The document outlines the importance of quality assurance (QA) in Open Educational Resources (OER), defining OER as freely available digital materials for education. It discusses the motivations behind OER adoption, such as increasing accessibility and collaboration, while addressing challenges like licensing and quality evaluation. The text emphasizes the need for specific benchmarks for assessing OER quality and highlights various case studies to illustrate effective use and potential risks in an educational context.

1. QA in Open Educational Resources (OER): Open access to quality teaching resources E-xcellence NEXT European Seminar on QA in e-learning UNESCO, Paris , 16-17 th June 2011

2. Jon Rosewell & Giselle Ferreira The Open University [email_address] [email_address] www.open.ac.uk

3. What goes under banner of OER? OECD: ‘digitised materials offered freely and openly for educators, students and self-learners to use and reuse for teaching, learning and research’ Categories of users Content – but also tools, licences, practices… OECD (2007). Giving Knowledge for Free: The Emergence of Open Educational Resources. doi:10.1787/9789264032125-en

4. What ‘Resources’? Size Courses / courseware Learning objects Assets Formats Learning objects: SCORM Text: PDF, XML Assets: images, audio, video Interaction: Flash, applets, QTI

5. Stakeholders Policy makers QA agencies Institutions Teachers Learners Funders! Complicated by fact that roles e.g. for teacher can be both creators and consumers

6. Motivations Government Widen participation, social inclusion Promote life-long learning Bridge gap between informal and formal learning Development / aid agenda

7. Motivations Institutions Altruism: traditional academic values Material created with public funds should be widely available Reduction in cost by reuse and sharing Quality improvement by sharing expertise Showcase to attract new students Alternative business models Improve internal reuse and record keeping Research, funding, partnerships… Panic!

8. Motivations Individuals Altruism: traditional academic values Improved reputation & visibility, ie non-traditional publishing Not worth the effort to exploit Quality improvement by collaboration, dialogue…

9. Intellectual property rights Creative Commons spectrum Public domain, CC0 (no rights reserved) Attribution (CC-BY) Attribution Share Alike (CC-BY-SA) Attribution No Derivatives (CC-BY-ND) Attribution Non-Commercial (CC-BY-NC) Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike (CC-BY-NC-SA) Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) Full copyright (all rights reserved) Issues licence incompatibility when combining works attribution stacking http:// creativecommons.org /

10. Other rights & other info Web 2 Rights http://www.web2rights.org.uk/ OER IPR Support http://www.web2rights.com/OERIPRSupport

11. Patterns of use Generators or consumers? Top-down or bottom-up? Developed world: Teachers use to enrich teaching Institutions use for marketing Individuals use for informal learning Developing world: Institutions use to refresh curriculum

12. Use and reuse Discovery & retrieval Metadata Folksonomies Standards Use and reuse Standards

13. Quality Is it possible to evaluate quality of components in isolation, or only in the context of their use?

14. Quality points Provenance Reputation Brand creation use user recommendation peer review OER repository checking

15. Quality dimensions Content Pedagogical effectiveness Ease of use Reusability

16. Quality dimensions Content Accuracy Currency Relevance

17. Quality dimensions Pedagogical effectiveness Learning objectives Prerequisites Learning design Learning styles Assessment

18. Quality dimensions Ease of use Clarity Visual attractiveness, engaging Clear navigation Functional!

19. Quality dimensions Reusability Format Localisation Discoverability: metadata

20. Just how open is ‘open’? Technological barriers bandwidth / software / tools Interoperability Disability Culture / localisation Digital preservation

21. Capability maturity models Assumes institutions evolve to higher forms… Use OERs  Adapt OER material  Create OER material See, for example, OPAL OEP Guide http:// opal.innovationpros.net /publications/guide/

22. Trends with greater use of OER / OEP use  create teacher centred  learner centred transmission  constructivism (sage on stage)  (guide on side) focus on outcome  focus on process standardised  personalised learning individual  social/ peer learning See OPAL (Open Education Quality Initiative) http://oer-quality.org /

23. Connected ideas… Web 2.0 Social networking Co-construction …

24. OER & E-xcellence NEXT How might OERs contribute to high quality in e-learning? What risks to quality might arise? Which of the existing E-xcellence quality benchmarks might apply in this context? Are any new benchmarks needed to cover this scenario?

25. Case studies OpenLearn Connexions TESSA WikiEducator MIT OpenCourseware OpenED www.open.ac.uk/openlearn cnx.org www.tessafrica.net wikieducator.org ocw.mit.edu www.open-ed.eu

26. Use cases Individual life-long learner finding material for own use Individual teacher obtains assets and uses in own material Course uses podcasts from iTunes U Course uses a 10-hour unit Entire 100-hour module reused, with new assessment Course and assignments in OER; tutorial / marking / accreditation offered for fee Consortium develops material for own use and ‘frees’ it

27. Issues raised in preparation session Rights restricted to users within borders of country – esp important that visible at start. Really only partly open. Business model – teasers to recruit (Poland) Specially prepared material for users with disabilities but only open for those users Poland: future publicly funded material will be open When is a resource an educational resource? How do we assure quality of materials used in learning? Skill / added value / quality in joining resources together

28. OER Feedback Maybe better to have specific benchmarks rather than extend existing ones (which would become too complex, too multifaceted) Alternative view: use general benchmarks so that don’t need to change with new technology. Use manual / assessor notes to expand Difficult to track actual use of OERs Most important on list are institutional policies and internal QA mechanisms Indicators on grid don’t say anything about pedagogy Quality of bits: may be problematic re accessibility re levels etc Assumed context of open & lifelong learning

29. Social networks feedback Pragmatic answer: add new benchmarks as needed Issue of student’s confidentiality / privacy on 3 rd party Possible to be partly anonymous even in public networks so get input from crowd but not expose individuals Benefit of social networking but risk of destroying structure. Keep separation of academic and social discussions Need to moderate / validate discussion – or not.

30. Jon Rosewell & Giselle Ferreira The Open University [email_address] [email_address] www.open.ac.uk

31. Quality Quality process Checking Peer review Feedback Rating / voting / recommendation Branding / provenance / reputation