Forging new pathways of research and innovation in open and distance learning

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Open Educational Resources (OER): Guidance for Institutional Decision Makers in Developing an OER Strategy Lisa Marie Blaschke University of Maryland University College (UMUC) Undergraduate School (USA): http://www.umuc.edu In 2013, the decision was made by UMUC leadership to move to OER in an attempt to reduce student textbook costs. The movement to OER strongly aligns with UMUC’s mission as an open admissions institution, one that focuses on student-centred learning and achieving specific learning outcomes that are aligned with industry need. As of fall 2015, all (over 700) of UMUC’s undergraduate courses use embedded no-cost textbooks, and in fall 2016, all UMUC graduate courses also use 100% OER (Klein, 2015). The resulting savings is estimated “to be in the millions for the more than 80,000 students taking classes at UMUC annually” (Klein, 2015; para.3). Cini, UMUC Provost, estimates the savings in the “tens of millions of dollars” (Ludwig, 2015). A shift to OER ultimately reduced textbook costs for students, but also caused a rethinking of the educational approach to be more learner centered and has helped improve learning and performance (Klein, 2015; UMUC Interviewee, 2016). Other benefits of the transition were more flexibility in “switching out” resources, more sharing of resources, and a stronger focus on practical, competency-based learning outcomes that better align with workforce needs. As a result of its OER effort, UMUC was recently recognized by the Open Education Consortium (OEC) in realizing open-source education, receiving the 2015 OEC President’s Award (Ludwig, 2015). In transitioning to OER, UMUC built teams that consisted of: “a program chair, a faculty member or two, a librarian, and a member of the Design Solutions office” (Klein, 2015; para.14). The team-based approach helped ensure that responsibility of finding OER was not placed solely on individual faculty. Librarians and faculty searched for OER – often Creative Commons resources (Klein, 2015) – which would in turn be approved by the program chair. Working together with faculty and the program chair, a gap analysis would be performed, where missing content would be identified. Once suitable OER were found, content would be stored in an internal database (called Equella), and an instructional designer would prepare and incorporate these into courses, aligning the OER and content with learning outcomes. Program Chairs would then approve the redesign. Factors in measuring success of the strategy include student satisfaction, student performance in terms of grades, and completion rates; OER were not found to have a negative impact on these factors. The next phase in the project will be a focus on improving measurement of student achievement of specific competencies and content effectiveness in supporting learning objectives. Factors contributing to project success were strong institutional leadership and support from management and stakeholders at all institutional levels. The UMUC Interviewee’s (2016) advice for institutions considering OER is to involve faculty in the process, and to align the initiative with improvement of the student learning experience. One of the major challenges was in finding appropriate materials (Klein, 2015; para.20). Another challenge was that UMUC had no existing model to follow in making the transition. Initially, teams focused on searching for open textbooks, but soon found that this limited them in their ability to provide course content focused on learning outcomes and the focus quickly shifted 178 Reaching from the roots – 9 th EDEN Research Workshop Proceedings, 2016, Oldenburg ISBN 978-615-5511-12-7
Open Educational Resources (OER): Guidance for Institutional Decision Makers in Developing an OER Strategy Lisa Marie Blaschke to smaller chunks of OER; also, a large portion of the student population required offline/downloadable access to the resources, which was not an option with many of the open textbook offerings. It was faculty, particularly veteran teaching staff, who needed to readjust thinking about using free resources; newer staff did not have as many difficulties adjusting to the idea of OER (Klein, 2015). Issues around copyright and accessibility also arose, which were handled first by the library, then as needed by UMUC’s legal department. This required that UMUC develop a feedback loop in resolving issues as they emerged. Project costs, mostly operational related to searching for and developing OER, also landed squarely on the institution. The Open University United Kingdom (OUUK) (UK): http://www.open.ac.uk The Open University (OUUK) is one of the largest providers of online education in the world and the foremost model of open learning institutions within distance education, prominently positioned as a leader within open education and OER. Shortly after MIT introduced its Open CourseWare project, the OUUK was approached by the Hewlett Foundation with an intriguing proposition: would they like to produce OER? Openness and access to education have always been critical to the OUUK mission from both a social and business standpoint, so providing OER was seen as contributing to the overall charter of the institution. Leadership also saw an opportunity to achieve scale by expanding OUUK market reach, as well as to participate in a potentially disruptive innovation. Having received substantial funding from Hewlett for the OER project, the institution made a strategic decision to set out on a journey to expand OER production and distribution and to more prominently position OER both within the institution and the field of online learning. The Open Media Unit at the OUUK oversees a number of initiatives in support of open learning. Two of these are OpenLearn, which is the OUUK web portal to OER, and FutureLearn, which is the OUUK’s open platform for delivering open online courses and supporting MOOC development and delivery. Content is provided using open source software (such as Moodle and Drupal) and platforms (such as Google Play, AudioBoom, Bibblio, and FutureLearn, an OU MOOC host). In implementing its OER strategy, the most senior support have been involved, as well as academics, production, IT, the strategy development unit, business development units (BDU), marketing, and the technology enhanced learning (TEL) unit. Stakeholder groups have played a critical role in contributing to the development of and evaluation of the program, e.g., in considering new pedagogical approaches, business models, market strategies, and uses of technology. As the OER project evolved, management saw the need for a policy that would define how OER would be positioned and used. The current policy (http://www.open.ac.uk/about/open-educationalresources/what-we-do/open-educational-media-operating-policy) defines purpose and types of open educational media within the context of the OU; guidelines for channels and for licensing; key performance indicators (KPIs); operating guidelines (content licensing); and guidelines for partnership and research projects. KPIs play a central role in measuring the success of the OUUK strategy, and a focus on aligning KPIs with institutional mission and Reaching from the roots – 9 th EDEN Research Workshop Proceedings, 2016, Oldenburg 179 ISBN 978-615-5511-12-7
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9 th EDEN Research Workshop Forging
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Introduction Distance education is
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TABLE OF CONTENTS ADVANCED DISTANCE
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LEARNING ANALYTICS Scaling Learning
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Forging new pathways of research an
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Towards a Framework for Virtual Int
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Towards Designing an Oxford Experie
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Emergent Evaluation: An Initial Exp
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A MOOC with a Difference: Creating
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Use of MOOCs in Traditional Classro
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Head Start Online: A MOOC for those
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Carrots and Sticks: Workload and Pe
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Online Learning in Community Colleg
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The Usability Evaluation of UniCamp
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Connecting in the Online Environmen
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Contextualising Learner Experience:
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Investigating the Effectiveness of
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WhatsApp: “Going where the Conver
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A Study of the Use of Ubiquitous Mo
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Contributions to Teaching Practice
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Contributions to Teaching Practice
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The Irish Online Learning Landscape
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The State of Distance Education in
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Scaling Learning Analytics: The Pra
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Integration of Learning Analytics i
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Learning Reprioritised: Supporting
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Learning Analytics in Distance Educ
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Credit, Trust and Open Education Ka
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Credit, Trust and Open Education Ka
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Supporting the Capacity Development
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Supporting the Capacity Development
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The Role of Learning Design and Lea
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Changing Landscape of the Lifelong
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eLene4work - Developing a Framework
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Collection of "Synergy" Synopses 35
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I-LINC The stakeholders’ platform
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EuroDuaLE European cooperative fram
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t-MAIL Teacher Mobile Application f
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eLene4work Learning to learn for ne
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ARMAZEG Developing Tools for Lifelo
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LeHo Learning at Home and the Hospi
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SeaL Seamless Learning in Lake Cons
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Forging new pathways of research and innovation in open and distance learning

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