Leigh-Anne Perryman

Impact of OER use on teaching and learning: Data from OER Research Hub (2013–2014)

The true power of comparative research around the impact and use of open educational resources is only just being realised, largely through the work done by the Hewlett-funded OER Research Hub, based at The Open University (UK). Since late 2012, the project has used a combination of surveys, interviews and focus groups to gather data about the use of open educational resources (OER) by educators, formal learners and informal learners across the globe. These data focus on the overall picture emerging from the survey research of the project, which presently comprises more than 6390 responses, 50.3% of which are informal learners, 24.7% of which are formal learners, 21.6% of which are educators and 3.4% of which are librarians. Results from more than 20 individual questionnaires have been compiled, including surveys of K12 and Flipped Learning teachers; college educators from the CCCOER consortium; users of iTunesU, OpenLearn, OpenStax, Saylor, Siyavula and the YouTube channel of The Open University.

Beyond the Ivory Tower: A Model for Nurturing Informal Learning and Development Communities through Open Educational Practices

Open Educational Resources (OER) and Open Educational Practices (OEP) are making an evergrowing impact on the field of adult learning, offering free high-quality education to increasing numbers of people. However, the top-down distribution of weighty university courses that typifies current provision is not necessarily suitable for contexts such as Continued Professional Development (CPD). This article proposes that a change of focus from a supplier-driven to a needs-led approach, grounded in theories of informal learning, could increase the positive impact of OER and OEP beyond the ivory towers of higher education.To explore this approach, we focused on the requirements of a specific community outside higher education — trainers in the UK’s voluntary sector — in order to design a more broadly applicable model for a sustainable online learning community focused around OER and OEP. The model was informed by a recent survey of voluntary sector trainers establishing their need for high-quality free resources and their desire to develop more productive relationships with their peers, and by evaluation of successful online communities within and outside the voluntary sector.Our proposed model gives equal attention to learning resources and group sociality. In it, academics and practitioners work together to adapt and create learning materials and to share each other’s knowledge and experiences through discussion forums and other collaborative activities. The model features an explicit up-skilling dimension based on Communities of Practice (CoP) theory and a system of reputation management to incentivise participation. The model is unique in building a pan-organisation community that is entirely open in terms of membership and resources. While the model offered in this article is focused on the voluntary sector, it could also be applied more widely, allowing practitioner communities the benefits of tailored resources and academic input, and collaborating universities the benefit of having their OER used and reused more widely for CPD through informal learning.ResumenLos recursos educativos abiertos (REA) y las prácticas educativas abiertas (PEA) tienen un impacto cada vez mayor en el aprendizaje para adultos, ya que proporcionan educación gratuita de alta calidad a un creciente número de personas. Sin embargo, la distribución vertical que caracteriza a los cursos universitarios disponibles en la actual oferta educativa no se adecua necesariamente a contextos como el desarrollo profesional continuo (DPC). Este artículo sostiene que un nuevo planteamiento que permita pasar de un enfoque centrado en el proveedor a otro que gravite alrededor de la necesidad, basado en las teorías del aprendizaje informal, podría incrementar el impacto positivo de los REA y las PEA más allá de la torre de marfil en qué está hoy situada la educación superior.Para explorar este planteamiento, nos hemos centrado en los requisitos de una comunidad específica que no pertenece al ámbito de la educación superior -formadores del sector voluntario del Reino Unidopara diseñar un modelo que pueda aplicarse de forma amplia a una comunidad de aprendizaje sostenible y en línea centrada en REA y PEA. El modelo se basa en una encuesta reciente realizada a formadores voluntarios, que establecía su necesidad de disponer de recursos gratuitos de alta calidad y su deseo de entablar relaciones más productivas con sus colegas, así como en un informe sobre comunidades en línea pertenecientes o no al sector voluntario.El modelo que proponemos presta la misma atención a los recursos de aprendizaje que a la sociabilidad del grupo. Para ello, los investigadores y los profesionales trabajan conjuntamente para adaptar y crear materiales de aprendizaje y poner en común conocimientos y experiencias a través de foros de discusión y otras actividades en colaboración. El modelo plantea una dimensión explícita de mejora de competencias basada en la teoría de las comunidades de práctica (CP) y un sistema de gestión de la reputación que incentiva la participación. Se trata de un modelo único para la creación de una comunidad pan-organizativa totalmente abierta en cuanto a recursos y posibilidad de afiliación. Si bien el modelo que se presenta en este artículo se centra básicamente en el sector voluntario, también podría aplicarse de forma más amplia a otros sectores, lo que permitiría que las comunidades de práctica se beneficiaran de recursos diseñados a medida y de contribuciones académicas, y que las universidades participantes vieran que sus REA se utilizan y reutilizan de forma más amplia para el DPC a través del aprendizaje informal.

How OpenLearn supports a business model for OER

Abstract In 2013, the Open University (OU) in the UK launched a large-scale survey of users of its OpenLearn platform for open educational resources. The survey results revealed that OpenLearn is functioning as a showcase and a taster for the OU, thereby offering informal learners a bridge to formal education. In 2014 and 2015, the OpenLearn survey was repeated. This paper reports a comparison of the results of the surveys, highlighting considerable changes in learner characteristics, priorities and motivations over a 3-year period. The data also reveal a substantial increase in the number of learners identifying study performance-related benefits resulting from OpenLearn use and, in addition, that educators reveal increasingly positive changes in their approach to teaching. This paper outlines some of the ways in which the OU is responding to the data and discusses how further development of the platform could better meet institutional and learner needs.

Conference Report: `Way too much fun'?

‘It’s safe to bleed a little in the water, as there are no sharks’ keynote speaker Peter Clough (Liverpool Hope University) reassured as he introduced his radio play presenting data which ‘spilled from the page’ of an empirical project exploring the faith of practitioners within British ‘faith’ schools. ‘Intimations of God in Wellworth High: Creations, transgressions and animations of data-fragments’ was the opening presentation of the 2nd International Arts-Based Educational Research (ABER) Conference, hosted by the University of Bristol’s Graduate School of Education. Drama, poetry, autobiography, fictional narrative, film, painting, tapestry, photography and song were among the wealth of art forms featured in the conference, employed both as methodologies for gathering research data and as media for communicating research findings. And, as Clough predicted, there were ‘no sharks’ in evidence, delegates and participants appearing to be overwhelmingly supportive of each other, united in a desire to raise the profile of arts-based educational research, eager to explore possibilities for future collaboration, and committed to experimentation with the boundaries of qualitative research in order to explore the questions that were the stated focus of the conference, namely:

Book Review: The Nature of the Beast: Cultural Diversity and the Visual Arts Sector. A Study of Policies, Initiatives and Attitudes 1976—2006, Richard Hylton. Bath: ICIA, 2007. 168 pp. ISBN 0—86197—136—1, £14.95 (pbk)

‘Cultural diversity’, ‘cultural inclusion’, ‘ethnic arts’, ‘multicultural art’ – whatever the label, policy-making intended to achieve equality of opportunity across the arts continues to be an expressed priority for government funding in many parts of the world. But are the resultant policies and related initiatives as effective as they could be? Can they be more damaging than constructive? And how might future policy-making be improved? These are among the questions addressed by Richard Hylton in The Nature of the Beast which promises to ‘explore the impact that cultural diversity policies and initiatives, within the publicly funded arts sector, have had on Black visual arts activity in England over the past three decades’ (p. 11). Hylton’s eloquent critique achieves this aim and much more, offering a compelling, informative and often provocative account of the ‘racialised pathologies’ (p. 133) of the English gallery system, and presenting a persuasive argument that policy making related to cultural diversity issues is often incoherent and ill-informed. While The Nature of the Beast focuses on a British context, it reaches worrying conclusions that are relevant for arts-related policy-makers, artists, educators and researchers worldwide.