typically taught at university level. FutureLearn has partnered also with three UK institutions with archives of cultural and educational material - the British Council, the British Library, and the British Museum - and with a few non-UK universities, so far the University of Auckland, Monash University and Trinity College Dublin.
This paper is a case study of FutureLearn. Unlike many case studies of such MOOC-based and OER initiatives, it is not from a member of the consortium. Indeed the case study will not use any privileged information. In evaluation terms it is carried out from an “external observer” standpoint, not from a “participant-observer” standpoint.
The key research question for this case study is to establish the strength and functions of the FutureLearn community - the community of staff at institutions who are engaged, increasingly collaboratively, in creating the FutureLearn courses, supporting the students, and co-developing the FutureLearn software systems and procedures.
The reason for this case study is to test one of the fundamental hypotheses of the POERUP project. POERUP, Policies for OER Uptake, is a study project funded by the Lifelong Learning Programme of the European Commission, running from late 2011 until June 2014. Among the core tasks of POERUP are to produce seven in-depth case studies of OER and MOOC communities. In addition to FutureLearn these include OER university (global), Wikiwijs (Netherlands) and ALISON (Ireland).
The research methodology involves so far:
1. documentary analysis of the FutureLearn project, involving what it says about itself and what others say about it, and a preliminary set of informal discussions with stakeholders.
2. in-depth interviews, using an interview template, with key staff at FutureLearn partners.
There will be a final phase of documentary analysis in the May-June 2014, before the end of the POERUP project.
The communities in the POERUP case studies are being analysed using Social Network Analysis, to varying degrees of depth depending on the activity within the communities. Bieke Schreurs the co-author of the presentation is responsible for this aspect of the research (Schreurs et al 2013).
The evidence we have gathered in the POERUP project indicates that at least within the European Union the era of large state-funded OER content initiatives is almost over. Our hypothesis is that a development such as FutureLearn is much more the kind of partnership - public and private, ambitious but not unrealistically so, nationally based yet not nationally bounded - that will succeed - and we want to understand and document why this is so in order that others can learn from it.
Ocwc2014 policies-bacsich final and refsPaul Bacsich
This presentation responds to the challenge of developing policies for OER uptake in the higher education sector of a given country, with particular reference to the smaller countries of the European Union (countries with no more than around 10 million people). It takes a case study approach, reviewing how the POERUP project (Policies for OER Uptake, part-funded by the Lifelong Learning Programme of the EU) is developing policies for three smaller countries: Ireland (an EU member state) and Wales and Scotland (two semi-autonomous regions of the United Kingdom, fully autonomous in educational terms). The inclusion of Wales and Scotland also throws light on the challenge of developing policies for federal countries where higher education is developed to the province/state level.
Factors that seem to be of particular relevance to smaller states include:
1. less money for extensive research and policy analysis
2. more influence of regional and isolated areas
3. easier decision-making, at least in theory
4. issues of lack of economies of scale, in particular if the national language is state-specific
5. greater interest in collaboration with some nearby states on educational issues
6. a smaller set of institutions, causing issues with generating or maintaining institutional diversity of mission unless the process is managed
7. potentially greater danger of dominance by private sector interests
8. potentially large edge effects of student flows from nearby states, potentially made worse if funding and regulatory regimes are attractive to incomers.
The analysis includes studying the interplay between the recommendations produced by international policy work relating to OER and the national policy context (which in some cases makes no mention of OER, in others makes considerable mention but not always correlated with or aware of international issues).
The starting point within POERUP is the document "Policy advice for universities" of which release 1 is currently available, but which is being updated in the light of comments and incoming data. This reviews recent international policy (e.g. COL, UNESCO); EU policies (including Bologna, Europe 2020, Recognition and validation of non-formal and informal learning, European higher education in the world, and most recently, Opening Up Education), relevant to OER and consolidated evidence from a variety of national contexts, to make a set of (currently) 18 recommendations designed not only to foster OER but also the changes in higher education that OER is foreseen as helping to foster - such as more flexible accreditation, encouragement of a wider community to take part in higher education, and a vision of higher education focussed more on competences and skills gained and less on duration of study. See Policies at EU-level for OER uptake in universities - http://www.scribd.com/doc/169430544/Policies-at-EU-level-for-OER-uptake-in-universities
Policies for uptake of OER in the UK home nationsPaul Bacsich
This paper from POERUP provides a set of 16 or so recommendations designed to foster the use of open educational resources and open educational practices in the UK higher education sector, in particular England, Scotland and Wales.
The study method was to review the full range of OER activity in the UK HE sector in the last few years (such as the JISC/HEA OER Programme), take into account the policy environment in the home nations for HE in general and online learning in particular, and correlate these both with developments in over 30 other countries deemed to be of relevance to Europe and the emerging policy environment at EU level (to which the POERUP project contributed, as the author was both a member of the EU’s Open Education Experts Group and a contributor (Bacsich 2013a) to the Open Education 2030 workshop on higher education).
This paper focuses only on higher education in the UK but companion papers focus on further education and on schools.
In addition the project is also preparing policy papers on Ireland (by the same author), Netherlands, France, Spain, Poland and Canada. This set of studies and papers provides massive capability for cross-correlation and triangulation.
Our first EU HE OER policy paper (Bacsich 2013b) was made available publicly in September 2013, in advance of the EU’s Opening Up Education report (European Commission 2013). Ours has now been updated to take account of that and refine the EU’s recommendations for the HE sector. The first summary version of a UK HE policy paper has been produced for internal discussion in the POERUP project and then in the Advisory Committee.
Our UK HE presentation aims to take into account the different home nations’ HE systems and the different state of policy development in England and Wales (BIS 2013; HEW 2013) and working groups such as Open Scotland.
The POERUP project takes care not to focus on OER as an end in itself, but on the agendas that OER is said to be able to foster and on the wider agenda (called by the EU “opening up education”, but equally well called by others “open and distance learning”, “open educational practices”, or “flexible learning”) within which OER is embedded. Paradoxically perhaps, this makes it much easier to make recommendations and to ensure stability in the recommendations and consistency with other existing policies.
In its current draft form, the recommendations are formulated as 16 in a “home nation neutral” fashion, but the number of recommendations will no doubt change as the document splits into three versions. It is still felt to be valuable to produce a UK-wide synthesis, not least because several key agencies such as HEA and QAA have a UK-wide remit.
The project is willing to work with other home nations/regions/mission groups, Crown Dependencies and other EU countries to co-create similar documents. It already has some experience of this developed in the last few months.
Quality in e-learning - a view for ENQAPaul Bacsich
A view from a benchmarking e-learning perspective of how to initiate a synthesis of approaches to quality in e-learning for use Europe-wide within the ENQA Standards and Guidelines
Institutional Open Education and OER Policies - a view from POERUPPaul Bacsich
This webinar will provide two perspectives on OER policies and seek to answer some of the key questions related to Open Education and OER policies. The questions below will drive the session delivered by the presenters and form the basis of the discussion which follows.
Why have a policy?
What are the problems in developing a policy?
How do you get your teaching staff on board?
Did it require extra staff (as with MOOCs in some cases)?
What are the main elements of your policy? For example, is there was a minimum/maximum amount of OER that could be used e.g. only 50% could be made up from OER.
Have you had feedback from students about the policy?
Has there been feedback (good/bad) from students as a result?
What have been the key benefits of developing and having a policy?
The first presenter is Paul Bacsich from POERUP.
Alternative archetypes of formal education provisionPaul Bacsich
This is the revised version of the earlier paper, updated in the light of input at EIF2012 during and after the workshop on the topic. Now awaiting further refinement at ALT-C
This presentation describes the approach taken by an externally-funded series of analytic projects in OER, first POERUP and then the successor studies on SharedOER and Adult Education & OER, to “solve” the requirement, first posed by UNESCO in 2012 (D’Antoni, 2013), but later taken up by the Hewlett Foundation (2013), of geographic mapping of OER initiatives, policies and other related entities. There are of course several such “solutions”, all with their strengths and weaknesses, but the POERUP database is larger than most so far, more multi-sector (HE,VET and K-12) and more global in coverage – in part because it could leverage on a series of well-funded EU projects over several years, each unusually (for EU projects) taking a global viewpoint.
The presentation will consider the decisions taken by POERUP and its successor studies on technology, databases, mapping and user interface, looking both at the distribution and the collection aspects.
Using OER and MOOCs for education and training - leadersPaul Bacsich
This presentation provides a 12-slide snapshot in March 2016 of the D-TRANSFORM project funded under Erasmus+ to develop leadership training in e-learning (digital learning) for senior leaders (Rectors, Vice-Rectors, Board Directors) in universities and other higher education institutions across Europe. It was presented virtually to the workshop "Open Education - concepts, tools, resources, practices" in Timisoara, Romania, on 11 March 2016 - which was also streamed
POERUP elevator pitch: 26 countries in 26 minuteswitthaus
Presentation by POERUP team at OER13 in Nottingham - an overview of open educational resources policies worldwide, based on the POERUP project research (http://www.poerup.info)
This higher education case study presentation was delivered by Rosemary Borup during the measuring employability workshop of the December 2015 Learning Networks event held in Cardiff.
Policy imperatives driving open educational resources (in universities in the...Paul Bacsich
This presentation introduces Release 1 of the "Policies for OER Uptake" developed by the POERUP project (part-funded by the EU Lifelong Learning Programme) for universities across the European Union and indeed the European Higher Education Area
Lifelong Learning Programme - Key Activity 3 - ICT; Multilateral projects
By carrying out research to understand how governments can stimulate the uptake of OER by policy means (and not just funding), POERUP aims to contribute to the implementation of LLL. Simultaneously POERUP aims to foster the potential of new media for enhancing innovation by researching policies designed to foster a “lifelong learner” mindset in learners: leading to curiosity, creativity and a willingness to “consume” OER. To do so the project team will investigate the “end-user – producer communities” behind OER initiatives and what (or who) it is that actually provides the energy that make OER work or not.
Institutional Open Education and OER Policies - a view from POERUPPaul Bacsich
This webinar will provide two perspectives on OER policies and seek to answer some of the key questions related to Open Education and OER policies. The questions below will drive the session delivered by the presenters and form the basis of the discussion which follows.
Why have a policy?
What are the problems in developing a policy?
How do you get your teaching staff on board?
Did it require extra staff (as with MOOCs in some cases)?
What are the main elements of your policy? For example, is there was a minimum/maximum amount of OER that could be used e.g. only 50% could be made up from OER.
Have you had feedback from students about the policy?
Has there been feedback (good/bad) from students as a result?
What have been the key benefits of developing and having a policy?
The first presenter is Paul Bacsich from POERUP.
Alternative archetypes of formal education provisionPaul Bacsich
This is the revised version of the earlier paper, updated in the light of input at EIF2012 during and after the workshop on the topic. Now awaiting further refinement at ALT-C
This presentation describes the approach taken by an externally-funded series of analytic projects in OER, first POERUP and then the successor studies on SharedOER and Adult Education & OER, to “solve” the requirement, first posed by UNESCO in 2012 (D’Antoni, 2013), but later taken up by the Hewlett Foundation (2013), of geographic mapping of OER initiatives, policies and other related entities. There are of course several such “solutions”, all with their strengths and weaknesses, but the POERUP database is larger than most so far, more multi-sector (HE,VET and K-12) and more global in coverage – in part because it could leverage on a series of well-funded EU projects over several years, each unusually (for EU projects) taking a global viewpoint.
The presentation will consider the decisions taken by POERUP and its successor studies on technology, databases, mapping and user interface, looking both at the distribution and the collection aspects.
Using OER and MOOCs for education and training - leadersPaul Bacsich
This presentation provides a 12-slide snapshot in March 2016 of the D-TRANSFORM project funded under Erasmus+ to develop leadership training in e-learning (digital learning) for senior leaders (Rectors, Vice-Rectors, Board Directors) in universities and other higher education institutions across Europe. It was presented virtually to the workshop "Open Education - concepts, tools, resources, practices" in Timisoara, Romania, on 11 March 2016 - which was also streamed
POERUP elevator pitch: 26 countries in 26 minuteswitthaus
Presentation by POERUP team at OER13 in Nottingham - an overview of open educational resources policies worldwide, based on the POERUP project research (http://www.poerup.info)
This higher education case study presentation was delivered by Rosemary Borup during the measuring employability workshop of the December 2015 Learning Networks event held in Cardiff.
Policy imperatives driving open educational resources (in universities in the...Paul Bacsich
This presentation introduces Release 1 of the "Policies for OER Uptake" developed by the POERUP project (part-funded by the EU Lifelong Learning Programme) for universities across the European Union and indeed the European Higher Education Area
Lifelong Learning Programme - Key Activity 3 - ICT; Multilateral projects
By carrying out research to understand how governments can stimulate the uptake of OER by policy means (and not just funding), POERUP aims to contribute to the implementation of LLL. Simultaneously POERUP aims to foster the potential of new media for enhancing innovation by researching policies designed to foster a “lifelong learner” mindset in learners: leading to curiosity, creativity and a willingness to “consume” OER. To do so the project team will investigate the “end-user – producer communities” behind OER initiatives and what (or who) it is that actually provides the energy that make OER work or not.
Enabling legislation to support Open Education in European policyPaul Bacsich
Using recent experience from VISCED, the POERUP project proposes an approach of how to map OER/OEP policy recommendations into the structure of the EU's Rethinking Education policy document released in late November 2012
The future OER Ecosystem - On building a community for OER in EuropeRobert Farrow
The European Network for Catalysing Open Resources in Education (ENCORE+) project (2021-2023) is an Erasmus+ funded initiative which aims to raise awareness of open education, coordinate stakeholder and support new strategies for the proliferation of OER (https://encoreproject.eu/).
Although the Coronavirus pandemic and the resulting online ‘pivot’ increased opportunities for integrating OER into education and training, general awareness of open alternatives remains low. Many educators and learners have been in crisis mode, using whatever resources they can to fulfil their needs. While this can include OER, the demands put upon practitioners makes it hard to strategise and move systematically towards meeting the five action areas of the UNESCO OER resolution.
ENCORE+ is a coordinated European approach to strengthening the value of OER as a catalyst and multiplier. The goal is to move from a series of individual OER initiatives into a European OER Ecosystem. This will be done through addressing and contributing to European and International policy priorities, stimulating innovation in businesses through learning and training, supporting the modernization and digitalization of higher education in Europe, as well as bridging non-formal & formal education by advancing recognition of open learning.
ENCORE+ has established 4 thematic circle communities for OER in Europe on the thematic focus areas of OER Technology, Quality, Innovation & Business Models and Policies. The circle communities convenes and collaborate on issues related to the circle theme. The four communities will convene for its second round of circle events in the first week of May.
This workshop aims to take the content and discussions held within the 4 thematic circle communities in ENCORE+ to the global stage. This workshop marks halfway through the project, and the ENCORE+ team will share and discuss experiences, issues and solutions found with the delegates at the conference. The stakeholders of ENCORE+ is truly global, connecting international stakeholders from academia and business together into a collaborative OER Ecosystem solving challenges of education through OER.
The Future OER Ecosystem - On Building a Community for OER in EuropeRobert Farrow
Group presentation/workshop from Open Education Global 2022
The European Network for Catalysing Open Resources in Education (ENCORE+) project (2021-2023) is an Erasmus+ funded initiative which aims to raise awareness of open education, coordinate stakeholder and support new strategies for the proliferation of OER (https://encoreproject.eu/).
Although the Coronavirus pandemic and the resulting online ‘pivot’ increased opportunities for integrating OER into education and training, general awareness of open alternatives remains low. Many educators and learners have been in crisis mode, using whatever resources they can to fulfil their needs. While this can include OER, the demands put upon practitioners makes it hard to strategise and move systematically towards meeting the five action areas of the UNESCO OER resolution.
ENCORE+ is a coordinated European approach to strengthening the value of OER as a catalyst and multiplier. The goal is to move from a series of individual OER initiatives into a European OER Ecosystem. This will be done through addressing and contributing to European and International policy priorities, stimulating innovation in businesses through learning and training, supporting the modernization and digitalization of higher education in Europe, as well as bridging non-formal & formal education by advancing recognition of open learning.
ENCORE+ has established 4 thematic circle communities for OER in Europe on the thematic focus areas of OER Technology, Quality, Innovation & Business Models and Policies. The circle communities convenes and collaborate on issues related to the circle theme. The four communities will convene for its second round of circle events in the first week of May.
This workshop aims to take the content and discussions held within the 4 thematic circle communities in ENCORE+ to the global stage. This workshop marks halfway through the project, and the ENCORE+ team will share and discuss experiences, issues and solutions found with the delegates at the conference. The stakeholders of ENCORE+ is truly global, connecting international stakeholders from academia and business together into a collaborative OER Ecosystem solving challenges of education through OER.
Module 9: Learning from the experience of policy-making Dima course contentMichael Kenny
This 29 slide presentation Learning from the experience of policy-making is Module 9 of a nine (9) module online course for adult education policy makers and practitioners to complement an innovative toolkit to guide adult education policy and practice.
Participation in adult education varies significantly across states and regions of Europe! Why? Evidence and literature suggests a wide disparity in policy making, programming and implementation skills in the adult education sector across Europe. It is imperative that policy makers and programme managers address this disparity to foster life-long learning for a smart-sustainable Europe (see EU2020 https://ec.europa.eu/info/business-economy-euro/economic-and-fiscal-policy-coordination/eu-economic-governance-monitoring-prevention-correction/european-semester/framework/europe-2020-strategy_en) and to achieve a European target of 15% of the adult population engaged in learning.
In response to this challenge, the ERASMUS+ DIMA project (See https://dima-project.eu/index.php/en/, 2015 to 2017) developed a practical 9 module online course to complement an innovative toolkit to guide adult education policy and practice. The DIMA toolkit (See https://dima-project.eu/index.php/en/toolkit) introduces tools for developing, implementing, and monitoring adult education policies, strategies, and practices.
Author: Michael Kenny and DIMA Project partners (https://dima-project.eu/index.php/en/partners)
Bringing Educational Resources For Teachers in Africa - BERTAicdeslides
MOOCs4D, Quality online education, quality in education, OER and teacher education, train the teachers trainers, ICDE, International Council for Open and Distance Education
The European Network for Catalysing Open Resources in Education (ENCORE+) project (2021-2023) is an Erasmus+ funded initiative which aims to raise awareness of open education, co-ordinate stakeholder and support new strategies for the proliferation of OER (https://encoreproject.eu/). The UNESCO OER Recommendation (https://en.unesco.org/themes/building-knowledge-societies/oer/recommendation) sets out five areas for action:
Building the capacity of stakeholders to create, access, re-use, adapt and redistribute OER;
Developing supportive policy for OER;
Encouraging inclusive and equitable quality OER;
Nurturing the creation of sustainability models for OER; and
Promoting and reinforcing international cooperation in OER.
Although the Coronavirus pandemic and the resulting online ‘pivot’ increased opportunities for integrating OER into education and training, general awareness of open alternatives remains low. Many educators and learners have been in crisis mode, using whatever resources they can to fulfil their needs. While this can include OER, the demands put upon practitioners makes it hard to strategise and move systematically towards meeting the five action areas of the UNESCO OER resolution.
ENCORE+ proposes that we understand the strategizing of OER at the level of the ‘ecosystem’, emphasizing that while there are viable, established strategies for OER there is no integrated European OER university-business ecosystem able to identify, catalyse and share best practices. How can collaboration be encouraged? How can confidence in operational models which use OER be encouraged beyond the usual advocacy networks in higher education?
Following a short general introduction, this workshop is organised around the following 4 x 10 minute discussion areas, each of which reflects an activity area of ENCORE+.
Focus area 1: Bleeding edge technologies for OER integration
Focus area 2: New paradigms for OER quality
Focus area 3: Strategies and policies for OER uptake and integration
Focus area 4: Innovation, Business Models & Sustainability
In each focus area relevant results from the ENCORE+ project were briefly presented to support an inclusive plenary discussion.
Dialogue was facilitated and moderated by relevant experts from ENCORE+. Feedback and reflection was gathered through a 'World Cafe' approach designed around stakeholder interactions and perspective sharing.
POERUP is carrying out research to understand how governments can stimulate the uptake of OER by policy means. We aim to convince decision-makers that in order to be successful with OER, they will have to formulate evidence-based policies based on looking beyond one’s own country, region or continent, beyond the educational sector they look after. POERUP aims to study the end-user–producer communities behind OER initiatives. By comparing in-depth European case-studies to selected non-European ones we will refine and elaborate recommendations to formulate a set of action points that can be applied to ensuring the realisation of successful, lively and sustainable OER communities. We want to provide education authorities, the research community and OER initiative management with trustworthy and balanced research results, in which feedback from all stakeholder groups has been incorporated and which can be used as standard literature. A specific objective is to help readers in charge of OER initiatives to find ways of incorporating successful features of other initiatives.
Governmental and Institutional strategies to support new ways of teaching and...EADTU
The presentation includes strategies at governmental and institutional level for the uptake of new modes of teaching and learning. It includes recommendations by the EU published Changing Pedagogical Landscape study and the EMPOWER programme by EADTU.
Based on contributions by Jeff Haywood (University of Edinburg, George Ubachs(EADTU) and Piet Henderikx (EADTU).
Presentation of Svetlana Knyazeva, EDEN Fellow, UNESCO IITE, for the Open Education Week's first day webinar on "Education 2030 – Open knowledge, skills, attitudes and values in Europe and the world" - 4 March 2019
Recordings of the discussion are available: https://eden-online.adobeconnect.com/pdu1u75yqba1/
This presentation accompanied a face-to-face workshop at the OER22 conference where delegates were encouraged to brainstorm and interact around key themes and suggestions from the ENCORE+ project (https://encoreproject.eu/) regarding OER implementation, strategisation and improvement.
This presentation reviews the impact of pandemics (such as Covid-19) and other emergencies on schools and recommends strategies for resilience in future.
POERUP was an EU-funded project which began in November 2011 and produced its final report in October 2014. Its purpose was to develop OER-friendly policy recommendations, based on analysis of existing OER initiatives, countries, policies and case studies.
A key part of the work was collecting a wide range of OER and MOOC initiatives from countries round the world. By the end of the project POERUP had created a curated map/database of over 500 open education initiatives, both OER and MOOC. This mapping work had three important aspects:
1. The project began by creating a number of Google Map Tools consisting of ad hoc maps and charts, using Google Map Engine Pro and Google Charts. The initial aim was to gain familiarity with the mapping issues, but the end result was a simple set of procedures whereby many projects can map their results using data from a spreadsheet such as Excel or GoogleDocs, rather than from a sophisticated database.
2. The project then created a Custom Map Tool driven by the sophisticated "noSQL" database MongoDB to allow display of and search for OER initiatives, as part of a wider initiative to document and allow search for open education initiatives, including MOOCs. The core database technology and approach were chosen to be scalable to high performance as well as being open source and Linked Data-ready. The Open API it makes available facilitates future use by different groups working collaboratively on problems of collecting, mapping and analysing open education initiatives, including but not only eMundus, SharedOER, D-TRANSFORM, OER Africa and Hewlett-funded initiatives in this area. Though sophisticated, the database can be loaded from a standard spreadsheet using some simple mark-up conventions.
3. Sero created Semantic Map Tools using Semantic Maps, a module of Semantic MediaWiki, hosted on Referata to support the POERUP wiki. Semantic MediaWiki is a powerful extension of the MediaWiki software. (MediaWiki is used also for WikiEducator and Wikipedia.)
The implication of this work is that a wide range of projects looking to analyse "initiatives" of a wide range of types, can now represent them on maps. It is especially easy and powerful to do this if the project makes use of Semantic MediaWiki. Since standard MediaWiki databases can be loaded into Semantic MediaWiki and spreadsheets can be used to create sets of template-driven wiki pages, this means that many of the existing wikis of educational material can rapidly benefit from this approach. Already this work is being applied to wikis of virtual schools, virtual universities and quality and benchmarking projects and agencies.
The presentation concludes with some reflections on the POERUP and related work and leaves the audience with some Thoughts.
OER and MOOCs need competency-based higher educationPaul Bacsich
This presentation argues that a number of innovative technical developments, including OER and MOOCs but also microlearning and innovative forms of assessment, require a new approach to Bologna based primarily on competences
Virtual schools and open schools a view from Europe - oriented to Asia espe...Paul Bacsich
This is a presentation for the conference in India entitled "Education for All: Role of Open Schooling",13-15 March 2013, to be given by Paul Bacsich on 15 March 2013
This is a pre-production version of Chapters 1 and 2 of the VISCED Handbook. Comments welcome and will be incorporated in the World Tour Deliverable to be finalised in December 2012.
Benchmarking-derived approaches to quality in e-learningPaul Bacsich
The slides from a presentation at Thompson Rivers University, British Columbia, Canada - given on 9 September 2010 in connection with the Distance Learning Benchmarking Club. The Club is a work item in the DUCKLING project at the University of Leicester, one of the projects in the JISC Curriculum Development Programme.
Macroeconomics- Movie Location
This will be used as part of your Personal Professional Portfolio once graded.
Objective:
Prepare a presentation or a paper using research, basic comparative analysis, data organization and application of economic information. You will make an informed assessment of an economic climate outside of the United States to accomplish an entertainment industry objective.
Unit 8 - Information and Communication Technology (Paper I).pdfThiyagu K
This slides describes the basic concepts of ICT, basics of Email, Emerging Technology and Digital Initiatives in Education. This presentations aligns with the UGC Paper I syllabus.
Biological screening of herbal drugs: Introduction and Need for
Phyto-Pharmacological Screening, New Strategies for evaluating
Natural Products, In vitro evaluation techniques for Antioxidants, Antimicrobial and Anticancer drugs. In vivo evaluation techniques
for Anti-inflammatory, Antiulcer, Anticancer, Wound healing, Antidiabetic, Hepatoprotective, Cardio protective, Diuretics and
Antifertility, Toxicity studies as per OECD guidelines
Introduction to AI for Nonprofits with Tapp NetworkTechSoup
Dive into the world of AI! Experts Jon Hill and Tareq Monaur will guide you through AI's role in enhancing nonprofit websites and basic marketing strategies, making it easy to understand and apply.
Welcome to TechSoup New Member Orientation and Q&A (May 2024).pdfTechSoup
In this webinar you will learn how your organization can access TechSoup's wide variety of product discount and donation programs. From hardware to software, we'll give you a tour of the tools available to help your nonprofit with productivity, collaboration, financial management, donor tracking, security, and more.
Honest Reviews of Tim Han LMA Course Program.pptxtimhan337
Personal development courses are widely available today, with each one promising life-changing outcomes. Tim Han’s Life Mastery Achievers (LMA) Course has drawn a lot of interest. In addition to offering my frank assessment of Success Insider’s LMA Course, this piece examines the course’s effects via a variety of Tim Han LMA course reviews and Success Insider comments.
A Strategic Approach: GenAI in EducationPeter Windle
Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies such as Generative AI, Image Generators and Large Language Models have had a dramatic impact on teaching, learning and assessment over the past 18 months. The most immediate threat AI posed was to Academic Integrity with Higher Education Institutes (HEIs) focusing their efforts on combating the use of GenAI in assessment. Guidelines were developed for staff and students, policies put in place too. Innovative educators have forged paths in the use of Generative AI for teaching, learning and assessments leading to pockets of transformation springing up across HEIs, often with little or no top-down guidance, support or direction.
This Gasta posits a strategic approach to integrating AI into HEIs to prepare staff, students and the curriculum for an evolving world and workplace. We will highlight the advantages of working with these technologies beyond the realm of teaching, learning and assessment by considering prompt engineering skills, industry impact, curriculum changes, and the need for staff upskilling. In contrast, not engaging strategically with Generative AI poses risks, including falling behind peers, missed opportunities and failing to ensure our graduates remain employable. The rapid evolution of AI technologies necessitates a proactive and strategic approach if we are to remain relevant.
Policies for OER Uptake - presentation to EDEN Synergy workshop
1. EU-level policies for OER Uptake
– for the three formal education sectors
Paul Bacsich – Sero Consulting
(co-authored with Giles Pepler & Barry Phillips)
EDEN Synergy Workshop,
19-21 October2013, Budapest
2. POERUP – Policies for OER uptake
POERUP is part funded by the European Commission’s Lifelong
Learning Programme. The overall aim of POERUP is to develop
policies to promote the uptake of OER, especially across the EU, in
all main educational sectors.
The project has already created an inventory of more than 400
OER initiatives worldwide which are documented on the project
wiki. POERUP put substantial effort into understanding the state of
play of OER in a range of countries, within the policy context and
as part of the wider development of online learning in these
countries. The project has already produced 11 country reports
and 15 mini-reports, each covering individual countries and an
overall report for the Gulf States. Each report provides an overview
of the educational system, internet policy and provision, state of elearning, copyright law, and major OER initiatives in that particular
country.
3. Types of policy interventions
• interventions that link OER to open access to
research and to standards
• interventions that foster the phenomena (including
access, cost and quality; but also others such as
development and informed citizenry) that OER is said
to facilitate (even if so far without sufficient evidence).
• interventions that serve to reduce or dismantle the
barriers to creation of innovative institutions and
innovative practice (including OER, MOOCs and open
educational practices).
4. This presentation
• Summarises “rel 1” policy recommendations for
HE and VET (Paul and Giles)
• Draws some conclusions from research in OER in
K-12 (schools, ISCED 2 and 3) (Barry)
• Summarises “rel 1” policy recommendations for
schools (Barry)
• Begins on a synthesis of these, and with Opening
Up Education policy recommendations
5. Current final proposals for ISCED Levels 4, 5A & 5B
We are proposing recommendations in ten areas:
1.
Innovation – new institutions
2.
Accrediting of institutions – new accrediting bodies and mutual
recognition
3.
Quality agencies
4.
Competence-based, not time-based assessment
5.
Assessment and accreditation of modules
6.
Funding mechanisms for programmes, institutions and content
7.
IPR issues
8.
Developing the European Qualifications Framework (EQF)
9.
Initial academic training and CPD
10. Research into the benefits of OER
The first area is specific to higher education; the other nine areas are
applicable to ISCED Level 4 as well as Levels 5A and 5B
6. Innovation
•The Commission should set up a
competitive innovation fund to
develop one new “European”
university each year with a
commitment to low-cost online
education around a core proposition of
open content.
7. Accreditation of institutions – new accrediting
bodies and mutual recognition
• The Commission should foster the development of
transnational accrediting agencies and mutual
recognition of accreditations across the EU.
• The Commission should reduce the regulatory barriers
against new kinds of HE providers (e.g. for-profit, from
outside the country, consortial, etc).
• The Commission should establish a European quality
label for content produced in Europe.
8. Competence-based, not time-based assessment
• The Commission and related authorities developing the
European Higher Education Area should reduce the regulatory
barriers against new non-study-time-based modes of
provision: in particular by developing a successor to Bologna
based primarily on competences gained not duration of study.
• Vocational qualifications should be funded on competences
achieved, not learning hours amassed.
9. The European Qualifications Framework (EQF)
The Commission should drive forward
the development of the EQF through:
(a) Reviewing the current timetable,
which has fallen behind schedule;
(b) Establishing a revised timetable and
regularly monitoring progress
10. Initial academic training and CPD
• The Commission should support the development of online
initial and continuous professional development
programmes for teachers and trainers, focussing on online
learning with specific coverage of distance learning, OER,
MOOCs and other forms of open educational practice, and
also IPR issues.
• The Commission should encourage member states to do
this also and recommend their use of incentive schemes for
teachers and trainers engaged in online professional
development of their pedagogic skills including online
learning.
11. Innovation and research into the benefits of OER
• The Commission should create an innovation fund for
the development of online learning resources.
• The Commission should fund research into the
verifiable benefits of OER, with greater efforts to
integrate such analyses with its ongoing research on
distance learning, on-campus online learning, and
pedagogy; and recommend the same to member
states.
• The Commission should sponsor research into
sustainable business models for OER initiatives.
12. The state of play on OER in K-12
•
•
•
•
•
•
It appears that there are “millions” of European OERs which are potentially
appropriate for K-12 education
The European Commission and national governments have invested significant
sums in these resources
The European Commission has subsequently financially supported the
development of Repositories, Federations, Portals and Tools to make it easier for
teachers, students and parents to use, re-use and share these resources
A significant proportion of resources emanate from the “cultural sector”
(museums, galleries, archives, national broadcasters)
OER have the potential to be a valuable element in policy responses to austerity
OER have the potential to improve the learner experience in the school sector
13. And now to schools….
Or K-12 as they say in the US
14. Policy aspects (K-12)
• OERs have been an important component of two of the Commission’s
most significant policy initiatives with regards to education (specifically
including K-12) Opening Up Education and Rethinking Education
• “OER” is not a phrase with common currency in the European K-12 sector
and few K-12 teachers are aware of OERs
• There are very few national OER policies explicitly targeting the schools
sector (e.g. Poland re textbooks)
• The various schemes for quality in OER are so far not widely recognised by
governments
• There appears to be some confusion surrounding the (Commission’s?)
message concerning the availability (or otherwise) of K-12 OER – is is a
definitional issue? (OER stricto sensu, OER lato sensu, OR?)
• Inequities of the ICT in education infrastructure across European Union
will severely hinder schools’ ability to exploit the potential of OER
15. Barriers and disincentives (K-12, only?)
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
National and institutional strategies and initiatives are often oriented towards
infrastructure and seldom encourage the development of educational content
Lack of awareness of educators about the availability and opportunities
Confusion (and fear) concerning intellectual property rights
Confusion (and fear) concerning appropriate pedagogies
Quality assessment and assurance
Lack of reward and/or incentivisation by institutions
Lack of knowledge sharing culture and re-use
Infrastructure insufficient in some countries
Need for OER to be contextualised (particularly – but not solely – language issues)
Inability to engage with educational taxonomies (unfamiliarity with metadata and
vocabularies)
16. Recommendation – Communications
• The Commission should clarify its position
with regards to the abundance or scarcity of
appropriate resources currently available and
should communicate clearly this message –
including with the definitions it uses
17. Recommendations – Funding
•
•
•
•
•
•
The Commission should ensure that any public outputs from its programmes are
made available as open resources under an appropriate license. (e.g. CC)
The Commission should encourage member states to do likewise for their national
research and teaching development programmes.
The Commission should encourage states to promote to publicly funded schools
and federations the benefits of making resources available under an open license.
The Commission should continue to promote the availability and accessibility of
open resources created through its cultural sector programmes.
The Commission should encourage member states to do likewise for their
domestic cultural sector programmes and to make these available across EU
Member states should ensure that budgets for digital educational resources are
flexible to support the development/maintenance) of openly licensed materials.
18. Recommendations – Quality
•
•
•
•
•
Where member states have Quality Assurance or materials approval processes
they should ensure that OER are allowed to be included on approved instructional
materials lists
The Commission and member states should require (within reasonable
expectation) OER to meet (disability) accessibility standards.
The Commission should ensure that accessibility is a central tenet of all its OER
programmes and initiatives
Member states should consider establishing and funding an OER evaluation and
adoption panel. This panel should include lead teachers, content experts and
accessibility experts
Member states could consider establishing a specialist OER function/post to
undertake an in-country cost-benefit analysis to asses the potential savings (or
otherwise) which might be achieved through implementing an OER strategy
19. Recommendations – Infrastructure
• The Commission should continue its focus on
improving the ICT in education infrastructure in
members states (and levelling out disparities of access)
so that they are able to exploit potential pedagogical
and financial advantages of OER
• Where nations (or institutions) are providing digital
devices they should ensure that all considerations have
been taken to maximise the effectiveness
(economically and pedagogically) of devices, support
and strategy with regards OER
20. Recommendations – Other
•
•
•
Member states should establish (and adequately fund) a professional development
programmme to help teachers and administrators understand the benefits and
uses of OER and open licensing.
The Commission should continue to promote the OER related initiatives –
repositories, federations, portals and tools – it is currently funding (should also
encourage member states?) and through them to promote the creation, sharing,
use and reuse of high-quality OERs
The Commission should fund research into the verifiable benefits of OER, with
greater efforts to integrate such analyses with its ongoing research on distance
learning, on-campus online learning, and pedagogy; and recommend the same to
member states. Future K-12 OER research should explicitly embrace Repositories,
Federations, Portals and Tools and should consider off-campus learning (both
institutional – virtual schools – and self-directed or home-tutor led).
21. The integration is up to us
- and you!
Paul Bacsich
For the POERUP EU-level policy team
Policies in preparation for/with UK(x3), Ireland,
France, Netherlands, Spain, and Poland;
We want to work with other EU countries too