bringing the benefits of oer to scotland's colleges

Bringing the benefits of OER to Scotland’s collegesAllan Forsyth, Ben Ryan, Jackie Graham

allan@afocus.eu, benjamin.ryan@manchester.ac.uk, jackie.graham@scotcol.ac.uk

RF3: Pecha Kucha - National Infrastructures Wednesday, 11 July 2012: 11:00am - 12:30pm

Lecture Theatre 1 (LT1), Appleton TowerEdinburgh University

Scotland’s Colleges exists to support, represent and promote the Scottish college sector.

Based in Stirling in the heart of Scotland, Scotland's Colleges is the trading name of the Scottish Further Education Unit (SFEU) and the Association of Scotland's Colleges (ASC).

Image © Graham Grinner Lewis flickr CC BY 2.0

The Scottish Further Education Sector

41 colleges

19,500 staff

306,000 students

1 in 16 of the working-age population is attending a further education course at a college in Scotland. One qualifications authority: Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA)

Coherent and Common Curriculum

Regionalisation and funding cuts

Image © State Library of South Australiahttp://www.flickr.com/photos/state_library_south_australia/3925493168/in/set-72157624685026840/ CC BY 2.0

Funding has been cut by 25% in last 3 years.Colleges to merge to form 13 regional colleges.

Jorum is the UK service funded by JISC to facilitate the collection and sharing of OER in the UK

Drivers - demand

More sweets please

What we got What we need

Images © Ian Britton www.freefoto.com CC BY-NC-ND 3.0

Drivers - value

+ =

Hitching a ride

Images © Ian Britton www.freefoto.com CC BY-NC-ND 3.0

Open Educational Resources

We are on the cusp of a global revolution in teaching and learning. Educators worldwide are developing a vast pool of educational resources on the Internet, open and free for all to use...

Cape Town Open Education Declaration:Unlocking the promise of open educational resources

Getting under the hood

Making the right connections

Now we’re flying high

A bit of configuration

Images © Ian Britton www.freefoto.com CC BY-NC-ND 3.0

- Search for resources across Scottish repository and Jorum

- Curriculum-specific searching

- Integration with VLEs (Moodle, Blackboard planned)

- Authentication through Shibboleth, OpenAthens etc

- Branded for Scottish FE sector

Functionality

Image © cdwaldi on flickr CC BY-NC 2.0

Value

Costs of this shared service are less than 50% of the previous repository.

Can demonstrate value to the sector.

Image © Glitteratii on Photozou CC BY-NC-ND 2.1

Service level agreements and contracts take longer than you expect - but it’s important to get it right!

Pitfalls

Image © Gary Peeples U.S Fish and Wildlife Service Public Domain Image

Content

Image Old and new buildings © Erik Harmon Public Domain Image

Migrating content from existing Scotland’s Colleges repository.Including content not previously openly licensed. Adding new content. Providing access to other collections – NHS, Jorum and BBC.

Engagement Group

- process not a project- ownership not confined to one organisation - belongs to the sector which will always be there - developed organically - those who are keen to participate and contribute

Engagement

Image © elcapitan79 flickr CC BY-SA 2.0

What have we learned from engagement?

E-learning Practitioners convinced of benefits of OER.

Teaching Staff and Senior Management moving in the right direction but there are still doubters.

Image © Roger Kidd geograph CC BY-SA 2.0

What have we learned about collaboration?

Common Aims:

- OER- Open Source- DSpace- Remit for FE- Hard up!

Image © Bighappyfunhouse CC BY-NC-ND 2.5

What will it look like?

Bottom up - working with teaching staff, CPD, workshops.

Top down - convincing senior management.

Environment - Repository functionality.

Changing culture

Image © Dancing Star starstv.com.au(Licensed for NC reuse with modification)

Image © Keith Edkins geograph CC BY-SA 2.0

Next steps

Launch Autumn 2012Rollout of engagement strategy

Ongoing merging/regionalisation