Practising Open Education: Developing the Potential of Open Educational Resources in Creative Arts and Media Subjects

Stephen Mallinder & Debbie FlintArt Design Media Subject Centre (ADM-HEA)

• UK Open Educational Resources Programme

• Art Design Media-Open Educational Resources Project (ADM-OER)

• Perceptions of OERs

• Future Developments

“Projects will be expected to make a significant amount of existing learning resources freely available online, licensed in such a way to enable them to be used and repurposed worldwide. ”

“…Resources may include - but will not be limited to - course materials, reading lists, student generated content, images and other multimedia, learning objects, electronic learning activities, and recordings and supporting materials from lectures, workshops, and presentations…”

(HEFCE/Academy/JISC Open Educational Resources Programme: Call for Projects, 2009)

The benefits were seen as…

• An increase in student satisfaction concerning the quality of learning materials

• An enhancement of the global academic reputation of the UK HE system

• An increase in applications to UK HEI courses from international, and non-traditional, learners

• Improved value for money in resource creation for the UK HE sector

• UK higher education's contribution to the public good and the developing world

• A significant increase in the open availability and use of free high quality online resources

• Advertising and marketing benefits to individual lecturers, HEIs and UK education, opening up universities to potential students (e.g. widen access; promote the uptake of science subjects)

• Making use of the significant investment that has already been made in digital content by providing ways to reuse and repurpose existing resources and to demonstrate how they can be used for teaching and learning

• Support for new modes of online learning, such as those that involve the use of web 2.0 tools and mobile devices.

…digitised materials offered freely and openly for educators, students and self-learners to use and reuse for teaching, learning and research.

The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), 2007.

We are on the cusp of a global revolution in teaching and learning. Educators worldwide are developing a vast pool of educational resources on the Internet, open and free for all to use. These educators are creating a world where each and every person on earth can access and contribute to the sum of all human knowledge. They are also planting the seeds of a new pedagogy where educators and learners create, shape and evolve knowledge together, deepening their skills and understanding as they go.

Cape Town Open Education Declaration, 2007

Subject Strand Project Aims • Review current institutional and departmental policies, practices and procedures

relating to the ownership, use and development of digital learning and teaching resources in art, design and media higher education

• Establish effective guidelines to support the continuing release of open access educational resources

• To make a significant number of existing learning resources freely available through institutional digital repositories and JISC Jorum Open

Methodology: Desk Work, Reporting Templates

• Nature of existing institutional / Departmental Repositories and VLEs

• Uses and access

• Licensing, Copyright and IP

• Staff Policies, rewards and recognition

• Future policies and sustainability

• Student work

Methodology: Online Survey and Focus Groups

• What are your thoughts on making your own teaching and learning materials available to others to share?

• What are your thoughts on using learning and teaching materials in your teaching practice that have been created by someone else (not including publishers’ resources eg. Textbooks)?

Perceptions of OERs

• Art, Design and Media Pedagogies

• Technicalities and Legalities

• Individuals and Institutions

• Praise and Reward

• Contextual Confusion

Art, Design and Media Pedagogies: the impact of OERs on established pedagogies and teaching

practices

• “There’s no real culture in my subject area…what goes on in the classroom is not easy to put online.”

• “…the questions are more important than the content.”

• “People are willing to give but not use other peoples’.”

Technicalities and Legalities: issues arising from IT, copyright, IP and licensing

• “I got very worried about copyright…I emailed the British Museum because I wanted to use one of their images. They said it was fine if it was for educational purposes…I try to avoid anything like that…I think it would be very problematic with anything history of art-ish.”

• “It’s much easier to create new resources than it is to deal with existing material.”

Individuals and Institutions: the effect of OERs on staff and institution relationships and practices

• “I’m an associate and only paid 10 hours per week….everything I do outside is unpaid…other members of staff would not want their work to be associated with the university because there’s not a reciprocal relationship…many of us teach across institutions.”

• “There is a fear amongst members of staff that academics are becoming redundant by making resources available online… this is a cultural change and there is need for clarity on institutional attitudes to academics.”

Praise and Reward: the potential benefits to staff and institutions that can be achieved by

encouraging the release of OERs.

• “We want to enhance our practice…and reinforce good practice…looking at other peoples’ work…the resources you are creating are of value.”

• “Esteem is a word that used by the RAE. There are esteem factors … like the person who is the top download.”

• “if I know that colleagues in the same field have put resources online then I can just check out what others are doing.”

Contextual Confusion: issues that have arisen in discussions with staff that suggest greater clarity

and further research is required.

• “Who is the audience?”

• “Most resources are too segmented. Too sparsely dispersed throughout the curricula and institutions. It can be hard to find what you need in the multitudes of ever increasing online materials.”

• “How do we quantify what the impact of the resources is?”

JORUM OPEN

OER Phase II: Practicing Open Education: Developing the Potential of Open Educational Resources in Art,

Design and Media

• To build on these discipline-specific understandings of art, design and media OERs; motivations for, and barriers to, their creation and use.

• To provide targeted support that addresses the specific needs, motivations and barriers at departmental level.

• To release a significant number of art, design and media resources for access, use and repurpose.

• What are your thoughts on making your own teaching and learning materials available to others to share?

• What are your thoughts on using learning and teaching materials in your teaching practice that have been created by someone else (not including publishers’ resources eg. Textbooks)?

Contact: ADM-OER Project Manager: Stephen Mallinder: s.w.mallinder@brighton.ac.uk

Website: http://www.adm.heacademy.ac.uk/projects/sector-projects/contentfolder.2010-04-22.7419312795/

Project Blog: http://admopened.wordpress.com/