ascilite2015

ased on real journalism content 10 . The project aims to provide a system whereby users can train and
test their sensitivity to valuable news sources and learn editorial selection criteria based on a largescale
database of news reports and readers’ preferences. As such, students are working as editors
and gatekeepers in the virtual system, doing multiple choice questions and selecting what they
believe the readers are most likely to read. The students’ choice will then be compared with the real
world data. This content-rich system is imitating the future working of journalism students by including
real-world data so that students can apply the theories into editorial practices. Though there are long
way to go to translate open resources into innovations of pedagogies, these initiatives have shown
inspiring and convincing examples.
Interactive Publishing and Open Learning Space
An EU open publishing initiative uses the term “liquid publications” (Cuel, Ponte, & Rossi, 2009) to
define the new approach to publishing scientific knowledge: (a) content is updatable and knowledge is
continuously evolving; and (b) knowledge is built in a constructivist way based on collective
intelligence and social collaboration. In OIP, Internet users are empowered to actively co-create,
share, edit, remix, and assess digital content, either individually or collectively. This makes OIP
potentially a digital/open learning space, enabling interest-driven, social, and interactive learning.
Literat (2012) frames the different levels of artistic participation (receptive, executory, and structural)
in online crowdsourced art platforms and suggests that participants can play very different roles
ranging from passive audiences of finished artistic product, engaged participant in redesigned
projects, to co-designers and co-authors. This framework applies to a wide variety of OIP areas where
learners can participate in knowledge developments at different levels and as different roles.
Significant opportunities exist in using the OIP platforms as an interactive online learning space,
which exist beyond the institutional Learning Management Systems. There are mainly four aspects of
innovative learning designs:
student publishing
publications as assignments
publishing selected essays
open learning through OIP
peer supports
learning
communities
peer rating (marking)
peer editing and coments
crowd-oriented co-develoment
group chat and community
knowlege sharing
leaner-public
interaction
public readership makes a difference
engagement with 'real world'
Figure 1: Major aspects and learning activities in the digital learning space enabled by OIP
Student Publishing
It is increasingly popular that educators take the advantages of self-publishing to publish the
educational content they create. How about students? A large number of courses have writing
assignments but students’ works are normally read only by examiners. This lags behind the
development of Internet and open publishing. It is now viable and reasonable for students’ writing to
have wider readership and educators should encourage it. The leading scientific journal Nature once
published a research paper written by a group of pupils based on an experiment they conducted,
which implies potentially significant value of student-made innovations. Students’ works like
assignments, are part of overall knowledge commons of human beings, which should be accessible to
everyone in the digital age. More importantly, publishing students’ works is beneficial for learning
itself. Just as Jim Moulton argues, ‘Publishing was important. It gave me the opportunity to take the
10 http://nsts001.com/index.php
251
FP:239