This document discusses opening educational practices in Scotland. It outlines both the promise and challenge of open educational resources (OER), with the promise being free access to high-quality education but the challenge being that OER currently benefits those who already have access to education. The Opening Educational Practices in Scotland (OEPS) project aims to widen participation and support transitions between informal and formal education by developing practices around OER. It is working with various educational and community organizations in Scotland to link communities, research practices, and develop and disseminate good practices around open education.

1. Opening Educational Practices in
Scotland
Opening Educational Practices
in Scotland- presentation for
SUALL Council: 20 March 2015
Pete Cannell (email: pete.cannell@open.ac.uk)

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Opening Educational Practices in Scotland
The Promise and the challenge of OER
PROMISE
• Free access to high quality education on a mass scale
• Redrawing the boundaries between informal and formal learning and
between community/workplace learning and college/university learning
CHALLENGE
• At the moment (in Scotland and the rest of Europe) ‘Open Education’
is providing more resources for the ‘educational haves’ and is not
making a significant impact on delivering it’s promise

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Opening Educational Practices in Scotland
Developing Practice
• The OEPS focus is on widening
participation and transitions from
informal to formal education
• We aim to develop the practices
associated with OER that can
support participation and
transition – OEP not OER
Practice is about design, structure and support
But also about partnership, networks and social
models of learning

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Opening Educational Practices in Scotland
How are we trying to do this?
• Linking across different educational and user communities
• Scoping what already exists in terms of practice and
understanding – listening hard!
• Embedded evaluation
• Researching and reporting
• Supporting and encouraging the development of new capacity
across Scotland
• Analysing and understanding existing practice
• Disseminating good practice
• Developing a Scottish ‘hub’ for OEP

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Opening Educational Practices in Scotland
Currently working with …
• 12 Universities
• 3 Colleges and 1 pan-College sector organisation
• 6 Third sector organisations
• 1 Football club
• 3 Trade Union organisations
• 13 National or Regional organisations
• 2 Research institutes
• 1 EU funded project

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Opening Educational Practices in Scotland
Developing a network and sharing practice
• Informal meetings and dialogue
• Open education workshops
• Learning design workshops
• Advisory forum every 6 months
• Blog/website
www.oepscotland.org
• Conferences and seminars

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Opening Educational Practices in Scotland
Development of new content and new practice
• Parkinsons UK – enabling Parkinsons education to be delivered
at much greater scale
• Glasgow University Welcome Foundation funded programme on
‘end of life care’ – developing a global community of practice
• Carbon Busters – supporting teachers to develop material
around energy and sustainability
• Women into Science and Technology – working with EQUATE
and the OU Science Faculty

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Opening Educational Practices in Scotland
Learning from the practices and approaches
associated with already existing OER
Example: ULRs into Open Learning Champions
Example: Rural Entrepreneurship – working with SMEs

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Opening Educational Practices in Scotland
Open Badges
• Currently 4 and shortly 5 open
badges created under the umbrella
of OEPS and being used at scale
• More in the design process
• Badged Online Access Courses

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Opening Educational Practices in Scotland
Scottish hub for OEP
• Aimed at facilitators of learning
• Links to a small number of exemplar
resources created in partnership
• Tools to support users
• Case studies of effective OEP
• Communities of practice
• A short open course on OER and OEP
• Iterative development of OLW
functionality
• Scottish hub will sit ‘on top’ of OLW
and provide support, community and
examples of practice

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Opening Educational Practices in Scotland
Further detail
• A detailed report on the
progress of the project is
available at:
http://oepscotland.org/about/a
boutoeps-project-reports/

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Opening Educational Practices in Scotland
Useful links
• OER from the OU
• www.open.edu/openlearn/
• Open Platform which is open for others to host OER
• www.open.edu/openlearnworks/

13. Opening Educational Practices in
Scotland
Contact Us: Email:
OEPScotland@gmail.com
Social media:
@OEPScotland
www.oepscotland.org