Open educational resources and repositories

1
Open educational resources and repositories

• Open educational repositories share, improve,
  reuse

Amber Thomas Programme Manager, JISC
This presentation is available from
http//ie-repository.jisc.ac.uk/298/
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Route Plan

• Introduction
• How different is open?
• Academy/JISC OER Programme
• Thoughts about the road ahead for OER

3
About JISC

• JISC's activities support education and research
  by promoting innovation in new technologies and
  by the central support of ICT services. JISC
  provides
• A world-class network - JANET
• Access to electronic resources
• New environments for learning, teaching and
  research
• Guidance on institutional change
• Advisory and consultancy services
• Regional support for FE colleges - RSCs

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About JISC

• JISC delivers its mission through
• innovative and sustainable ICT infrastructure,
  services and practice that support institutions
  in meeting their mission
• promoting the development, uptake and effective
  use of ICT to support learning and teaching
• promoting the development, uptake and effective
  use of ICT to support research
• promoting the development, uptake and effective
  use of ICT within institutions and in support of
  their management
• developing and implementing a programme to
  support institutions' engagement with the wider
  community
• continuing to improve its own working practices

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Services
and theres more!
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JISCs support for repositories

• To improve long term availability and access to
  digital content, through a network of
  repositories that provide capability for
  teachers, learners and researchers to use and
  share content

7
Route Plan

• Introduction
• How different is open?
• Academy/JISC OER Programme
• Thoughts about the road ahead for OER

8
Cue overused metaphor
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Route Plan

• Introduction
• How different is open?
• Academy/JISC OER Programme
• Thoughts about the road ahead for OER

10
Learning objects, c.2003
http//www.excellencegateway.org.uk/page.aspx?o1
35264
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Major Steps Forward
Produced at wordle.com CCBY Amber Thomas, JISC
2009
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So where are we now?
Produced at wordle.com CCBY Amber Thomas, JISC
2009
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Open educational resources c.2007

• digitised materials offered freely and openly
  for educators, students and self-learners to use
  and reuse for teaching, learning and research
• resources are not limited to content but
  comprise three areas, these are (OECD, 2007)
• Learning content Full courses, courseware,
  content modules, learning objects, collections
  and journals.
• Tools Software to support the development, use,
  reuse and delivery of learning content, including
  searching and organisation of content, content
  and learning management systems, content
  development tools, and online learning
  communities.
• Implementation resources Intellectual property
  licenses to promote open publishing of materials,
  design principles of best practice and localise
  content
• from Giving Knowledge for Free The Emergence
  of Open Educational Resources OECD, 2007,
  http//tinyurl.com/62hjx6 Quoted on p4
  http//wiki.cetis.ac.uk/images/0/0b/OER_Briefing_P
  aper.pdf Open Educational Resources
  Opportunities and Challenges for Higher
  Education, Li Yuan Sheila MacNeill Wilbert
  Kraan, JISC CETIS

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What does open mean?

• Open Access
• The Open Access research literature is composed
  of free, online copies of peer-reviewed journal
  articles and conference papers as well as
  technical reports, theses and working papers. In
  most cases there are no licensing restrictions on
  their use by readers. They can therefore be used
  freely for research, teaching and other purposes.
  
• See JISC OA Briefing Paper http//www.jisc.ac.uk/p
  ublications/publications/pub_openaccess_v2.aspx

• Open Licensing
• Access
• Redistribution
• Source
• Reuse
• Absence of technological restrictions
• Attribution
• Integrity
• No discrimination
• Distribution of licence
• Independence
• No restriction on other works
• This list is based on definitions of open
  knowledge and open source software. See JISC
  Guidance on Open Licences

• Open Source
• Licenses that grant of the right to freely
  redistribute the software, access to the source
  code, and the permission to modify that source
  code and distribute the modified version of the
  software
• See JISC OSSWatch http//www.oss-watch.ac.uk/resou
  rces/beginners.xml

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How important is editable to open?

• Open Access
• The Open Access research literature is composed
  of free, online copies of peer-reviewed journal
  articles and conference papers as well as
  technical reports, theses and working papers. In
  most cases there are no licensing restrictions on
  their use by readers. They can therefore be used
  freely for research, teaching and other purposes.
  
• See JISC OA Briefing Paper http//www.jisc.ac.uk/p
  ublications/publications/pub_openaccess_v2.aspx

• Open Licensing
• Access
• Redistribution
• Source
• Reuse
• Absence of technological restrictions
• Attribution
• Integrity
• No discrimination
• Distribution of licence
• Independence
• No restriction on other works
• This list is based on definitions of open
  knowledge and open source software. See JISC
  Guidance on Open Licences

• Open Source
• Licenses that grant of the right to freely
  redistribute the software, access to the source
  code, and the permission to modify that source
  code and distribute the modified version of the
  software
• See JISC OSSWatch http//www.oss-watch.ac.uk/resou
  rces/beginners.xml

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Use and Reuse
refer
disaggregate
download
edit
17
Share
Sharing becomes a byproduct of putting it
online. This isnt about altruism
With thanks to David Millard, Southampton From
RSP Softwares Day 19/03/09
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Spectrum of OER Content
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Route Plan

• Introduction
• How different is open?
• Academy/JISC OER Programme
• Thoughts about the road ahead for OER

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Overview of OER Programme

• Where does sharing happen? How can it be
  supported?
• Institutional 1.50m (up to 250k per project)
• Individual 200k (up to 20k per project)
• Subject 3m (up to 250k per project)
• HEFCE-funded via JISC and Academy, so
  England/Wales only
• Outline
• Bids currently being evaluated
• Successful projects to start in April for one
  year
• Support will be available for everyone within and
  outside the programme

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OER Programme what we want
Get for your learning resources
Cultural Change
Sustainable processes
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Technical Requirements for Projects

• All content should be stored in Institutional
  Repositories
• All content should be IMS Content Packaged
• All content should be released under a custom
  JISC licence
• All content should be tagged with full UK Lom
  metadata

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Requirements overview

• The OER Programme will not mandate
• the use of one single platform to disseminate
  resources
• a single metadata application profile to describe
  content
• But we do need you to ensure that content can
  be
• Found
• Used
• Analysed
• Aggregated
• Tracked

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Requirements 1

• All content should be stored in Institutional
  Repositories
• Content can be anywhere (and in JorumOpen)
• BUT consider
• how easily discoverable is the content? public
  VLEs? slideshare?
• how stable are the URLs?
• how easily can you update and manage it?
• how can you track usage? google analytics?
  social bookmarking?

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Requirements 2

• All content should be IMS Content Packaged
• Content can be in any format
• BUT consider
• how accessible is the content?
• how easy is it to edit the content? youtube?
  slideshare? flash player?
• how long/how well will the format be supported?
  msoffice versions?

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Requirements 3

• All content should be released under a custom
  JISC licence
• Content can be released under a creative commons
  licence
• (or similar)
• BUT consider
• how will authors know whether they own the
  content they create?
• how will third party content use be identified,
  checked and permitted?
• how will the appropriate licences be chosen and
  communicated?
• how will service providers handle the rights
  issues? service TCs
• how will other legal issues be addressed?
  performance rights? consent for filming
  lectures?

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Requirements 4

• All content should be tagged with full UK Lom
  metadata
• Content can be minimally tagged
• BUT consider
• how will you ensure attribution if you dont
  include the author name and licence terms?
• how will you describe the content to a learner
  and/or a teacher?
• how will you tag the content by subject/topic?
  controlled vocabularies? user-generated tags?

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Requirements 4 Metadata

• What does metadata make you think of?
• Complex standards
• Application profiles
• Formal structured records
• Cataloging rules
• Subject classifications
• Controlled vocabularies
• Web forms

• But metadata can be any type of information
  about a resource.
• Metadata can be
• Tags added to resources in flickr, YouTube, etc.
• Time date information automatically added by
  services such as slideshare, etc.
• Your name, affiliation other details added from
  your account profile when you upload a resource.

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Requirements 4 Mandated metadata

• Added by projects
• Programme tag ukoer
• Title
• Generated by most systems
• Author / owner / contributor (from user profile)
• Date
• URL
• Technical info file format, name size
• Projects should use platforms that can generate
  or accommodate this information

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Requirements 4 Optional metadata

• Language default is English but other languages
  encouraged!
• Subject classification if used, projects should
  select an appropriate vocabulary
• Keywords
• Tags
• Comments
• Descriptions
• Think about the kind of information that people
  will need to find and use your content.

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Requirements Other standards

• Projects must use platforms that are capable of
  generating RSS/Atom feeds, particularly for
  collections of resources e.g. YouTube channels
• Projects should use appropriate standards for
  sharing complex objects
• e.g. IMS Content Packaging, IMS Common Cartridge,
  OAI ORE
• e.g. IMS QTI for assessment items

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Requirements 5

• Deposit of objects/links to JorumOpen
• BECAUSE
• JorumOpen will showcase current practices in the
  UK
• We need to ensure that all content produced under
  this programme is surfaced to the open web, with
  no excuses
• HEFCE investment needs visible results
• Theres potential for building rich services on
  top of an aggregation, so we need to find out
  what the aggregation looks like
• Its better to start with a central model and
  have the option tomove to distributed rather than
  start with distributed and hope to aggregate it
  later

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OER Movement Developing issues

• We want release to be SUSTAINABLE, hence the
  minimum technical requirements
• We hope to learn more about
• Improving institutional and individual workflows
  for managing content
• Limitations and benefits of different file
  formats for OERs
• Limitations and benefits of different platforms
  for OER sharing
• Search engine optimisation and resource discovery
  mechanisms such as bookmarking and tagging
• Persistent identities and version-handling for
  OERs
• How to track usage and impact of OERs

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Route Plan

• Introduction
• How different is open?
• Academy/JISC OER Programme
• Thoughts about the road ahead for OER

35
OER a new use case for learning materials
THE CONTENT CLOUD
JORUMOPEN
CREATION TO CURATION WORKFLOWS
IR
SLIDETUBE
C2C
DISCOVERY TO DELIVERY WORKFLOWS
WORK
HOME
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Mindmap from the National Symposium of Learning
Resources Repositories 2008 showing Measures of
success
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Looking at the Cloud
View from the Mountain Blauen Napoli
Centrale http//www.flickr.com/photos/28329597_at_N06
/3003554075/
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Route Plan

• Introduction
• How different is open?
• Academy/JISC OER Programme
• Thoughts about the road ahead for OER

39
Closing Remarks

• OER Call now closed but expect to hear lots more
  over the coming months
• If youre interested in developing technical
  solutions for OER, please do consider bidding to
  the Information Environment Rapid Innovation Call
  http//www.jisc.ac.uk/fundingopportunities/funding
  _calls/2009/03/309ricall.aspx and see
  http//wiki.writetoreply.org/wiki/Jiscri_Seeking_C
  ollaborators
• Follow the CETIS educational content focus
  http//jisc.cetis.ac.uk/domain/educational-content
  

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Open educational resources and repositories

• Open educational repositories share, improve,
  reuse

Amber Thomas Programme Manager, JISC