Open Education Project Clinic
From iCommons wiki
Session 4. Open Education Project Clinic
Day 2 - 12.00 – 13:30
This session allowed a number of open education projects to solicit input from people working on peer production, sharing and open creativity and other domains.
See further coverage of this session by Paolo, Steve and Werner.
Contents |
OERCommons
Project: With OER Commons, we have built a network for presenting descriptive data and links to learning materials with the intention of building a knowledge base of context around the use of open learning. This context would take the form of tags, ratings, reviews, comments, and stories about relevant experiences, preferences, policies, and recommendations for use and reuse of teaching and learning content.
Challenge: Can this type of content, that is, context about content, continue to drive the site or do users need to also create original content using tools on our site? if they did make content, what might they be looking to do?
Report back:
1) Redistribution of data and functionality are important. Not everything needs to be on our site; we have created and brought in a lot of data, and we have features that can be repackaged and be made interoperable across other sites.
We heard good feedback and suggestions from participants about considering how to use our data and our functionality across other sites for their use, through syndication and look ahead at new types of feeds that others can use; we can integrate with existing tools without needing to build them alone.
2) Translation and localization is a top-level need. We've seeded the system with items now in English; learning needs to happen, may be required, and may be superior when it occurs in each country's language(s); translation is a key component and high priority for effective, broad engagement on our site and with open content in general.
Free Textbooks
Free High School Science Textbooks + Wolne Podreczniki
Also, have a look at Werner's article on icommons.org at [1]
Participants:
- Brendan Ballou bcb2114 AT columbia.edu
- Mavzuna Abdurakhmanova mavzunajon AT gmail.com
- Werner Westermann werner AT educalibre.cl
- Anas Tawileh anas AT tawileh.net
- Martijn Arnoldus ma AT kl.nl Kennisland | Knowledgeland
- Jaroslaw Lipszyc jaroslaw.lipszyc AT wolnepodreczniki.pl
- Joanne Boulle jboulle AT telkomsa.net
THE QUESTION:
How do we recruit and maintain effective volunteers to write free textbooks?
THE PROBLEMS
1. There are not enough consistent volunteers to write free high school text books
2. Writing free textbooks is different from other free education initiatives, and therefore our approaches to dealing with issues may need to be different.
3. Potential contributors don't have the skills and tools that are needed e.g. wiki skills
4. Potential contributors e.g. teachers, may be afraid to contribute out of fear of criticism
APPROACHES THAT HAVE ALREADY BEEN USED
1. Some projects e.g. FHSST, have tried marketing, competitions and 'hackathons'. A hackathon gathers a group of volunteers in a particular place and time with a specific objective. This has been quite successfull.
2. OTher projects have tried to forge stronger links with a variety of institutions including publishers
SOLUTION IDEAS
1. Online contributions are not enough. There needs to be an element of face-to-face interaction so that volunteers can receive support and encouragement. This may take the form of something similar to a hackathon. IF recruiting new volunteers, there should always be some baseline amount of content available for volunteers to view as this is easier than starting from scratch. Ideally, some individuals who have already written books, could be approached to contribute that material. Two projects: global texts project (Richard Watson - aim to develop 200 university textbooks. began by contributing his own book) bring more books - if I have an idea about a book, I should send a proposal.
2. Potential contributors need to be equipped with the relevant skills e.g. how to use a wiki. A philosophy of sharing also needs to be developed so that teachers are not afraid to share their content.
3. Textbook projects need a figurehead or some person with authority and a good reputation to give credibility to the project.
4. Volunteers should receive some form of recognition for their efforts e.g. a certificate or written acknowledgement of their contribution so that they can use this for CV purposes. This may serve as an incentive to contribute.
5. University students should be targeted to contribute. This could take the form of a semester credit course, where students are required as part of their course work to write a section or a chapter of the book. This could be particularly useful in the training of teachers themselves so that the writing exercise becomes part of their learning experience
6. Involve a wide variety of people including publishers. This has been tried in the Netherlands and has worked well. Publishers may not coordinate the project, but may contribute content, or may help to keep final costs down. 15% of licensing costs can be the difference between success and failure of a project. There need to be incentives for publishers to be involved.
7. Ensure that the project is broken down into manageable chunks so that volunteers are not intimidated.
8. Funding is needed to ensure proper coordination of the book, and the production of a high quality and specific end product.
GENERAL COMMENTS
Textbooks are seriously underutilised. We need to revisit our concept of the textbook as a static medium. Ideally, the end users should be involved and the final product should be flexible so that users can amend and adapt the material to suit their specific needs.
Shuttleworth Foundation
Challenge: How do you now engage department of education, policy-makers, to include free and open education in their
- Don't forget the mid-level; most discussions focus on top-level (ministers) and grassroots, but there are other entry points
- Other ways of demonstrating both public interest, and self-interest. What are politicians interested and how could open education help them to promote these interests? Try different ways of approaching policy-makers, don't just focus on one strategy - some attempts might work better than others, use multiple entry points.
- Start with a respected individual outside the Dept of Education. Maybe look at third parties respected in the formal educational space, but might be more willing to listen and buy into the concept than the Governemnt directly. This would allow another entry point to the policy decision-makers. Find trusted experts as partners.
Peer 2 Peer University [name to be changed]
Send email to p2puniversity AT google.com if you would like to find out more!
Participants:
- Antonio Carvalho Cabral, cabral AT fgv.br
- Neeru Parahia nparahia AT hbs.edu
- Prashant Iyengar prashantiyengar AT gmail.com
- Philipp Schmidt phi.schmidt AT gmail.com
- Steven Foerster steve AT hiresteve.com
- Stian Hankev shankev AT gmail.com
- Jerzy Celichowski celichow AT osi.hu
- Silvia Panzavolta s.panzavolta AT indire.it
What problem are we adressing? It seems that there is a need and desire for education, and there is a growing body of high-quality free and open educational materials. How can an open education community allow people to learn the way they want to learn.
How are we going to do it?
- Use the infrastructure that exists
- Use the content that exists
- Connect the people that want to learn
Top three areas where we have made progress in understanding the challenge, and identifying solutions:
- Talked a lot about accreditation, how important is it, what are the differences in different countries and also professions, what are some of the implications
- Some ideas for community structures, the role of experts / teachers
- Reward systems for contribution, incentives for contribution
Some questions we asked
- What makes people study and how can we support that in an education environment without boundaries?
- What do we need to think about?
- How can we enhance what already exists?
- How can we an alternative to those that lack access to higher education?
- What services do we need to provide?
- Provide other programs and courses that helps people find jobs, or has other benefits.
What can we learn from
What can we learn from online courses (that are not free)? Antonio: We have a course at FGV. Jerzy: An online free university exists in Russia, but nobody knows about it.(www.intuit.ru)
This is missing
- I need a guide to determine what materials and combination of materials is suitable to learn what I am interested in
- Ability to measure progress
- Guidance on defining goals and learning speed
- Your walking on a path and you need some signs, people to give you direction
Design the curriculum
- Find out what we want to learn
- Why do people study / learn?
- How do communities learn?
- How do online communities work?
- How do we interface with existing educational instutitions?
- Find the content that seems useful to help us learn it
- What people are out there who could help us
Community and collaboration
- How many people do you need, how to you find enough people?
- What is the role of an expert? Do we need "experts"?
Are we going to have teachers / experts?
- How are we going to bring the in?
- Could provide experience for teachers to then get intersting online teaching positions
- What structure / timelines do we need?
Different models:
- Tutors and subject experts can lead a task oriented activity - they are paid to do so
- Setting up communities of practice
Allow tutors to charge, they either get paid money for teaching, or accrue points to take courses. Payment of money creates a lot of hassle.
Technology / tools to collaborate
Try to be platform agnostic. There are places online where people can gather. And it does not entail upgrading to the latest version of plone. Just use the infrastructure that exists.
Accreditation
In developing countries accreditation and the impact of skills on employment are of much more direct importance in developing countries. Choosing courses in areas that rely on accreditation (law, medicine) will be difficult to provide. You cannot take the Bar exam if you have taken the law courses through distance education. If you need a lab, then that becomes difficult online. Brazilian dentists working in Portugal now require certification / accreditation. In what areas is the focus on skills / comptences rather than paper certificates:
- Computer Science / Technology
- Languages
- Lifelong learning skills upgrading
- Learning out of curiosity and the desire to learn
The idea of printing a certificate is important or providing some kind of proof of participation is important.
