OERs and Resource Based Learning: Challenges and Opportunities
In the first OKHE01 discussion Imgi posed the question, given the apparent lack of engagement with using Open Educational Resources by staff in our institution, should we bother to try and encourage their use?
I’m interested in this apparent gap between the inclusive global aspiration of the OER movement, which I doubt few in the sector would disagree with in principle, and engagement with OERs by individual HE educators. This is both in terms of the take up and re-use by individual HE educators of OERs uploaded by others, and in contributing their own materials to online repositories. I’m going to focus primarily on the use of OERs in online teaching and learning (eLearning), in large part because this is the type of teaching I deliver in my role, but also because online education in HE is a growing area. Specifically I am going to examine the value of resource based learning as a proxy for promoting engagement with the OER movement.
I will also make links to Jonathan Winter’s OKHE01 post that illustrates some of the barriers to engaging with OERs when he queried the validity, appropriateness and sustainability of using externally produced and openly available online T&L resources to underpin UoM teaching delivered by the Staff Development Unit. There are also links to the theme of my own OKHE01 post that explored the challenges individuals might face in making teaching resources open access that relate to individual versus institutional ownership, institutional distinctiveness and the marketization of the sector in the UK.
I will argue here that, from the perspective of the individual Educator working within the HE sector there is limited utility in OERs at this moment in time. However, online education and distance learning is growing. The Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF) includes drivers for more flexible and lifelong learning. Also, while the TEF is beautifully vague about the metrics by which it will measure teaching excellence after years 1 and 2 of implementation, it has the potential to encourage more support within HEIs for richer teaching and learning experiences for staff and students alike. Consequently, we might see wider development and application of more innovcative, or non-traditional, forms of teaching and learning, such as ‘blended’, problem based learning and flipped classroom approached. Such resource based learning is a move away from the traditional lecture based curriculum delivery model, to one in which a significant but varying proportion student teacher communication is not face to face, and where it does take place it does not involve the simple transfer of knowledge and focuses instead on exploring, evaluating or applying that learning through activities such as tutorials, discussions or practical work (Butcher 2015, p7). In addition, Open licensing is becoming more prevalent so the range of high quality online teaching and leanring resources looks set to grow. OERs consequently still have potential to offer a means to share ideas and good practice in innovative and traditional forms of education. Also, as I will explore below, if we see further development in ‘Generative Learning Objects’, they also offer the potential for adaptable and shareable tools for teaching and learning.
Before considering an answer to Imgi’s question, I’d like to start with some definitions, not least because it’s taken a long time for me to get to grips with the ways in which OERs are identified and fit within the more amorphous ‘Open Education ’ movement. According to Neil Butcher’s 2015 report, ‘Basic Guide to Open Educational Resources’ (2015), for UNESCO & Commonwealth of Learning, “an OER is simply an educational resource that incorporates a licence that facilitates reuse, and potentially adaptation, without first requesting permission from the copyright holder”. Such OERs can be produced in any medium and aren’t necessarily available online, although Yuan et al (2008) stress that the most often used definitions of OERs described OERs as digitised materials. The term describes, therefore, any educational resource that is openly and freely available for use by educators or students. This might include curriculum plans, course materials and text books, films, podcasts and other media, but also software that enables the development, use and re-use of such learning content. Consequently, digital materials that are freely available online aren’t designed for use solely in an online learning environment (‘elearning’) . While the UNESCO & Commonwealth of Learning (2015) definition doesn’t require OERs to be available online, they are clear that OER’s transformative power lies in the ease with which such resources, when digitised, can be shared via the internet.
One of the main barriers to the use of OERs is their discoverability and usability, both in terms of content and format. Thinking first about content, David Wiley’s “Reusability Paradox” holds that “the more context-laden a given educational resource is, the more effectively it teaches but the more difficult it is to reuse in a novel context. Certainly, for an academic, the chances of finding OERs applicable to all but the most general aspects of one’s discipline are slim.
Wiley also argues that, the less context laden a given educational resource is, the less effectively it teaches but the easier it is to reuse in novel contexts.” Wiley has argued that open licensing cuts through this paradox by making it possible to revise and remix OER learning objects. However, in practice this does not mean such remixing is going to happen if educators don’t have the expertise to remix materials they are able to locate.
Both students and educators have available to them OERs across a very broad range of formats. It isn’t always clear who the resource is targeted at nor how the user could, or should, engage with the materials provided. They can, however, be fitted into a broad typology, from OERs packaged solely as resources for the educators, to those available as ‘open learning’ resources, e.g. linked to systematic assessment and accreditation systems.
Focused primarily on storage and exchange of OERs for and between educators, the JORUM OER repository certainly offers a wide range of searchable resources including web links, downloadable presentations to downloadable ‘Reusable Learning Objects’ (RLOs). However, when exploring the repository for this piece of work, I encountered the same frustrations as in previous forays into this and similar resource banks. Materials I thought might be interesting, that had potential for re-use in my teaching, were unavailable or out of date. The resources with the most potential use in online education are downloadable interactive ‘Reusable Learning Objects’. However, while some are provided with a link to view the resource online, others cannot be previewed making specialist help necessary simply to view and decide whether they are appropriate for my needs.
MIT’s Open Courseware offers course units range from openly available course syllabi, reading lists and summary lecture notes to full suite of filmed lectures and seminars. A good independent learner might, therefore, be able to engage in a rich learning experience and find lots of useful stimuli to further enquiry, even if many of the texts on the reading list aren’t available openly. Also, all MIT content is available on an Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike Creative Commons licence, making it possible to remix, transform and build on the material, but only if you ‘distribute your contributions under the same license as the original’.
MOOCs are more inclusive and accessible, in that they provide more structured learning experiences [ref to term in paper]. However, many MOOCs are not fully OERs. Yes, they are openly available educational resources, but they are not necessarily licensed for reuse, revision or redistribution. Open Learn has a clear policy and application, seemingly facilitated by the fact it seems also to be the producer of most materials on the site. However, other MOOC platforms have less ownership of the content offered and, therefore, have less control over the openness of the content. For example, Coursera and Future Learn both encourage the use of Creative Commons licenses, but the decision about licensing is made by the provider and course materials aren’t searchable. To explore one has to sign up.
Similarly, materials produced by non HE organisations, such as TedTalks and the RSA-Animate films, could be ‘OERs’ were their Creative Commons licenses different. As it stands, their Attribution of ‘NonCommercial — NonDerivative’, licensing means it is not possible to alter them in any way (e.g. by shortening or re-cutting them) to suit one’s own educational purposes. This is a limiting factor if seeking to create a well- designed learning object because, presumably even with full attribution, one is not able to create clips of relevant material but must, somewhat clumsily, provide the full film and ask students to watch given excerpts. This also makes it harder to re-purpose materials into something new, to contextualize the content, to evaluate it or question it as part of your teaching within your own learning environment.
Where clear licensing isn’t used, one’s ability to make use of educational resources like the Facebook ‘Managing Bias’ materials is a little clearer, or more ambiguous, depending on your perspective. While the content is not tagged with a standard Creative Commons (or other) license, the web page states: “Our goal in publishing this portion of our managing bias training is to achieve broader recognition of the hidden biases we all hold, and to highlight ways to counteract bias in the workplace. We invite you to treat this as a framework for action. Please add to or amend this content based on challenges relevant to your organization.” However, it doesn’t seem possible to legitimately download, edit or embed the videos and, while the slides and references can be downloaded as a PDF, the resource would be more ‘open’ still if provided in a PowerPoint format that enabled the user to edit the content as needed, and only truly ‘open’ if properly licensed as such.
To finally get around, sort of, to answering Jonathan’s question about whether he should make use of the Facebook ‘Managing Bias’ films for staff learning and development, my answer is yes. Online education has the potential to offer rich learning experience.
Using a ‘resource based learning approach one could link to these films from within an online learning environment, such as Blackboard, in which staff can then be prompted to test their knowledge and understanding of the issues, explore scenarios specific to the University sector if need be, and discuss issues with one another. “Resource based learning is not a synonym for distance education. Rather, resource based learning provides a basis for transforming the culture of teaching across all educational systems to enable them to offer better quality education to significantly larger numbers of students.” (Butcher 2015, 7)
Using a blended learning approach staff can be provided with tools to test their understanding of the Facebook Managing Bias resource. tools that encourage them to compare multiple perspectives and apply their learning, and to engage in topics in their own time, and at their own pace, through a variety of media, many of which isn’t possible to in a lecture theatre. Done well, such an online training resource can also provide an excellent exemplar of resource based learning and good instructional design. Were the Staff Training and Development Unit to make their learning materials open, in a format easily accessible to all, with a commitment to keep them up to date, they might be promoted then for use by organisations within the wider community, thereby feeding into the University’s social responsibility agenda.
While the ongoing delivery might be cheaper than bringing in external experts to run training sessions, such a resource is not without its costs and requires good instructional design if the resource is to be meaningful and accessible. Just as with a lecture programme, once developed the content of an online units may require little in the way of updating on a semester by semester, or annual basis. However, the content of both will inevitably require updating to ensure they are drawing on current research, and the materials used to support the T&L checked and updated, or alternatives found to replace out of date or unavailable resources. This might be as simple as replacing a couple of links to wider reading, or as complex as re-writing an entire lecture or learning module.
Of course, there is also the risk that the Managing Bias source material will, as Jonathan pointed out, be withdrawn. However it does offer a good model for the university to develop it’s own film, drawing on expertise both within and without the institution. A resource that can then be made truly open to staff and beyond that is both an exemplar of an good instructional design and blended leaning but also of how to create and disseminate material openly and so demonstrate Butcher’s (2015, p7) argument that “Linking OER and resource based learning provides an opportunity to leverage both most effectively” .
In a roundabout way I think I’ve come to an answer for Imgi’s question, about whether we should bother to try and encourage the use, and production of Open Educational Resources. I think that engagement with OERs needs to be at an institutional level and might, therefore, be most effective if linked to social responsibility agendas. Through using OERs produced within the institution to educate our own staff there is an opportunity to demonstrate best practice in using OERs (or even less ‘open’ resources if correctly referenced) to inform blended learning approaches to teaching and learning and to provide insights into the kinds of teaching resources that might fruitfully be made available openly.