By e-share. We were recently asked to take a look at the use of OERs as part of a course design and see whether the use of OER caused me to change what I wanted to teach, and what time saving (if any) would be gained; here is what happened.
First of all I scoped out a short 5 week scheme of work to deliver a range of information literacy skills that would be suitable for an undergraduate class (level 6). I used the Open University’s Information Literacy framework to determine what needed to be delivered, I thought this would give the scheme of work a clear focus and perhaps improve my chances of finding suitable learning materials. After reading about the purpose of OERs (or Learning Objects as they were first defined) I came to understand that according to Downes’s paper Learning Objects: Resources for distance education worldwide (2001)  the ideology was to reduce educators lesson planning time and the multiple creation of key undisputed facts. More...

By bdelosarcos. Yesterday the Flipped Learning Network (FLN) announced a formal definition of ‘flipped learning’ , a timely reminder for me to share the results of the survey that the OERRHub Project conducted with flipped educators to find out about their use of open educational resources (OER). I blogged about our relationship with the FLN and how this research piece came to be at the launch of an infographic featuring some of these data; here comes a recap and more. More...

By Rob Farrow. As the 3 year UKOER drew to a close  and the final evaluation of the HEFCE funded intervention in OER was published  (McGill et al, 2013), what lessons have been learnt and how do they compare with the current findings of the OER research Hub ? It was difficult to identify just 3 key issues with OERs as there are so many models and perspectives that the learning objects could be viewed from, with each model producing a different perspective on the overall impact of OERs; be this good or bad. However, the OER Research Hub is starting to produce more polarised reports focused around three main topics and it is these I shall concentrate on. More...

By Rob Farrow. I’ve been spending quite a bit of time recently thinking about the role of ethics in both the work that we do in OER Research Hub, educational research more generally, and how we might deal with the specific challenges raised by a commitment to working ‘in the open’.  So this blog post is to try and frame some of the key questions ahead of a more final write-up.  I’ve also attended a few events recently to help me focus on the key issues.  (I’ve blogged these on my personal site openmind.ed.)
There are a few related bits of work here for me.  I’m contributing our forthcoming School of Open course on open research by authoring the sections on ethics.  We’re at a point in the project where we need re-draft our Ethics Manual in order to reflect a better understanding of the kinds of things that have happened in practice rather than what we thought might happen at the start of the project. More...

C'est un cours pour le moins novateur qui vient d'être lancé à l'université de Berkeley. Un enseignement pour apprendre à rédiger sur Wikipédia est annoncé, en vue d'améliorer la pertinence et le sérieux des articles en ligne.
Wikipédia : s'il y a bien une source dont les enseignants ne veulent pas entendre parler, c'est bien ceux de cette encyclopédie en ligne collaborative. Mais pas à Berkeley. L'université californienne très renommée vient en effet d'embaucher un jeune homme, dont la fonction sera "Professeur de Wikipédia". Suite...

The Open Educational Resource Research Hub (OERRH) is creating an Impact Map to show where and how open educational resources are being used and what evidence exists on their impact.

The Impact Map was created in response to the need for a place where various sources of data on OER impact can be stored, compared, combined, and visualised in an international context. The map and the data it represents attempt to support the OERRH's hypotheses, of which the two main ones are:

• The use of OER leads to improvement in student performance and satisfaction
• The open aspect of OER creates different usage and adoption patterns than other online resources

There’s more to educational technology than shiny new gadgets and software. This week, we are featuring a school that focuses on getting students to use the technology they’re already familiar with, like social networks and mobile phones, for educational purposes.
Practices are more important than devices
Our School of the Week this week is Colegio Sagrado Corazón, a school in Spain with just over 800 students aged 3 to 16 years old. Open Education Europa interviewed Rosa Casado, a representative of the school, about their innovative teaching practices. OEE Editorial.

At Wikiversity, we create and use free teaching materials. It offers courses, open educational resources (OER) research projects and an active community of educators, researchers, students and other interested parties. You can study all you want, at your level and at your pace. Wikiversity.

By Brian Kelly. In a post entitled Reflections on the #openeducationwk Blog Posts I summarised the guest posts published on this blog during Open Education Week. My post concluded with my thought’s on Sheila MacNeill’s post in which she gave her reasons “Why the Opposite of Open isn’t Necessarily Broken“. I agree with Sheila’s view that “in reality things are more nuanced” than is suggested by the soundbite “the opposite of open is not ‘closed’, the opposite of open is ‘broken’“. My post concluded with the suggestion that you should:

Embrace open practices which you are comfortable with; share your open practices with others and be willing to learn from the open practices used by other. But don’t be dismissive of those who don’t share your beliefs and practices.

As part of that philosophy in this post I will share the open practices I use to ensure that the ideas and discussions shared at ‘amplified events’ can reach a wide audience, beyond those physically present at the event. More...