Open Learning Network

When I started researching the world of OER closely about 18 months ago, I was bemused with the vast diversity of materials, resources and tools - but also with the wide ranging definitions and nuances of the movement.

Started designing a study that would involve not only surveying the existing research and prescriptive literature, but also engaging with stakeholders, policy makers and learners from a diverse body of initiatives and locales. More context about the research study can be found in a relevant post within the OLnet site.

Research Questions

A number of research questions directed empirical investigation:

• What are the key perceptions and strategies for fostering the promotion of OER?
• What are the key strategies for enabling opportunities and addressing the barriers for adoption/participation, related to: content relevance, pedagogical and social interface, IPR regimes
• How would a conceptual map of OER look like? And what is the relationship between open content reference resources, or learning media with conventional notions of courseware?
• How issues around branding or public awareness relate to notions of quality and legitimacy?
• How would we categorize the motivations/barriers to contribution (or engagement) of the different stakeholders within the OER landscape (e.g. educational professionals, teachers/faculty, student learners, policy makers, etc)
• How can we cluster categories of use and engagement with open content and/or public learning spaces?
• What is the public understanding of OER and how it relates to open access and/or user content that can be re/used as learning media in a pedagogical context?
• What are the categories of learning emerging and what is the link to pedagogical effectiveness? Can this be measured by deploying socio-technical research methods?
• What are the implications for further research?
• What are the gaps existing in researching the OER world?

Key messages from the research study

I) Mapping the diversity in OERs - mapping typologies and geolocales: Mapping and expanding the typologies of Open Educational Resources, would help both discoverability and raising awareness among the general public. There two important changes since the emergence of an earlier conceptual map of OERs (see Marguliers, 2005 cited in OECD, 2007), where tools, content and implementation resources prevailed: the first, relates to the expansion and increased legitimacy of ‘non-mainstream’ and crowd-sourced reference resources or learning media within the OER map (e.g. Wikipedia, YouTube, Flickr, etc), alongside more established web 2.0 and social networking platforms, offering implementation tools and community services. The second, relates to wider proliferation of implementation bodies  (e.g. inter-governmental organisations, consortia, translation bodies, policy and funding institutions). Within this context a further classification is overarching:

• Institutional courseware and learning media: referring to the materials that come from formal educational institutions
• Open content resources
• Communities of engagement and improvement

The boundaries are often blurring; the question would be to map the diversity of these resources, services and spaces, in cyberspace and across the globe, emphasizing new possibilities for cultural exchange and collaboration, while taking into account the local nuances of content, infrastructures, tools, interfaces, social arrangements and users’ engagement. 

II) Quality: four key dimensions emerge from the research/literature regarding quality.
    A)    Origin and relevance of content: A resource's quality is largely determined by questions of its provenance and genre, both of which have implications for the resource's trustworthiness, whether objective or perceived. Objective criteria often relate to information accuracy or clarity, stylistic or technical excellence and relevance of a resource for a particular educational context. The dimension is nonetheless not resolved and the reusability paradox is a prominent feature both regarding access to, and interpretation of, resources by teachers, and faculty’s confidence and/or training in creating curricular resources for an open platform.
    B)    Negotiation of content quality: Discussions around a resource's purpose and usefulness are usually negotiated 'behind the scenes' within an institutional framework, or they are open to participation by a non-specified, unbounded community of users. Such distinctions become highly relevant when considering the ability of the user (i.e. learner, educator) to engage with the resource in a critical or creative way, or indeed whether the user/learner may actively shape the co-construction of the resource. Star rating is one way of showcasing popular resources, but not involve improvement, or indeed contexts of use. Several interviewees/projects emphasize ‘vetting’ processes that are popular in crowdsourced initiatives, metrics around recognition for production and credit within particular epistemic, scholarly or teaching communities. Contextual factors regarding pedagogy and the facilitation of learning spaces are key.
    C)    Quality of learning experience: Particular resources are set within particular learning designs and targeted for a specific or particular range of learning contexts; but these definitions are blurred by the needs and intentions of various types of learners and users, whether formal, informal, self-directed, etc. Furthermore, particular interfaces of accessing resources may be aligned more towards enabling a community of interest/practice, or towards learning through and around a learning resource (i.e. content-based learning versus social learning). Quality is often associated with inscribed pedagogical effectiveness both by those that are participating in the field and those that are skeptical or hesitant to participate. Attaching ‘voices’ or ‘stories’ on contexts of use, beyond pedagogical context is considered key. Tracing the kinds of learning that happens in public spaces within an OER context (e.g. p2pu, wikieducator), but also in other ‘learning’ and crowdsourced media are key; looking beyond content or stylistic quality, or indeed pedagogical effectiveness, the quality of the learning experience depends upon three dimensions: a) the design in which an open learning space is structured upon; b) the different learning modalities that a course design/instructor seeks to promote (e.g. discussion and reflection based, or ; c) and the degree of agency and freedom that student-learners have to adapt, and/or take control of, the delivery and structure of a ‘learning’ space; The final point brings about novel opportunities and tensions regarding the co-existence of public and private spaces, issues of identity and anonymity, the socio-demographic variation and types of literacies of participants.
     D)   We need to differentiate between perceptions and actual quality assurance measures, which are not clear cut and are contextual to level, pedagogical culture, instructional traditions as well formal and informal settings for engaging into learning. The issue of cultural and disciplinary specificity in respect to learning modadilities came very prevalent among educators willing to experiment and share within an OER context.

III) Branding, awareness and reputation
     A)   Institutional Origin and branding feature as high factors in the search strategies among educational professionals and faculty, with elite institutions or those with premier reputation in distance learning holding prominent positions, in perceptions around ‘quality pedagogical content’, esp. among faculty/teachers, support stuff who do not hold a specific command of what OER is.  Popular Open Access/Open Content materials (e.g. Wikipedia), popular search and social media (e.g. Google, iTUnesU, YouTUbe, flickr, slideshare, etc) and organizations that have a protagonist role in the promoting open rights also feature high regarding public recognition among individuals/communities
     B)   Attaching discoverability measures to popular search and discovery platforms (e.g. Google, OER commons, etc) may address challenges in awareness around existing resources; social search strategies and folksonomies have been considered by some an easy way for annotating resources, but this does not address issues regarding discoverability within particular pedagogical or thematic contexts. Thematic collections and repositories may work well in combination with/when attached to popular search tools and reference collections.

IV) Copyright: Barriers prevail pointing to jurisdictions and lack of confidence
Issues surrounding intellectual property remain critical especially among those faculty members or institutions that seek to embark into developing OER.  While more awareness regarding publishing options on repositories and national jurisdictions or regimes has been enabled, by institutions that act as advocates of the OER movement, more work on the ground is needed to enable educators deal with benefits and awareness with ownership and confidence. Mentoring and support on the ground are important.  Skepticism prevails among  those who are willing to experiment, or for new entrants to the field. Faculty in particular, is skeptical and wary about issues of ‘ownership’ and control of their own materials. Some interviewees from policy and implementation bodies and/or NGOs expressed the necessity for lobbying for harmonization of policies in the field of intellectual policy within culture and education to enable sharing of content across the fields. Clear institutional policies offering incentives to faculty to publish openly and technical support to enable understanding over copyright regimes, or CC licenses is essential.

V) Educators’ motivations and deterrents
Agency to teachers and attitudes towards open practices in design of learning needs to be accompanied by clearer benefits and buy-in and/or ‘value for time’. Support and mentoring into changing mindsets is needed not only at institutional levels, but within individual faculty members.  Three important points arise here:

     A)    Key trends among academics and/ teaching faculty who are innovators in the field of OER or prolific participants:
a.    media or socio-technically literate or in equivalent disciplines
b.    ethical proponents of OSS / Open Content  / Open Access
c.    involved in distance or e-learning contexts
d.    accidental bystanders: those who normally come from elite institutions and/or gain critical acclaim regarding quality of materials (audience ratings) through an OER institutional programme (e.g. popular lectures on Open Spires, iTunesU, OpenYale) or through involvement  in a community project
     B)    Credit and recognition: institutional incentives for teachers, ongoing support and mentoring and building disciplinary or epistemic communities around OER key to promoting sustainability; positive narcissism to be endorsed as reputational metrics score high among some segments of faculty/teachers (though further research in the field is needed across disciplines, levels, locals and within platforms of choice).
     C)    Anxiety of exposure: relating to quality and personal reputation in mediating resources openly relates to technical lliteracies and copyright; internal (ownership) and external anxieties (exposure) to wider audiences. Although many teachers have do not hesitate to share materials within known communities of colleagues, students and like-minded individuals, ‘neutralising content’ for wider context and general reception is seen as a deterrent. Improvisation, experimentation and creativity go against time constraints, training needs, and priorities (e.g. recognition through publications). This is similar to the anxiety of faculty who is familiar in preparing materials for f2f courses.