Activity 7 - Open Education Resources and Philosophies.

Again embraced the flexibility that is OP and went running (OK'ed by HOS) in the sun in the afternoon, so here I am at 8pm, on flexi-time.

I digress...

SO... waded through that document... {Open Education Practices: A User Guide for Organisations}. Plenty of fodder for the neurons in there. 

Some tidbits that I liked... 

• "Informational and personal connections are being made through this social media, and all of it creates an impressive opportunity for learning. But as yet educational institutions struggle to define themselves within this social media age, often rejecting the idea of social networked learning because it is regarded as unstructured, undisciplined and inferior to institutionalised learning."

I liked this one because I think there IS a real risk of it being exactly that (see last few words of above)... and this is where the support of the institution and getting the resources (all stuff we talked about earlier) is really important... 

• Jan Hylén's definition for OER as: "digitised materials offered freely and openly for educators, students and self-learners to use and reuse for teaching, learning and research."[3]

Interesting in that  there is no possibility for hard copy to be included - how does this fit with inclusivity for the third world, or the digitally illiterate or opposed??

• This means that any resources created by staff can be freely used, distributed and modified providing attribution is given to the original author. This approach encourages sharing and collaboration with regard to resources.
• http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Open_Education_Practices:_A_User_Guide_for_Organisations

So I am embracing this definition... any resource, anywhere, anyhow, and everyone gets to have a stab at it... but leave my name there as well. Sounds fair to me, and sounds like the power of numbers, improving resources for all to use, but mention my name.

So this is not my definition - but it is what I would say.

Have encountered a couple of responses to this concept... 

• Scenario one:

Firstly, response found whilst developing a wiki for a Standard Operating Procedure at a vet clinic I co-owned. This was available for all staff to modify, and put various instructions and information on, and therefore, any muppet (self-included) could send a courier packet the right way, and know where to get the goods to do this.So in this forum, I was fully embracing of the concept. Bear in mind this was not entirely open - it was password protected for those in employment (wasn't too keen to share this info as was a competitive advantage to be able to replace vet or nurse and give thorough instructions to replacement... you just needed the front interface password to run the whole show. Very nice.)Hmmm... so when we don't have the entire "trekkie-culture of sharing" as the focal point (money talks in business), my position changed slightly to how I feel about ...

• Scenario two

Enter OP. Open resources. Take your unit. Make it your own. Use what we have. Do with it what you will... quite challenging, but in the end, very sensible. Fantabulous. Had heaps to get started on. Adding my bits. Nothing from scratch. Wunderbar. And open to the general population... I also don't mind because I think this is the reality...

• "Many staff express the fear that people will no longer enroll in courses if their teaching material is freely available, but others point out that so much is already freely available and that most students want a qualification which requires assessment not content. Open Educational Resources are a way of attracting people to the Polytechnic, because they can see the sort of material we use, and they can orientate themselves to the courses before they start."     Robin Day

Strategies: put it all up there but protect our assessments. In reality few people take advantage of these sorts of resources anyway (FTI - failure to implement), so let them have a crack. But not the assessments at this point until we have a process to ensure robust assessment and can protect the quality of any graduate that says degree/diploma/etc was conferred via OER and OEP at OP. OK?


Importance: up-skilling anybody and everybody is generally a good idea. And pooling resources (including HR/IP) seem very sensible. It's hard to be an expert in everything, so share the gold, I say. Free education yes - but in the end, we have to make money and produce work-ready quality graduates... so a little more more is required to open our current resources up to Bob, Bill, Jane and Mary to manage their own NCVN in its entirety. In the end, this is win-win for all... educators learn, share better quality resources with learners and everybody has time for a wine.
Super. Now for mine. E noho ra...


PS: Am super frustrated that the fonts and presentation are so crap, and can't seem to work out how to fix it... apologies for those type-a's that also find this offensive...