Scheduled Seminar Discussions

Hi Wayne,

as you probably know we in the UK have an undergraduate model that is the same as New Zealand - a bachelors degree with 3 years including 360 credits. However how these are split is for institutions to decide and some institutions split as 24 courses of 15 credits others 18 courses of 20 credits (as we do) or in some cases 12 course of 30 credits.

We are just launching a funded project with three South East Wales partners developing RPL for work-based learning and I expect synergies from that project and the OERu to be significant (as I'm project lead for both I certainly hope so).

You'd think we would have avoided a PLAR/RPL problem when 3 of the 4 words are the same. But as an institution which has a long record of using RPL I'd be interested to see if the A word is a philosophical barrier or simply a change of nomenclature. In RPL we would expect to include recognition of prior experiential learning as well as recognition of prior certificated/assessed learning. Hence I might read the A in PLAR to imply it was about recognising the assessment of learning rather than assessing through the process of recognising prior learning. I'd welcome some clarification from our PLAR experts. Until this moment I’d just seen PLAR as a different acronym for RPL, but I now wonder if I was wrong?

Cheers,

Haydn

Hadyn,

From a previous life working across the 54 member states in the Commonwealth, 1200 hours of learning is pretty much the defacto standard for a full-time year of academic study. The differences between countries are usally the "standard" size of a course or paper, for example: 

• In North America, a 3-year Bachelor's degree is 90 credits or 30 courses of 3 credits each.
• In New Zealand, a 3-year Bachelor's degree is 360 credits or 24 courses of 15 credits each.

In addition, degree study usually specifies the number of credits required at the different levels (1st year, 2nd year and 3rd year Bachelor's level)

What I like about the micro-course format is that it provides a useful mechansim for articulation at the year-level of study. At the micro level - -the difference between 40 notional learning hours compared to 50 notional learning hours is somewhat academic and these differences can be bridged by the notion of competencies (irrespective of the desigated learning hours.).  

If we are working purely on learning hours -- it would appear that a +40 hour micro-course would faciliate maximum reuse within existing course structures for degrees on an international scale. Namely that 30 micro- courses would equate to a year of academic study.  That seems like a doable solution for the OERu network to recognise a year of study, yet fit micro-courses into existing course / paper requirements at our instituions.

The PLAR / RPL experts in our networks will also provide good advice on how we can deal with these challenges. 

Thoughts?

So in theory it would be conceivable 

HI Irwin,

I agree, the arbitrary 20 credits we use as an institutional framework is based on us expecting students on full-time courses to do 120 credits in a year - and we divide that by 6 to get coverage around the subject. In some courses this split is obviously for campus based delivery over a liner course and should not constrain OERu courses.

In particular we have found that most 20 credit courses have been developed in the mind of the academic from a building box of content. So unpacking 20s into 5*4s or 4*5s has often been easier than building the 20 in the first place.

The challenge of "recommended sequences" remains - if the course is to be a micro assessed piece of learning then order might be completely student dependant as the structure of learning will reflect where they have come from and where they want to go. But that makes a big assumption of learner maturity and expertise. For many learners, particularly at the early stages of post-secondary learning, direction and guidance into the literacies of learning at this level are part of the requirement. Our challenge is to address both sets of learners (and others I've not yet imagined)!

Cheers,

Haydn

Hi Gail, 

That's a valid point - OERu partners will need to decide on how best to provide clear indications of the recommended sequence where OERu mOOCs build on the concepts established in other courses. Perhaps these could be indicated in the prerequisites for the course on the OERu website?

I think the most important consideration for the OERu is to ensure sets of mOOCs which lead to course credit. However, dividing full courses into micro alternatives may assist some OERu partners in staggering course development.

The design considerations are important because as you point out, the summative assessments will need to map to the specified learning outcomes for the course. This will require robust assessment design. It would be beneficial for the OERu network to establish the parameter guidelines for micro courses eg, recommended size, recommended assessment loads etc. These guidelines will simplify the learning design challenges and increasingly we could design mOOCs fit for purpose in parallel with the full course contributions.

Based on your experience working the the OERu Art Appreciation course -- do you have any thoughts on parameter guidelines for OERu mOOCs drawing on the value of hindsight?

Hi John, good questions.

One of the advantages of the micro course model is the ability to "mix and match" in areas of study suited to this model. It is potentially a great way to customise and diversify curriculum in a cost effective way.

Drawing on my experience in designing a few OERu prototype mOOCs, I think there is a theoretical minimum size which relates to sufficient "learning hours" for meaningful summative assessment in relation to expressing a value judgement against the graduate profiles for academic credit.  It seems that 40 to 50 notional learning hours is about the minumum functional size (about 30% of a North American 3 credit course). This concurs with Hadyn's UK experience where going smaller becomes pedagogicaly too small for sensible summative assessment. That said, the nature of an open delivery model is that learners can sip and dip into topics of interested which be much smaller chunks of learning. 

What did you have in mind with the mix and match concept? 

We’ve learned from the successes of many Open Source Software (OSS) projects that the health of a volunteer developer community is a key element in successful project completion and maintenance. I think orienting much of our practice in the OERu around meeting the needs of volunteer course developer communities will benefit the OERu in the long run, and micro-courses could be a step in the right direction.

While folklore has it that developing with OERs is easier and faster than traditional practice, in fact the workflow of creating and/or finding, adapting and recontextualizing OERs can be a real challenge as it is quite different from traditional work patterns for educational developers.  Also it takes time to learn to operate efficiently in a wiki – challenges include technical aspects of wiki syntax and page layout, structuring an entire course in a flat-file file environment, developing good communication habits that leave a trail for later joiners to pick up on, collaborating with developers who may have a different approach to the project, the need for developers to take on multiple roles where there are gaps in the community, and so on. Mentoring is critical in getting novices up to speed on all of this.

Developing one’s first course in this environment forces a huge learning curve, and by the end developers typically say they’d like to go back and re-do the project based on what they learned – if they had the time.

I believe then that the shorter development cycle of micro-courses can have multiple organizational benefits, including shorter learning curves and thus better courses sooner, more likelihood of a micro-community of developers to stay with a project to completion, a developer mix that includes the diverse skillsets needed to round out the team, and less burden for mentors to come alongside a group of novices and assist them through the development of their first course. 

Speaking as a professor (not an administrator) for Empire State...Center for Distance Learning

• Is it organisationally easier for an OERu partner to stragger course development using micro courses (40 learning hours per course) when compared to a once-off full course of +120 hours?  No please see answer to #2
• Would it be easier for OERu partners to integrate a mOOC within existing courses as local faculty gain experience and trust with the open model?  I am responsible for course development for a significant portion of the CDL curriculum...it would actually be easier for me to incorporate them into a full fledged course...we have a rather well-defined process for course development, a set number of hours etc.  I could far more easily just add in things to this regular schedule than try to do anything out of the ordinary...I am pretty sure my fellow content area experts would agree.
• Can the OERu leverage ecomomies of scale and economies of scope by sharing a mOOC hosted "centrally" but integrated into a number of local courses at partner institutions offered in parallel mode? Could we rotate lead facilitators across participating partners for each instance of the mOOC?  Yes, I think that model has great potential.  I have a course in community organizing in mind and I can definitely see a shared mOOC working for it.
• Other ideas and opportunities for OERu innovation?  Not anything specific but I think the more flexible and the easier it is for us to plug into our regular systems, processes and cycles the better.   I know that if I have to do anything too special to add something to a course I probably won't do it...the main problem is time and increasing bureaucracy as we have increased in size.   Again...speaking as a senior faculty member with responsibilities for course development and revision.   All the best...JMcK

Hi Irwin, 

In relation to your reference to the organisational perspective -- I'm wondering if there are tangible benefits for OERu partners relating to developing micro-courses and corresponding micro-credentials, for example:

• Is it organisationally easier for an OERu partner to stragger course development using micro courses (40 learning hours per course) when compared to a once-off full course of +120 hours? 
• Would it be easier for OERu partners to integrate a mOOC within existing courses as local faculty gain experience and trust with the open model?
• Can the OERu leverage ecomomies of scale and economies of scope by sharing a mOOC hosted "centrally" but integrated into a number of local courses at partner institutions offered in parallel mode? Could we rotate lead facilitators across participating partners for each instance of the mOOC?
• Other ideas and opportunities for OERu innovation? 

Hi Brian,

Thank you for your gift of time and knowledge to facilitate this session. You have been with us since the inception of this amazing OER journey more than a decade ago and your work establishing the UBC wiki was nothing short of inspirational. We're chuffed that you experience can be put to good use in the OERu family :-).

Apology for the long post – but I get to see the OERu from a network perspective.

Institutional capacity development requirements

I echo your interests and focus in building capability in “openness”. Observing OERu developments and interactions this past year I sense that many of the staff working on OERu related projects are not familiar with how open communities function. For example, the dominant mode of communication from partner institutions via my desk is via personal email rather than using the open OERu lists for collective problem solving. I make point of answering all personal emails – but the downside of this model is loss of productivity and collaborative learning from the solutions for the benefit of our open network. We're all grappling with similar issues and it would be for more effective if we leveraged the collective wisdom of our network to find solutions and improve our processes. The OER Foundation has been running regular (almost weekly) hangout sessions to support OERu partners with technology related issues but these sessions are poorly attended.

I'd be interested to hear from participants in the seminar why personal communications (traditional closed model) are favoured above open networking. For example: Is it a lack of knowledge and experience in how open processes work? Are their policy barriers which restrict OERu staff members from communicating openly about our collective OERu projects? Other reasons?

From my own perspective, I think we should allocated a session or breakout session during the next OERu Anchor Partner meeting to explore options and ideas for improving our open processes in the OERu network and responding to any problems or challenges we identify during this ScoPE session. Should we invest time on this dimension at our meeting?

What are the lessons we are learning from prototyping?

A few of the lessons we are learning from the OERu prototypes:

• Selecting OERu courses to be assembled from existing OER: We have achieved the agreed target established at the OERu 2011.11 Anchor Partner meeting of completing 3 prototype courses. These will provide valuable insights into our planning at the OERu 2013.10 Anchor Partner meeting. However, we need to radically improve our game with the selection of OERu courses leading to a programme of study and exit credentials. What are the local institutional barriers for identifying OERu courses? What can we do as a network to streamline and support OERu partners in nominating courses? I would like to suggest an agenda item for discussing and agreeing the OERu course nominations.

• Finalising an agreement on the schedule for our two course contributions. Each OERu partner has agreed to contribute two courses to the OERu network, by assembling courses from existing OERs or “donating” courseware under open content licenses. To date, we have not agreed a reasonable time line for a member to complete their course contributions. Would 2 to 3 years from the date of joining (or agreed decision) be a reasonable time line for an OERu partner to complete their course contribution. Some institutions (eg non-teaching partners) are not in a position to contribute courses so we need to consider a discussion on alternate ways to contribute to the network. What are our needs and what do these partners bring to the table?

• Learning managements systems will not work for OERu delivery. Possibly the most important lesson the WikiEducator community has learned from running open courses since January 2007 and serving the needs of close to 10,000 course registrations is that LMSs will not work as the core delivery technology for the OERu. They do not scale well and the central administration requirements would exceed our capacity to maintain these systems. Moreover, choosing one LMS system would restrict the ability of our partners to reuse OERu courses in the local institutional LMS. Above all, the OERu cannot lock down materials behind password access and running open LMS systems is an administration nightmare for managing SPAM

• Mobilising our OERu partner FTE contributions: A few OERu partners have contributed significantly more than the agreed 0.2 FTE staff contribution to the OERu network. BIG thanks to our institutions who are leading the way! Currently we have 29 anchor partners and the 0.2 FTE contribution would equal about 6 full-time staff members. I would hazard a guess that our outputs this past year do not equate to 6 full-time staff. What should we be doing to improve the productivity of our outputs?

• Copyright knowledge: To be candid, the majority of our staff at our partner institutions have very little knowledge of copyright and how remix works with open licenses. This ranges from poor selection of prototype courses (eg selecting course developments which rely on encumbered texts) to breech of copyright when remixing open resources. How do we address this need? Improving knowledge of copyright is equally important for staff working on closed course development – so the OERu partnership could contribute to building capability for all staff in the higher education sector.

• Open design: As the OERu prototype courses are progressing, I've observed that we need to improve our knowledge on the design for open courses. Conventional e-learning methods do not scale well for open courses and we need to design for multiple reuse scenarios. For example, the traditional “introduce yourself in the discussion forum” activity does not work with a course of +500 participants ;-). Open design needs to be more flexible, for example catering for the different modes of engagement (i.e. self interest, certification for participation, learning for credit). Designing for reuse could be a point of difference for our network, for example designing OERu courses so that they can easily be integrated for parallel mode delivery with registered students on campus in parallel with the free OERu learners. Given that OERu courses do not provide tutorial support, more consideration needs to be given to designing courses to leverage peer-learning support. I guess what I'm saying is that we have an opportunity to build capability in “open design” in our network – How should we do this?

• Getting a lot smarter in leveraging the cost advantages for OERu partners. The most significant cost advantage for an OERu partners is to reuse an OERu course for local delivery for full-fee students. In short the OERu partner can get a full course without spending a cent on development plus the added benefit of widening access to OERu learners. To date, we do not have one example of an OERu course being reused at a partner institution. To be fair, its too early to see this in practice, but I think we should spend time discussing how to establish a reuse prototype so we can learn from the experience.

What technologies will bring us closer to achieving our goals and how do we implement them?

The OER Foundation is not wedded to any technology solution as long as its open source and that we have the capacity to maintain and administer the central OERu infrastructure. With reference to authoring environments there are a few major requirements:

• Detailed revision history for collaborative editing and ability to harvest a revision instance.

• The ability to integrate OERu content in a variety of delivery technologies for our partners (eg LMSs, Blogs, static websites etc.)

• The need for an open access version without password access.

Drawing on our experiences so far, there are a few areas of improvement potential:

• Modernising and improving the look and feel of OERu course materials

• Finding solutions to “skin” or “brand” OERu content for OERu partners

• Improved separation of content and form elements to enhance reuse for a variety of delivery technologies.

We should also think about our collaborative course authoring environment as a community garden. Given that our entire OER Foundation technology infrastructure is based on open source technologies, we have unique opportunities for OERu partners to engage in technology innovation. I would like to see more input and support from our partner institutions in collaborating on smart innovations to maximise the benefits of our technology infrastructure for the partners. Moreover, this would provide an opportunity for the technology teams at OERu partner institutions to gain authentic experience in running open infrastructure.

What are the business models for scalable and sustainable operations?

This is a key strength of the OERu model. We are bootstrapping the collaboration from a very low cost base which means the fiscal sustainability thresholds are low.

As indicated in an earlier post, we only need to increase our current membership of 29 institutions by 10 additional OERu partners for a fiscally sustainable collaboration without reliance on third party donor funding. As a registered non-profit entity, the OER Foundation, must apply all revenue to charitable activities for the benefit of our network. Once we have achieved the break even threshold of contributing members we will be able to commission the paid development of OERu courses this increasing the scalability of our collaboration. Few OER projects have succeeded in getting thus far :-). Moreover, the implementation of the OERu is a designated project of the UNESCO-COL OER Chair network. These are solid foundations on which to achieve a fiscally sustainable model.

We are dealing with a chicken and egg situation. Until we have the critical mass of courses leading to a credential, it is difficult to “market” pathways to credentials for prospective OERu learners. There are a few things we can prioritise during this interim phase to achieve sustainable operations.

• Focus on course developments which have immediate gains for the partner institution where OERu learners are not a critical requirement for success. The SP4Ed mOOC at the University of Canterbury developed in collaboration for the OERu provides an excellent example. The mOOC was developed to offer an international learning experience for the University of Canterbury students and this was acheived. With this approach we can succeed in reducing the costs of course development for OERu partners even in the situation where there is no revenue generation from OERu learners participating in formal assessment. Consequently, any OERu learners requesting formal assessment services is a bonus which does not incur any upfront costs by the OERu partner.

• Help the OERu in recruiting new members. Leaders and managers in the OERu partner institutions each have their own networks to identify prospective partners. Knowledge multiplies through consumption and similarly our network becomes more effective as the number of members increase. With more members we can reduce the number of course contributions and generate more opportunities for local savings in course development.

That's enough for one post :-). Looking forward to reading additional ideas and suggestions. 

Thanks Simon,

All suggestions from left, right and center are welcome :-) 

I have moved some of yours to the initial list / summary. Not too sure what you mean by 'Institutionalists who have no experience of an open and transparent online culture' and how they will be adding value and where their experience and support could help the OER learners.

We do hope that it will not be too difficult to attract/ recruit AVIs from the OER community ( some of the participants in this seminar I hope will volunteer ;-) ) but you are right that we need to find meaningful rewards and benefits to keep them. This seminar has already generated some good ideas and suggetions but more will only help us to do a better job. So keep the ideas flowing.

Vasi