hello valerie
I am not sure if this information will be of use but here goes. One of the vet nursing lecturers created a wikibook - I posted links previously. she was updating it this year and wanted to create a pdf for posting out on CD. Plus she wanted the pdf to update the lulu.com version.
wikibooks was problematic at creating a pdf e.g. there was no table of contents and some other items which I am not sure about.
I know wikieducator is working towards "book" pdfs but I am not sure how long this will be in the making. Originally she chose wikibooks over wikieducator to create the book as there was more functionality for creating an e-book.
bron
bronwyn hegarty
Posts made by bronwyn hegarty
Hello all I am late joining the discussion and am finding the posts so far very interesting. It is good to hear about the beneficial flow-on effects following your contributions to WikiEducator Gina. We have had similar experiences at Otago Polytechnic and academic staff and managers are at last "seeing the light".
As some of you may know we have a blanket IP policy whereby all our educational materials by default have Creative Commons by attribution copyright to promote collaboration and sharing in line with an OER philosophy. If staff, for some reason want a different copyright statement, they have to apply to Leadership Team with their rationale. This has caused a bit of a flurry.
It is a slow process and I am still not convinced which is the best way to change attitudes. I don't believe that many people really understand yet or know about the new IP policy so there is work to be done this year. In my role as an educational developer, I am able to help people with the philosophies and principles of OER. For some they can accept a small part of OER such as sharing some materials and not others. Other people are ok if they get resources for free but are not as willing to share their stuff. And of course there are others who embrace the idea wholeheartedly when they understand the benefits. For example, a colleague (Dr Ruth Lawson) has created an open textbook for a vet nursing course using Wikibooks (http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Anatomy_and_Physiology_of_Animals), and managed to convince her manager that it would help promote the course, dept and programmes - it has - and bring in revenue via Lulu.com (http://www.lulu.com/content/1920743) - it has - and she is now sold on the idea. Additionally, other organisations are asking for the resource - to buy - as people still like hard copy, and they are seeking expertise from our organisation - and paying for it!
Perhaps the best way to convince people, Scott, is to share success stories. MIT in USA is certainly one and WikiEducator and the many others happening all over the place.
I wonder, how do people believe they can convince their colleagues to make a switch to creating open resources and what sort of issues do they see with managers in their organisations?
Bronwyn
As some of you may know we have a blanket IP policy whereby all our educational materials by default have Creative Commons by attribution copyright to promote collaboration and sharing in line with an OER philosophy. If staff, for some reason want a different copyright statement, they have to apply to Leadership Team with their rationale. This has caused a bit of a flurry.
It is a slow process and I am still not convinced which is the best way to change attitudes. I don't believe that many people really understand yet or know about the new IP policy so there is work to be done this year. In my role as an educational developer, I am able to help people with the philosophies and principles of OER. For some they can accept a small part of OER such as sharing some materials and not others. Other people are ok if they get resources for free but are not as willing to share their stuff. And of course there are others who embrace the idea wholeheartedly when they understand the benefits. For example, a colleague (Dr Ruth Lawson) has created an open textbook for a vet nursing course using Wikibooks (http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Anatomy_and_Physiology_of_Animals), and managed to convince her manager that it would help promote the course, dept and programmes - it has - and bring in revenue via Lulu.com (http://www.lulu.com/content/1920743) - it has - and she is now sold on the idea. Additionally, other organisations are asking for the resource - to buy - as people still like hard copy, and they are seeking expertise from our organisation - and paying for it!
Perhaps the best way to convince people, Scott, is to share success stories. MIT in USA is certainly one and WikiEducator and the many others happening all over the place.
I wonder, how do people believe they can convince their colleagues to make a switch to creating open resources and what sort of issues do they see with managers in their organisations?
Bronwyn
Sylvia
This is a great incentive to get us participating and while we are waiting to win a prize we can still access the pdfs of the books as thankfully they are available free for download. In the true spirit of OER!
If anyone wishes to contribute to writing the book, Open Educational Resources (OER) Handbook, it is available on WikiEducator - see: http://wikieducator.org/OER_Handbook
Version 1.0 (Wiki)
Perhaps the next winner could be picked by getting contributors to explain on a separate thread how they might use or are using OER in their organisation - the most interesting/creative reason gets the prize. This would stimulate postings and also inform us and give us ideas.
Here is another OER book people might know about already, but you may not be aware the second edition is available free for download.
All info at: http://cde.athabascau.ca/online_book/
Athabasca University Press is pleased to announce the publication of the 2nd edition of the Theory and Practice of Online Learning at http://www.aupress.ca/books/Terry_Anderson.php edited by Terry Anderson. This 2nd edition and its individual chapters continue to be freely available online under a Creative Commons license. The 2nd edition is also available in print for a purchase price of $39.95 Canadian.
Bronwyn Hegarty
This is a great incentive to get us participating and while we are waiting to win a prize we can still access the pdfs of the books as thankfully they are available free for download. In the true spirit of OER!
If anyone wishes to contribute to writing the book, Open Educational Resources (OER) Handbook, it is available on WikiEducator - see: http://wikieducator.org/OER_Handbook
Mini-handbooks are available for three audiences:
Educators (ongoing development - please contribute)Version 1.0 (Wiki)
Perhaps the next winner could be picked by getting contributors to explain on a separate thread how they might use or are using OER in their organisation - the most interesting/creative reason gets the prize. This would stimulate postings and also inform us and give us ideas.
Here is another OER book people might know about already, but you may not be aware the second edition is available free for download.
All info at: http://cde.athabascau.ca/online_book/
Athabasca University Press is pleased to announce the publication of the 2nd edition of the Theory and Practice of Online Learning at http://www.aupress.ca/books/Terry_Anderson.php edited by Terry Anderson. This 2nd edition and its individual chapters continue to be freely available online under a Creative Commons license. The 2nd edition is also available in print for a purchase price of $39.95 Canadian.
Bronwyn Hegarty
Hello sylvia
You have suggested some great ideas. My feeling is that unless people get behind creating open educational resources for PD on an open platform and in collaboration, a true sharing of opportunities will not happen.
There are some great beginnings on Wikieducator.org and a wonderful PD opportunity exists in learning how to create content on the wiki platform. There are monthly online tutorials - Learning4Content - and people can be supported to run workshops in their own locations as well.
One opportunity for self-paced and interactive courses is the Facilitating Online Communities course - which i believe you may already know about. Others which are not running agin until next year are:
Designing for Flexible learning practice
Evaluation of elearning for Best practice
Also check out the list of projects - being involved in something like these projects is a wonderful opportunity for PD as well. And anyone can get involved.
Bronwyn
You have suggested some great ideas. My feeling is that unless people get behind creating open educational resources for PD on an open platform and in collaboration, a true sharing of opportunities will not happen.
There are some great beginnings on Wikieducator.org and a wonderful PD opportunity exists in learning how to create content on the wiki platform. There are monthly online tutorials - Learning4Content - and people can be supported to run workshops in their own locations as well.
One opportunity for self-paced and interactive courses is the Facilitating Online Communities course - which i believe you may already know about. Others which are not running agin until next year are:
Designing for Flexible learning practice
Evaluation of elearning for Best practice
Also check out the list of projects - being involved in something like these projects is a wonderful opportunity for PD as well. And anyone can get involved.
Bronwyn
Dear all
I am coming in late to the discussion and was intrigued to see the question about which assignments should be dropped to introduce blogging into a course. This was a dilemma for us last year when we wanted students to journal their learning progress and also communicate as a class.
So we decided to combine the two things through blogging. If blogs are the main means of communication and they are included as an assessment, students have no choice but to use them. If they are open, they also attract comment from the blogging community which enriches the learning experience for students. If weekly tasks - discussion questions, readings etc - are set as a guide, students can be given credit against criteria for every posting when the blog is assessed.
I would like to share a model of learning involving a course blog, students blogs and a course wiki which I have used for three courses, two of which were team taught with a colleague.
Student blogs are used as a progressive assignment to demonstrate reflection and progress in the course. They are also used as a means for students to provide feedback to each other and share ideas and discuss concepts in the course. The discussions which occur around the blog posts are integral to developing a learning community. There are links to the participants' blogs from the course blog. Students are encouraged to use a RSS reader to keep track of each other's postings.
All three courses are open content on WikiEducator - the first two have just completed a semester with formal and informal enrolments and the third is just commencing with formal and informal enrolments.
1. Designing for Flexible learning Practice - DFLP
2. Evaluation of eLearning for Best Practice
3. Facilitating Online Communities - this has just started.
I hope you find this helpful as a model. You might wish to join Facilitating Online Communities and try it out for yourselves. My colleague Leigh Blackall is facilitating on his own this year as I am on thesis leave....yes getting distracted by this discussion. :)
We are finding it works very well when all assignments are integrated and each student uses a blog as the focal point. For example, in DFLP - as well as analysis of weekly readings and exploration, students post ideas for their flexible development plan and their presentation of the plan (assignment two) on their blogs (assignment one) as they progress ending with the final plan (assignment three).
Bron
I am coming in late to the discussion and was intrigued to see the question about which assignments should be dropped to introduce blogging into a course. This was a dilemma for us last year when we wanted students to journal their learning progress and also communicate as a class.
So we decided to combine the two things through blogging. If blogs are the main means of communication and they are included as an assessment, students have no choice but to use them. If they are open, they also attract comment from the blogging community which enriches the learning experience for students. If weekly tasks - discussion questions, readings etc - are set as a guide, students can be given credit against criteria for every posting when the blog is assessed.
I would like to share a model of learning involving a course blog, students blogs and a course wiki which I have used for three courses, two of which were team taught with a colleague.
Student blogs are used as a progressive assignment to demonstrate reflection and progress in the course. They are also used as a means for students to provide feedback to each other and share ideas and discuss concepts in the course. The discussions which occur around the blog posts are integral to developing a learning community. There are links to the participants' blogs from the course blog. Students are encouraged to use a RSS reader to keep track of each other's postings.
All three courses are open content on WikiEducator - the first two have just completed a semester with formal and informal enrolments and the third is just commencing with formal and informal enrolments.
1. Designing for Flexible learning Practice - DFLP
2. Evaluation of eLearning for Best Practice
3. Facilitating Online Communities - this has just started.
I hope you find this helpful as a model. You might wish to join Facilitating Online Communities and try it out for yourselves. My colleague Leigh Blackall is facilitating on his own this year as I am on thesis leave....yes getting distracted by this discussion. :)
We are finding it works very well when all assignments are integrated and each student uses a blog as the focal point. For example, in DFLP - as well as analysis of weekly readings and exploration, students post ideas for their flexible development plan and their presentation of the plan (assignment two) on their blogs (assignment one) as they progress ending with the final plan (assignment three).
Bron