Where next for OER in Ireland? Edtech15

Where next for Open Educational Resources in higher education in Ireland?

University of LimerickPartners: Dublin Institute of Technology, Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, Mary Immaculate College and National University of Ireland Galway

EdTech2015, Limerick May 29th

Team Project lead: Dr Angelica Risquez Researcher: Dr Ann Coughlan DIT: Dr Claire McIvinia, Yvonne

Desmond, Dr Pauline Rooney RCSI: Catherine Bruen MIC: Dr Anne O’Keeffe, Dr Deirdre Ryan NUIG: Dr Sharon Flyinn UL: Dr Fiona Farr, Dr Ann Marcus Quinn


1. How can digital teaching and learning resources be effectively utilised and shared?2. What do we know from the NDLR experience about how open educational resources (OER) can be developed, shared, and utilised?3. How can the digitisation of teaching and learning resources be ingested, managed and discovered using local repositories?

To examine how digital T&L resources can be utilised, developed and shared in order to enhance teaching and learning in Irish HE


Definitions Open Educational Resources (OER): teaching,

learning and research resources that reside in the public domain or have been released under an intellectual property license that permits their free use and re-purposing.

Digital Learning Resource: An educational resource in digital format which is used to facilitate the achievement of a learning outcome.

Higher education institutions: Both publicly- and privately-funded HE institutions in Ireland.


Methodological approachMixed methods research design involving analysis of secondary data and primary research with academic staff, library staff, educational developers and technologists. Participant observation approach RQ1. Survey with academic staff and focus

group (3) with library and academic staff RQ2. Review of NDLR literature RQ3. Focus group with local institutional

Repository Managers

Ethics approval sought by UL and recognised by NF and participating institutions


Relevant themes Multiple definitions of OER within the open

education movement (licencing) ‘Big OER’ and ‘Little OER’ From OER to OEP (Open Educational

Practice) Awareness and use of OER


Source: White and Manton (2011: 5)


Relevant themes Multiple definitions of OER within the open

education movement (licencing) ‘Big OER’ and ‘Little OER’ From OER to OEP (Open Educational

Practice) Awareness and use of OER Open pedagogy (e.g Laurillard’s

Learning Design Support Environment) Open educational resource management Value and benefits/challenges and

limitations of OER for institutions and T&L Sustainability and quality issues

https://sites.google.com/a/lkl.ac.uk/ldse/Home


Institutional repositories IEOpen access in the research

contextSIF project 2007-2010 managed by

Irish Universities Association Librarians Group

Repositories built during project or independently in most institutions

National Research Portal RIANNational Digital Learning Resources

(NDLR)


RQ1 Representativeness challenges N=192 survey. 77% in lecturing roles, 72%

full time, discipline range (arts, humanities and education), normal distribution of age. 69% teaching face-to-face, 21% blended, 10% online.

Focus groups with academics, librarians and educational technologists: FG1 (11 participants) from UL/MIC FG2 (16 participants) from 6 institutions, both

public and private, in the Dublin region FG3 (8 participants), all from NUI Galway


Levels of awareness of OER

No. %

I am not aware of OER 29 15

I have heard of OER 37 19

I am somewhat aware 37 19I am aware of OER and some of their use cases 63 33I am very aware of OER and know how they can be used 26 14Totals 192 100

Findings: academic staff


Findings: academic staffHow they look for OER to reuse

No. %

Library ebooks and ejournals 74 10Search engine (e.g. Google) 149 20Open learning repositories 40 5Sharing among colleagues 84 11Twitter 33 4LinkedIn 15 2Professional/discipline association 56 7Conference/journal articles 63 8Online courses/MOOCs 43 6Commercially authored content 15 2YouTube 102 14iTunes 11 1Slideshare 42 6


How do you deal with copyright issues? (open ended)



65% state they share resources… But sharing is largely private:

44% with colleagues 23% through VLE with students 9% through repositories 13% open websites, Slideshare, YouTube



Why do you share? (open, n=88) In order of frequency of appearance Collegiality and student learning Philosophical conviction To develop subject area Efficiency gains Value to others/institution Reciprocity Quality and self-promotion



I believe in the principles of Free and Open Source; cause sharing is what teaching is about. My teaching is publicly funded and therefore I consider the results of all my work a common good which should be made available for free. … Sharing knowledge is a pleasure; I am a lecturer in education, part of a public institution offering developmental opportunities – why would I not?



Why don’t you share? (open, n=77) In order of frequency of appearance Copyright issues/intellectual property Time Irrelevance of material and context Never considered Institutional implications Lack of motivation and confidence Quality and preparation concerns Previous negative experiences



Findings: academic staffHave you used a repository? 60% no40% yes (NDLR, JORUM and MERLOT)

With regard to the functionality and ease of use of repositories, valid responses from just 23% of respondents revealed that the search function and ease of access were the main factors that worked well, and at the same time did not work well, in repositories that they had used in the past.


Focus group representative from the University, IOT and Private Colleges sectors

In addition, 2 experts in open access and repositories, with past experience with the NDRL

RQ3: repository managers


Support in principleIt could be quite exciting if you were

given the tools to do it. I think it could be ... you could do something really new and experimental and amazing. But it can’t be done easily. Acknowledgement of the growing divide

between teaching and research. OERs could well be a way to bridge that gap. But this is a very experimental field.

Supportive of OER per se but concerns about the fit between OER and the institutional repository infrastructure.

Findings: repository managers


Can OER be accommodated in the existing repository infrastructure?Technically, yes… provided: It meets users’ needs: it must allow OER to be updated,

with users putting them in and taking them out of repositories (not possible with Dspace)

OER can be accommodated from an institutional or policy perspective as evaluated outputs (vs research outputs)

Need to clarify rationale before seriously considering OER being ingested in repositories



Research versus learning resource environments Existing culture within libraries of managing research

resources (eg. clearly defined definitions for a journal article for example, what peer review is, etc)

On the contrary, there is no agreed definition for an OER or when it reaches a quality that is acceptable for sharing. Very little is known about all the formats OER take.

The social, cultural, administrative and political contexts must be taken into account (eg NDLR efficiency agenda).

HEA and NF to create a system of recognition and build it into institutional compacts and reporting structures, etc.

Ultimately, there is no quick or cheap solution. Other countries have made big investments in this area over a number of years.



Questions of quality Achieving parity of esteem with research

implies professionalising T&L Reputational issues for institution and RMs Reluctance to RMs to get involved in this, in the

absence of a peer review system for OER quality

NDLR offers limited models around rigorous peer review

No real evidence of reuse (kleenex syndrom) Brand OER from other digital files through a

rigorous quality control system that denotes reusability



Context around OER Drawing on the NDLR experience, an OER

could be distinguished by having a its pedagogical context associated with it in the metadata (learning outcomes, impact, record of the trail of reuse, etc). Peer observation and looking at the process of creation were what was valued.

Could start by awarded OERs by NF. This could also have a knock-on effect: a case could be made to have these counted as outputs and this in turn would help with advocacy.



Resourcing issues and sustainability Very constrained climate Investment for development work (including

metadata), training, research and advocacy Resourcing issues most crucial around

institutional recognition, systems for quality, vetting, etc.

Currently, institutions to resource institutional repositories – unclear where resourcing would come from to support OER within that system (this was a major issue for the NDLR)



An appropriate model? Potential fruitful area around research-led

teaching (OER linked to research resources): Key performance indicators to demonstrate

progress in this area OER as ‘Associated material’ (similar to

datasets) Issues around OER are much broader than the

question of infrastructural digital capacity. Experimentation is needed in order to design the best model, and be adjusted in each institution, as corroborated by the NDLR experience.



Research impact NF Digital Roadmap Recommendation 3, Priority 5 (2015:

41): Develop and implement open education principles and practices for Irish education that are aligned with EU policy and emerging international practice.

One of the related system-led actions (ibid.:45) relates to institutional repositories as follows: Irish leaders in the field of open education to agree a national policy for hosting teaching and learning open education resources in existing institutional repositories (National Network of Digital Repository Managers, LAI, CTL).

Current Funding call OER vision around definition of metadata across IE

Professional development framework by NF and piloting of OERs in national teaching awards

Presentation of research results in HEA board in Autumn


Reflections OEP context: OER are not an end in

themselves. Only useful if they result in more effective T&L experiences

NDLR grey literature did not answer to RQ2 fully, but this was compensated by insights in the team, and multiple references in FGs

Wealth of experience in research team and very supportive environment from NF

Very political arena


Emergent Questions Is there a moral, ethical imperative to share

OERs even if there are significant practical barriers?

What formal action, if any, is needed? Will the web itself decide what happens? …?


http://www.teachingandlearning.ie/t-l-scholarship/national-forum-research-projects

Where next for OER in Ireland? Edtech15

Education

Transcript of Where next for OER in Ireland? Edtech15