OER in the disciplines: a joint Academy Subject Strand conference
10:00-16:30 26 October 2010, RIBA, Portland Place, London
OER in the disciplines: a joint Subject Strand conference
26 October 2010 10am - 4.30pm
RIBA, 66 Portland Place, London, 26 October 2010
Table of contents
1
Introduction............................................................................................................................................................. 3
1.1
Background ..................................................................................................................................................... 3
2
Venue ....................................................................................................................................................................... 4
2.1
Registration ..................................................................................................................................................... 4
2.2
Accommodation and finding your way around ................................................................................................ 4
RIBA visitors map ........................................................................................................................................... 5
2.3
Refreshments.................................................................................................................................................. 5
2.4
Further information.......................................................................................................................................... 5
3
Staff in attendance and contact numbers on the day ......................................................................................... 6
3.1
Internet access................................................................................................................................................ 6
3.2
Twitter ............................................................................................................................................................. 6
3.3
Presentation materials .................................................................................................................................... 6
4
Programme summary table ................................................................................................................................... 7
5
Speaker biographies .............................................................................................................................................. 9
6
Session details...................................................................................................................................................... 10
6.1
Morning breakout sessions ........................................................................................................................... 10
Panel session: IPR, copyright and licensing – what’s the difference?.......................................................... 10
Workshop: Exploring resources designed to support practical and fieldwork teaching................................ 10
Presentation: Do simulations make good open educational resources and does the cross disciplinary
approach work? Professor Paul Maharg ...................................................................................................... 10
Panel session: From discipline focus to institutional context : The future of releasing and using OER. How
the development of a conceptual framework and mapping resources informs progress. ............................ 11
Workshop/discussion: What are the differences between community and institutional approaches to
OER? Does one offer advantages over the other? ...................................................................................... 11
6.2
Afternoon breakout sessions......................................................................................................................... 11
Good practice in creating, using and re-using learning and teaching resources. 3 things you can do today
to improve your resources for learning and teaching. .................................................................................. 11
Workshop: Exploring resources designed to support practical and fieldwork teaching................................ 12
Presentation: Dr Sara de Freitas (tbc) Simulations as OERs on the global stage Workshop: Building
simulations as OERS: Where do you start? ................................................................................................. 12
Workshop: Publishing and reusing open resources: what helps and hinders? Institutional policies, reward
and recognition, quality, and communities of practice etc - informed by PHORUS Case studies............... 12
Workshop: Community- building through engagement with OER in using, reusing and reviewing
resources. How to understand peer review in the context of OER: considering questions of quality,
method and community. ............................................................................................................................... 13
7
About the JISC/Higher Education Academy Subject Strand Phase 1 pilot projects at this conference ...... 14
7.1
BioOER ......................................................................................................................................................... 14
7.2
HumBox ........................................................................................................................................................ 14
7.3
OOER............................................................................................................................................................ 15
7.4
PHORUS....................................................................................................................................................... 15
7.5
Simshare ....................................................................................................................................................... 16
All materials (unless otherwise separately licensed) in this programme are available under a Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike license.
Page 1 of 21
OER in the disciplines: a joint Academy Subject Strand conference
10:00-16:30 26 October 2010, RIBA, Portland Place, London
8
Resources ............................................................................................................................................................. 17
8.1
Tools, guides and kits ................................................................................................................................... 17
8.2
Reports.......................................................................................................................................................... 17
8.3
Repositories .................................................................................................................................................. 17
8.4
Blogs ............................................................................................................................................................. 17
8.5
Websites ....................................................................................................................................................... 18
9
Moving on: OER2.................................................................................................................................................. 19
10
Acknowledgements .............................................................................................................................................. 21
All materials (unless otherwise separately licensed) in this programme are available under a Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike license.
Page 2 of 21
OER in the disciplines: a joint Academy Subject Strand conference
10:00-16:30 26 October 2010, RIBA, Portland Place, London
1 Introduction
This one-day event showcases work by Subject Centres funded under the Subject Strand of the Higher Education
Academy (HEA) and Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) Open Educational Resources (OER) Phase one
pilot programme (14/08), including:
• Health Sciences and Practice Subject Centre (www.health.heacademy.ac.uk)
• Subject Centre for Medicine, Dentistry and Veterinary Medicine (www.medev.ac.uk)
• UK Centre for Bioscience (www.bioscience.heacademy.ac.uk)
• UK Centre for Legal Education (www.ukcle.ac.uk)
• English Subject Centre (www.english.heacademy.ac.uk)
• History Subject Centre (www.historysubjectcentre.ac.uk)
• Philosophical and Religious Studies (www.prs.heacademy.ac.uk)
• Languages, Linguistics and Area Studies (www.llas.ac.uk)
The day brings together colleagues from throughout the UK to discuss the key challenges facing OER in the
discipline context, and its long-term sustainability within the Higher Education sector. The aim of the conference is to
provide feedback and encourage discussion on the lessons learned and strategies developed for discovering,
developing, enhancing and converting educational resources into OER.
The programme includes keynote presentations from the international OER community (Jeff Merriman from
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Stephen Downes will join us by a pre-recorded video link), interactive
workshops and opportunities for discussion, with plenty of time for networking with colleagues. Professor Diana
Laurillard (Institute of Education, London) has also agreed to speak on "intelligent support for teachers who are
designing new forms of learning".
There are 5 of the 14 Subject Strand projects represented today. A full list of all Phase 1 pilot projects can be found
on both the JISC and Academy websites.
1.1 Background
Between April 2009 and April 2010, JISC and the Academy supported 29 pilot projects and activities around the open
release of learning resources; for free use and repurposing worldwide, worth £5.7M.
Projects were asked to make a significant amount of existing learning resources freely available online,
licensed in such away to enable them to be used and repurposed worldwide.
It was expected that funded projects would demonstrate a long-term commitment to the release of open educational
resources (OER). Projects worked towards the sustainability of long-term open resources release via the adoption of
appropriate business models to support this. Supporting actions included modifications to institutional policies and
processes, with the aim of making open resources release an expected part of the educational resources creation
cycle.
As a part of this programme, support and advice on all aspects of open educational resource release were offered.
This included guidance and advice from existing JISC services and other organisations and covered issues around
licensing, intellectual property rights, and technical aspects such as the use of standards and metadata, and resource
discovery.
A team based at Glasgow Caledonian University carried out the evaluation of the pilot programme, including
the synthesis of project outcomes.
A full list of all of the projects funded can be found on the JISC OER Phase 1 website.
All materials (unless otherwise separately licensed) in this programme are available under a Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike license.
Page 3 of 21
OER in the disciplines: a joint Academy Subject Strand conference
10:00-16:30 26 October 2010, RIBA, Portland Place, London
2 Venue
The conference is hosted at the beautiful Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) in central London, which is easily
accessible.
The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA)
66 Portland Place
London, W1B 1AD
For directions please visit
www.architecture.com/TheRIBA/Visit66PortlandPlace.aspx
Some rights reserved by stevecadman
http://flic.kr/p/D6pqZ Accessed 5 October 2010
2.1 Registration
Please collect your registration pack from the desk in the foyer of the Jarvis Auditorium on the Lower Ground Floor.
2.2 Accommodation and finding your way around
The conference takes place throughout the RIBA in the following rooms:
• Jarvis Auditorium, Lower Ground Floor
• Lutyens Room (Second Floor)
• Barry Room, Third Floor
• Lasdun Room, Fifth Floor
• Wren Room, Sixth Floor
Parallel session room locations are all marked in the programme table below.
Toilets are located on each floor.
All materials (unless otherwise separately licensed) in this programme are available under a Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike license.
Page 4 of 21
OER in the disciplines: a joint Academy Subject Strand conference
10:00-16:30 26 October 2010, RIBA, Portland Place, London
RIBA visitors map
2.3 Refreshments
Refreshments will be served throughout the day. A buffet lunch is provided in the foyer of the Jarvis Auditorium,
Lower Ground Floor. Special diets are catered for.
2.4 Further information
Email: enquiries@medev.ac.uk
Telephone: +44 (0)191 222 5888
Web: www.medev.ac.uk/oer/
All materials (unless otherwise separately licensed) in this programme are available under a Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike license.
Page 5 of 21
OER in the disciplines: a joint Academy Subject Strand conference
10:00-16:30 26 October 2010, RIBA, Portland Place, London
3 Staff in attendance and contact numbers on the day
BioOER
Terry McAndrew
Chris Taylor
HumBox
Erika Corradini
Lisa Lavender: 07989 848086
Robert O’Toole
OOER
Suzanne Hardy: 07790 905 657
Dr Megan Quentin-Baxter: 07919 572 541
Lindsay Wood: 07940 483 003
PHORUS
Dr Kwansuree Jiamton: 07872 417 122
Charles Kasule
Dr Margaret Sills
Simshare
Patricia McKellar: 07949 274 851
Hansa Surti: 07824 541157
3.1 Internet access
A WiFi passkey will be issued on the day.
3.2 Twitter
Please do Tweet throughout the conference, using the hash tags #oeritd10 and #ukoer
3.3 Presentation materials
All presentation materials will be made available after the event at www.medev.ac.uk/ourwork/oer/conference/ and
via Jorum Open, tagged with ukoer and oeritd10.
All materials (unless otherwise separately licensed) in this programme are available under a Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike license.
Page 6 of 21
OER in the disciplines: a joint Academy Subject Strand conference
10:00-16:30 26 October 2010, RIBA, Portland Place, London
4 Programme summary table
Time
Jarvis
Jarvis
Lutyens Room
Barry
Lasdun Room
Wren
Auditorium
Auditorium
Foyer
(Second floor)
Room
(Fifth Floor)
Room
(Lower ground
floor)
(Third Floor)
(Sixth Floor)
10:00
Registration
10:30
Welcome and
Introduction to
day
Sharon Waller,
Higher
Education
Academy, OER
Programme
Manager
10:45
1st Keynote
Diana Laurillard
Intelligent
support for
teachers who
are designing
new forms of
learning
11:30
1st breakout
Panel session:
Workshop:
Presentation:
Panel session: From
Workshop/discussion: What
session
IPR, copyright
Exploring resources
Prof Paul Maharg discipline focus to
are the differences between
and licensing –
designed to support
Do simulations
institutional context:
discipline-focussed community
what’s the
practical and
make good open
The future of releasing
approaches and institutional
difference?
fieldwork teaching.
educational
and using OER. How
approaches to OER? Does one
Megan
the development of a
offer advantages over the
An opportunity to
resources and
Quentin-Baxter,
conceptual framework
other?
discuss with the
does the cross
Naomi Korn,
and mapping
creators their
disciplinary
(see 7.1.5)
Sara Atkinson,
resources informs
experiences, to
approach work?
Facilitated by HumBox
Trevor Manning
progress.
learn more about
Simulation case
(see 7.1.1)
how these
studies in law,
(see 7.1.4)
Facilitated by
resources were
architecture, and
Facilitated by
OOER
produced and how
medicine.
PHORUS
to adopt or adapt
Exploring
them for your own
simulation
use.
resources in the
(see 7.1.2)
Simshare
Facilitated by
repository.
Bioscience
(see 7.1.3)
Facilitated by
Simshare
13:00
Lunch
Screening of
Stephen
Downes video
All materials (unless otherwise separately licensed) in this programme are available under a Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike license.
Page 7 of 21
OER in the disciplines: a joint Academy Subject Strand conference
10:00-16:30 26 October 2010, RIBA, Portland Place, London
13:45
2nd breakout
Workshop:
Workshop:
Presentation: Dr
Workshop: Publishing
Workshop:
session
Good practice
Exploring resources
Sara de Freitas
and reusing open
Community- building through
in creating,
designed to support
(tbc) Simulations
resources: what helps
engagement with OER in
using and re-
practical and
as OERs on the
and hinders?
using, reusing and reviewing
using learning
fieldwork teaching.
Global stage
Institutional policies,
resources. How to understand
and teaching
simulation case
reward and
peer review in the context of
resources
An opportunity to
recognition, quality,
discuss with the
studies in law,
OER: considering questions of
Covering
and communities of
creators their
politics and
quality, method and
finding and
practice etc -
experiences, to
business.
community.
using licenced
informed by PHORUS
learn more about
Workshop:
(see 7.2.5)
content to avoid
Case studies.
how these
Building
risk in using
Facilitated by members of the
resources were
simulations as
(see 7.2.4)
copyrighted
HumBox team, Lisa Lavender
produced and how
OERS: Where do
Facilitated by
materials
and Rob O’Toole
to adopt or adapt
you start?
PHORUS
Suzanne Hardy
them for your own
(see 7.2.3)
Lindsay Wood
use.
Dr David
Facilitated by
(see 7.2.2)
Davies
Simshare
Facilitated by
(see 7.2.1)
Bioscience
Facilitated by
OOER
15:15
2nd Keynote Jeff
Merriman
MIT Open
Knowledge
Initiative – what
have we
learned?
16:00
Final remarks
and the way
forward
16:15
Tea &
Coffee
Session details are below.
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Page 8 of 21
OER in the disciplines: a joint Academy Subject Strand conference
10:00-16:30 26 October 2010, RIBA, Portland Place, London
5 Speaker biographies
Professor Diana Laurillard
Currently holds the Chair of Learning with Digital Technologies in the Faculty of Culture and
Pedagogy.
Current research is in two related areas (see LKL Research tab):
• developing an interactive learning design tool to support teachers moving to blended learning
• working with SEN teachers to investigate the design of software interventions for learners
with dyscalculia and low numeracy.
In both cases the intention is to bridge the gap between teaching and research.
Previous appointments include Head of the e-Learning Strategy Unit at the UK Government’s Department for
Education and Skills, the Visiting Committee on IT at Harvard University, Pro-Vice-Chancellor for learning
technologies and teaching at The Open University.
Current appointments include the Board of the Observatory for Borderless HE, the Centre for Applied Research in
Educational Technologies at the University of Cambridge, the Council for FernUniversität in Hagen, the Panel for the
National Teaching Fellowship Scheme, and external examiner at the University of Oxford.
See: tinyurl.com/688hx9
Jeff Merriman
Jeff Merriman currently wears two hats as Associate Director for Software Strategy for the Office of
Educational Innovation and Technology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and
Executive Director of the Open Knowledge Initiative.
Jeff has spent much of his career building and promoting various kind of technology infrastructure
for higher education. As Director of Academic Computing at Stanford University he brought the
notion of “Wired Campuses” into the forefront by networking all of Stanford’s graduate and
undergraduate residence halls, leading an aggressive effort that began in 1987. Jeff also founded
the annual ResNet Symposia series.
This event brings together information technologists from around the world to share implementation, support, and
educational strategies pertaining to distributed, residential computing environments in higher education. In 1998 Jeff
helped to form Stanford’s Academic Computing program and became Director of Academic Computing Technology.
In this role he began to widen his focus to include issues of software infrastructure in support of educational
initiatives.
See: oeit.mit.edu/about/staff/jeff-merriman
Stephen Downes
Stephen Downes works for the National Research Council of Canada where he has served
as a Senior Research, based in Moncton, New Brunswick, since 2001. Affiliated with the
Learning and Collaborative Technologies Group, Institute for Information Technology,
Downes specializes in the fields of online learning, new media, pedagogy and philosophy.
Downes is perhaps best known for his daily newsletter, OLDaily, which is distributed by web,
email and RSS to thousands of subscribers around the world. He has published numerous
articles both online and in print, including The Future of Online Learning (1998), Learning
Objects (2000), Resource Profiles (2003), and E-Learning 2.0 (2005). He is a popular speaker, appearing at
hundreds of events around the world over the last fifteen years.
See: www.downes.ca
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Page 9 of 21
OER in the disciplines: a joint Academy Subject Strand conference
10:00-16:30 26 October 2010, RIBA, Portland Place, London
6 Session details
6.1 Morning breakout sessions
Panel session: IPR, copyright and licensing – what’s the difference?
Jarvis Auditorium
Copyright is an exclusive right which is created at the same time as a creative idea is fixed or expressed, and gives
the creator (owner or holder) complete control (for a limited period of time) over how that work may be copied or
exploited. A licence states what permissions a copyright holder has granted to users to copy or otherwise use that
work. ‘Fair use’ gives educators some rights to cite copyright works (with attribution) without seeking express
permission from the copyright holder, such as for ‘teaching and research’, however this must not be to the detriment
of the original copyright holder, as judged against four principles covering the nature of the work, how it has been
cited/copied, and loss of income or harm to the copyright holder and their reputation.
This panel session will discuss intellectual property rights ownership and licensing in the context of OER and higher
education, considering fair use and professional behaviour, and risk.
Facilitated by the OOER team with contributions from project partners.
Workshop: Exploring resources designed to support practical and fieldwork teaching.
Lutyens Room (Second Floor)
This workshop will provide delegates with an opportunity to explore resources designed to support teaching practical
and fieldwork, to learn more about how these resources were produced and how to adopt or adapt them for further
use. Some resources are standalone and able to be used as provided, while other resources have been built with
further flexibility opportunities in mind.
It will also be an excellent opportunity for attendees to hear directly from the creators of these resources, and discuss
with them their experiences of designing and building open educational resources.
As this will be a very interactive session, a limited number of laptops will be provided for delegates’ use, though you
are encouraged to bring your own if you have one.
Facilitated by the BioOER team.
Presentation: Do simulations make good open educational resources and does the cross
disciplinary approach work? Professor Paul Maharg
Barry Room (Third Floor)
In this overview Professor Maharg will analyse the case for simulation resources as OERs, and the extent to which a
simulation resource bank can be interdisciplinary. He will describe briefly the Simshare project and site, give two
OER examples and examine their viability as simulation resources, and summarise some of the key issues facing
Simshare in the next year. This will be followed by case studies:
• Using transactional learning to teach building contract management and administration. Andrew Agapiou,
Department of Architecture, University of Strathclyde.
• Simulations from the University Glamorgan – how we made use of OER resources, Karen Counsell, School of
Law, University of Glamorgan.
• David Davies trained as a physiologist, completing his PhD in neuroscience, but an interest in teaching and
Internet technologies lead to a change in direction towards e-learning research and development. He is now
Associate Professor in Medical Education at Warwick Medical School, with a main interest in e-learning and
digital healthcare technologies.
• Negotiation-based learning: Objectives, strategies and challenges, Simon Usherwood, Department of Politics,
University of Surrey.
Facilitated by the Simshare team.
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Page 10 of 21
OER in the disciplines: a joint Academy Subject Strand conference
10:00-16:30 26 October 2010, RIBA, Portland Place, London
Panel session: From discipline focus to institutional context : The future of releasing and using
OER. How the development of a conceptual framework and mapping resources informs progress.
Wren Room (Fifth Floor)
Why OER? How does the concept of OER fit with the complexities of disciplines? What facilitates the release and
use of OER and how do we overcome related barriers? The PHORUS project developed a conceptual framework as
a way of informing the future; this will be offered as an approach to implementing OER at discipline level to
complement the institutional context.
The session aims to stimulate discussion through brief trigger presentations about the conceptual framework, the
findings from institutional case studies and Mapping resources to the Public Health Skills and Careers Framework
(Skills for Health) .
Facilitated by the PHORUS team.
Workshop/discussion: What are the differences between community and institutional approaches
to OER? Does one offer advantages over the other?
Lasdun Room (Sixth Floor)
This session will be an informal discussion on the advantages and disadvantages of a community-driven approach to
OER in contrast or complement to an institutional approach.
It will be facilitated by members of the HumBox team and a representative of EdShare, the institutional repository at
the University of Southampton.
The session will commence with short presentations on the HumBox and on EdShare.HumBox is a successful
community-driven repository for the humanities, and the successes of the HumBox project’s community-focussed
approach will be outlined. EdShare is a well-used institutional repository, which operates in a similar way (technically)
to the HumBox. The presentations will be used as a starting point to initiate a discussion on how far institutional and
community approaches to OER differ and how far they may complement each other. Is one approach better than
another? Is one approach more sustainable than the other?
Facilitated by the HumBox team.
6.2 Afternoon breakout sessions
Good practice in creating, using and re-using learning and teaching resources. 3 things you can
do today to improve your resources for learning and teaching.
Jarvis Auditorium
If you use PowerPoint, if you upload resources into a learning support environment or VLE, or if you share anything
electronically with colleagues or students, then this session is for you.
Based on the experiences of 17 HEIs and on evidence gathered during the OOER project, this interactive session
This workshop will give you three easy things which you can start doing tomorrow, which will make your resources
safer, avoid risk of copyright infringement and start you on the path to openness.
The truth is, making your learning and teaching resources 'OER-able' isn't a 'special' process - it is all about the good
practice we should all be adopting anyway. Hiding behind the net curtain of 'protection' from uploading to a password
protected managed/virtual learning environment is not enough. If materials can be downloaded, they can be shared.
If they are shared, the are on the Internet. If they are on the Internet you could be putting yourself and your institution
at risk.
Why not think about good practice as you create resources? Including openly licenced content (e.g. images, videos),
properly and ethically consented, is easier that it has ever been, and protects you and your employer. It may increase
confidence in using and reusing your work, and may even help you think more creatively about how you can illustrate
teaching and learning points in your materials...
Facilitated by the OOER team with contributions from project partners.
All materials (unless otherwise separately licensed) in this programme are available under a Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike license.
Page 11 of 21
OER in the disciplines: a joint Academy Subject Strand conference
10:00-16:30 26 October 2010, RIBA, Portland Place, London
Workshop: Exploring resources designed to support practical and fieldwork teaching.
Lutyens Room (Second Floor)
This workshop will provide delegates with an opportunity to explore resources designed to support teaching practical
and fieldwork, to learn more about how these resources were produced and how to adopt or adapt them for further
use. Some resources are standalone and able to be used as provided, while other resources have been built with
further flexibility opportunities in mind.
It will also be an excellent opportunity for attendees to hear directly from the creators of these resources, and discuss
with them their experiences of designing and building open educational resources.
As this will be a very interactive session, a limited number of laptops will be provided for delegates’ use, though you
are encouraged to bring your own if you have one.
Facilitated by the BioOER team.
Presentation: Dr Sara de Freitas (tbc) Simulations as OERs on the global stage
Workshop: Building simulations as OERS: Where do you start?
Barry Room (Third Floor)
Sara de Freitas is Director of Research and Professor of Virtual Environments at the Serious Games Institute at the
University of Coventry where she leads an applied research team working closely with industry. Sara holds a visiting
fellowship at the University of London is elected Chair of the Lab Group and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.
Voted the Most Influential Woman in Technology 2009 and 2010 by US Fast Company, Sara also chairs the IEEE
Serious Games and Virtual Worlds conferences (VS-Games) and is a regular speaker at international conferences.
Sara currently holds 12 funded projects, funded through European, regional and national agencies. Her current
research includes multimodal interfaces, experience design and perceptual modelling in games and virtual worlds.
Sara publishes widely with over 90 publications (reports, journal articles, conference papers and books) in the areas
of: pedagogy and e-learning, change management and serious games and virtual worlds for supporting training and
learning. Her latest book Rethinking Learning for a Digital Age (edited with R. Sharpe and H. Beetham) is published
by Routledge.
• Building simulations as OERS: Where do you start? Karen Barton, Glasgow Graduate School of Law,
University of Strathclyde.
Using an OER simulation as an example, we will look at how the simulation was constructed and discuss other
issues that need to be considered such as:
o Fit with curriculum
o Assessment
o Additional learning resources (e.g. FAQs, forum, flow charts, lectures, surgeries etc.)
o Staffing
We will also explore the concept of Open Field and Closed Field simulations and discuss the consequences of
taking one or other approach in the design of the simulation itself.
Facilitated by the Simshare team
Workshop: Publishing and reusing open resources: what helps and hinders? Institutional policies,
reward and recognition, quality, and communities of practice etc - informed by PHORUS Case
studies.
Wren Room (Fifth Floor)
Case study for discussion.
Covering institutional policies, reward and recognition, quality of resources and communities of practice.
Facilitated by the PHORUS team.
All materials (unless otherwise separately licensed) in this programme are available under a Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike license.
Page 12 of 21
OER in the disciplines: a joint Academy Subject Strand conference
10:00-16:30 26 October 2010, RIBA, Portland Place, London
Workshop: Community- building through engagement with OER in using, reusing and reviewing
resources. How to understand peer review in the context of OER: considering questions of quality,
method and community.
Lasdun Room (Sixth Floor)
This workshop will consider issues of quality and peer review in relation to OERs and will take participants through
the HumBox processes of review and sharing.
The session will familiarise users with the background and ethos to the creation of the HumBox. It will feature a
demonstration of the key features in HumBox which enable reviewing and networking between site users, and will
consider potential further uses for these features amongst the academic community. Participants will consider how
resources might be presented and prepared in order to enhance their ‘shareability’ and there will be a practical
session during which participants will consider the nature of peer review in relation to OERs.
The practical element of the session will involve consideration of particular resources taken from the Humbox site
and of how they might be usefully reviewed and improved through peer community engagement.
Facilitated by the HumBox team.
All materials (unless otherwise separately licensed) in this programme are available under a Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike license.
Page 13 of 21
OER in the disciplines: a joint Academy Subject Strand conference
10:00-16:30 26 October 2010, RIBA, Portland Place, London
7 About the JISC/Higher Education Academy Subject Strand Phase 1
pilot projects at this conference
7.1 BioOER
Open Educational Resources in the Biosciences - Enhancing Teaching and
Learning with Laboratory and Fieldwork Resources
Finding and adapting resources to support practical work can be difficult.
The UK Centre for Bioscience managed a programme across ten institutions
to enable the preparation and sharing of Open Educational Resources
specifically to support laboratory and fieldwork teaching, to build an
Interactive Laboratory and Fieldwork Manual for the Biosciences.
The project sought to uncover and explore all of the issues facing academics
related to working with resources to use within their teaching, and to help
enable them to bring about solutions.
Additionally, the programme delivered over 360 credits’ worth of high quality, proven teaching resources, released
under a Creative Commons Share-Alike licence, designed to allow sharing and reuse. These are hosted on a freely
accessible JISC-supported repository, JorumOpen (search tag: bioukoer), and links to all resources and further
information can be found on Bioscience website, linked below..
The Bioscience OERs cover a range of subjects, from evolutionary history to microbiology and genetic analysis, and
are available in a range of formats, including: Interactive laboratory simulations; Scenario-based learning packages;
PowerPoint presentations; Video and Image collections; Pre-lab demonstrations/exercises; Flash-based tutorials;
Articulate/Engage activities; Hosted, service-based case studies.
See: www.bioscience.heacademy.ac.uk/resources/oer/ and biooer.jiscinvolve.org
STEM OER Guidance Wiki: stemoer.pbworks.com
7.2 HumBox
The HumBox is an online space for the publication, sharing and managing of
digital humanities teaching resources. It is also the hub of a community of
humanities professionals who are engaged in re-using and reviewing each
other’s resources and making connections with each other through the
HumBox system.
The site’s creation is the result of the HumBox Project, a collaboration
between four HEA humanities Subject Centres (Languages, Linguistics and
Area Studies; English; History, and Philosophy and Religious Studies) and a
consortium of 10 partners in Humanities Departments, Schools and
Research Centres in a range of institutions, as well as relevant Subject
Associations.
Project partners published and shared their own teaching resources on the
site – and those of their colleagues - but also engaged with the processes
involved in OER, such as IPR and copyright, effective tagging and metadata,
and consideration of what it means for a resource to be ‘shareable.’
The HumBox contains over 1300 teaching resources in a wide range of media. It has over 300 registered users from
around the world and the community continues to grow on a daily basis. It is a dynamic space which allows browsers
to preview and download files freely, and allows registered users to see how their resources are being used, make
collections of resources according to their own interests and needs, review the resources of others, and interact with
other site users. It is a site which demonstrates sharing and active engagement with OER in practice.
See: www.humbox.ac.uk
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7.3 OOER
Organising Educational Resources (OOER) involved 17 partner Higher
Education Institutions and focussed on the particular challenges to releasing
materials openly from the medicine, dentistry and veterinary medicine
community. Concentrating on the complexities of teachers who are employed
by the NHS but contracted to deliver higher education in academic settings,
the project revealed issues of risk in institutional policies concerning IPR and
copyright, highlighted and shared current good practice in procedures for
obtaining patient consent to use clinical recordings in learning and teaching,
and surveyed staff and students to find out where they currently find
resources.
Working with over 50% of medical, dental and veterinary medicine schools in
the UK, the project has been widely disseminated, with findings and
recommendations informing other areas of core Subject Centre support
work, and providing a detailed background on which to build the 2 newly
funded projects from Phase 2 of the UK OER programme. These projects (ACTOR and PORSCHE) will work with
releasing materials from accredited post graduate teaching courses in our disciplines, and from the NHS eLearning
Repository, exposing them to wider use in clinical and academic settings.
See: www.medev.ac.uk/ourwork/oer/
7.4 PHORUS
PHORUS (Public Health Open Resource in the University Sector) had three
principle aims:
• To critically assess the enablers and barriers to releasing learning
resources in Public Health.
• To develop a conceptual framework to inform OER implementation.
• To work towards and actively release resources.
PHORUS research centred on barriers and facilitators to making Public
Health resources accessible, minimising risks of misinterpretation or misuse.
Issues emerged from the literature and the data collection about ownership
of materials, requirements for formatting, accuracy of tagging and the
interface between cooperation and competition. Institutions and individuals
released resources into the JorumOpen repository. Selected resources were
mapped to the Public Health Skills and Careers Framework (PHSCF: Skills
for Health) to assist in curriculum development.
A conceptual framework, comprising seven levels, was developed to inform future developments and to highlight the
dynamics within the process or releasing and reusing Public Health resources; thus contributing to sustainability. The
Department of Health, the Teaching Public Health Networks and other organisations, including Higher Education
Institutions, had commissioned resource development; however, the cultures of OER and Public Health in the UK
were not yet cemented. The importance of sharing underpins both the philanthropic approach and the ability to bring
groups with different interests and approaches to Public Health together.
See: phorus.health.heacademy.ac.uk
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7.5 Simshare
Simshare was based on a learning tool, and focused on providing OER to
facilitate and encourage the use of simulation and related approaches to
learning. The full-scale development of a body of widely shareable and re-
purposable educational content amongst simulation designers and users has
been almost non-existent and this has had serious consequences for the
uptake of simulation as a form of situated learning; for whilst the power of
simulation as a heuristic is widely recognised, so too is the effort required by
staff to create and resource simulations.
Working with partner institutions in Law and engaging other disciplines
Simshare has developed a website that acts as an interface for simulation
submission to a repository. Stored simulations or their component assets
can be downloaded and the site also supports a community of practice.
Simshare, with a high level of investment in support and guidance as well as
a resource repository, adds tremendous value to its products. In this way, it
can be much more effective in encouraging the use of simulation in learning
and teaching. The Simshare community site provides a strong element of guidance, and by offering a habitat for a
user community, Simshare is providing as much support and encouragement as it can for potential users. By
enabling a community of practice to form around simulative approaches to learning and by helping staff to create,
use, evaluate and re-purpose simulations much more effectively than would have otherwise been the case the
project can reach beyond narrow subject boundaries.
See: www.ukcle.ac.uk/projects/past-projects/simshare/ and www.simshare.org.uk
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8 Resources
Since we started on our Phase 1 pilot projects, there has been a plethora of really useful tools emerging from
other Phase 1 pilots and elsewhere, which will be invaluable to anyone thinking about OER. From wondering
what all the fuss is about, to the value, benefits, perceived pros and cons of the open approach to educational
resources. There are reports, guides and kits to help you along the way, tools to help you choose openly
licensed materials labelled explicitly with permissions for your own learning and teaching materials, and several
discipline specific repositories and libraries, as well as the UK national repository, Jorum Open, which can host
and expose your materials to a wide potential audience. There are workshops, conferences and online courses
you can attend, and a lot of advice on IPR and copyright.
We have listed below a small selection of the outputs from other projects you may find useful.
8.1 Tools, guides and kits
• Creative Commons License Your Work creativecommons.org/choose/
• HumBox user guide to copyright, tagging, sharing and reviewing humbox.ac.uk/faq.html
• OER Handbook: wikieducator.org/OER_Handbook
• OER Synthesis and Evaluation Project https://oersynth.pbworks.com/OER-Synthesis-and-Evaluation-Project
• OOER Toolkit www.medev.ac.uk/ourwork/oer/toolkits/
• Open Educational Resources infoKit bit.ly/oerinfokit
• Open University Lab Space: labspace.open.ac.uk
• Nottingham Xpert Attribution tool: www.nottingham.ac.uk/xpert/attribution/
• STEM OER Guidance Wiki stemoer.pbworks.com
• Web2Rights Flowcharts www.web2rights.org.uk/charts.html
8.2 Reports
• Bioscience Project (BioOER) Final Report: www.heacademy.ac.uk/projects/detail/oer/OER_SUB_Bioscience
• HumBox Project Final Report www.llas.ac.uk/projects/3233
• OOER Phase 1 Final Report www.medev.ac.uk/dinky/ukoer/
• PHORUS Project Final Report: phorus.health.heacademy.ac.uk/documents
• Simshare Final Report www.ukcle.ac.uk/projects/past-projects/simshare/
8.3 Repositories
• Healthcare Education Assets Online (HEAL) www.healcentral.org/services/servicesCollectionsList.jsp
• Health Science Online: hso.info
• HumBox www.humbox.ac.uk
• JHSPH OpenCourseWare Image Library: ocw.jhsph.edu/imageLibrary/
• JorumOpen www.jorum.ac.uk
• MedEdPORTAL www.aamc.org/mededportal/
• NHS eLearning Repository www.elearningrepository.nhs.uk
• People’s Open Access Education Initiative: Peoples-Uni peoples-uni.org
• PHORCast Public Health Online Resources for Career, Skills and Training: www.phorcast.org.uk
• Xpert www.nottingham.ac.uk/xpert/
8.4 Blogs
• Bioscience OER blog: biooer.jiscinvolve.org/wp/
• Iterating towards openness, David Wiley’s blog: opencontent.org/blog/
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• John’s JISC CETIS blog blogs.cetis.ac.uk/johnr/
• Lorna’s JISC CETIS blog blogs.cetis.ac.uk/lmc/
• MEDEV OER phase 2 blog (ACTOR and PORSCHE) www.medev.ac.uk/blog/oer-phase-2-blog/
• Phil’s JISC CETIS blog blogs.cetis.ac.uk/philb/
8.5 Websites
• David Wiley: davidwiley.org
• OER Africa: www.oerafrica.org
• Open Learn: openlearn.open.ac.uk
• MIT Open CourseWare: ocw.mit.edu
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9 Moving on: OER2
The Higher Education Academy and JISC are working in partnership to develop the HEFCE-funded Open
Educational Resources (OER) programme, supporting UK higher education institutions in sharing their teaching and
learning resources freely online across the world.
Building on the work of a pilot, which took place between April 2009 and March 2010, a second phase of projects and
activities is now running until August 2011. This phase will extend the range of materials openly available, document
benefits offered by OER to those involved in the learning process, and promote collections of OER materials. Such
resources might include full courses, course materials, complete modules, videos, assessments, tests, simulations,
worked examples or software.
This £5M programme is comprised of 35 projects in three activity areas, as follows:
Activity Area A - The release of OER
• Ai A new set of OER release projects (the "release" strand, managed by the Academy).
• Aii Open Materials for Accredited Courses, releasing materials linked to the national professional standards for
staff who teach in higher education (the "OMAC" project, managed by the Academy).
• Aiii The support of existing teams who are already releasing OER in embedding their practice in other
environments (the "cascade" strand).
Activity Area B - The use of OER
• Bi An investigation into the use of OER in UK Higher Education.
• Bii The collection of case study data around the use of OER in English Higher Education.
• Biii The tracking of the use of materials released by pilot phase projects.
Activity Area C - The discovery of OER
• Ci Projects collecting OER from various worldwide sources, to bring together thematic collections (the
"collections" strand).
As with the pilot strand, the programme will also include support and evaluation/synthesis activities.
Ai
Release strand
• University of Plymouth, Learning from WOeRK: OERs for CPD in the workplace.
• SWAP Subject Centre, SWAP OER Project.
• The University of Northampton, TIGER (Transforming Interprofessional Groups through Educational
Resources).
• University College London, OER Digital Humanities.
• De Montfort University, Sickle Cell Open: Online Topics and Educational Resources (SCOOTER).
• Nottingham Trent University, De–STRESS: Depository of Resources for Statistics in Social Sciences.
• Doncaster College, Developing 3D Simulations & Learning Objects for Creative & Cultural Skills College and
Palatine Networks.
• HLST and BMAF Subject Centres, 2012: Learning Legacies.
• University of the Arts, London, Arts Learning and Teaching Online (ALTO).
• ESCalate Subject Centre, OSIER (Open Sustainability in Education Resource).
• University of Salford, Open Resources for Built Environment Education (ORBEE).
• MEDEV Subject Centre, Pathways for Open Resource Sharing through Convergence in Healthcare Education
(PORSCHE).
Further information can be found at: www.jisc.ac.uk/oer
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Aii
Open resources for Academy accredited professional development programmes or schemes for
teachers of higher education (OMAC)
• BMAF Subject Centre, Open for business.
• English Subject Centre, ASSAP: Adding Subject Specificity to Accredited Programmes.
• GEES Subject Centre, Educational Development Open Resources (EDOR).
• London School of Economics and Political Science, Developing Educators Learning and Information Literacies
for Accreditation (DELILA).
• MEDEV Subject Centre, Accredited Clinical Teachers Open Resources (ACTOR).
• Rose Bruford College, Reflecting on Learning and Teaching in the Performing Arts.
• University College Falmouth, IPR in Educational Environments.
• University College London, CPD4HE: Open Resources on HE Teaching and Learning.
• University of Bradford, Open educational resources for the inclusive curriculum (ORIC).
• University of Exeter, Open STEM: Transforming Teaching in Mathematics and Biosciences.
• University of Wolverhampton, Learning to Teach Inclusively – a multi media open.
Further information can be found at: www.heacademy.ac.uk/ourwork/teachingandlearning/oer/phase2
Aiii
Cascade strand
• Coventry University, OER CaFE (OER Cascade to FE).
• C-SAP Subject Centre, Cascading Social Science Open Educational Resources.
• ADM Subject Centre, Practising Open Education: Developing the Potential of Open Educational Resources in
Art, Design and Media.
• University of Leicester, OER Sustainability through Teaching & Research Innovation: Cascading across HEIs
(OSTRICH).
• University of Oxford, Ripple: OER Cascade.
Further information can be found at: www.jisc.ac.uk/oer
Ci Collections strand
• University of Bath , Delivering Open Educational Resources for Engineering Design.
• C-SAP Subject Centre, Discovering Collections of Social Science Open Educational Resources.
• UK Centre for Bioscience, OeRBITAL - Thematic collection: Open educational Resources for Biologists
Involved in Teaching And Learning.
• Engineering Subject Centre, Engineering a Low Carbon Future OER (EALCFO).
• University of Oxford, TRITON: Bringing Open Educational Resources (OER) closer to the Politics and IR
subject communities.
• GEES Subject Centre, The Open Fieldwork (OF) Project.
Further information can be found at: www.jisc.ac.uk/oer
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10 Acknowledgements
• Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE).
• OER programme teams at the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) and the Higher Education
Academy (HEA).
• Guest keynote speakers.
• Subject Strand project staff and staff from the Higher Education Academy Subject Centres.
• Partner organisations and services sharing print and other materials such as TechDis www.techdis.ac.uk
• All project partners from all of the projects represented today.
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Attribution ShareAlike license.
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