OpenER in Practice

Approach & Experiences

Jannes Eshuis (Assist. Professor, Psychology, OUNL)

Primary aim

Inviting (adult) people to pursue academic study

Interesting content

Starters level

Offered material should be

Attractive (presentation)

Easily approachable

Do people seek further education after OpenER?

Secondary aim

OpenER at OUNL was small scale

Disadvantage: low resourcesSmall team (3 people / part-time)Little material (graphics / presentation)

Advantage: forced to become creative & innovativeCreative Commons / Open Source

Learn about low cost innovation in online education

1. Flash Courses (approach)

Tight integration of interactivity (Macromedia Flash)

Online experiments

Automated feedback

Self tests

Easy navigation

Popular theme (Evolutionary Psychology)

Two small Flash components

1. Flash Courses (experience)

Main advantage was its attractivenessEasy exploration of subjectPlayful interactive experienceGraphic presentation

DisadvantagesDesign at the expense of contentFlash design is very labour-expensive

Attractive material but not suitable for our needs

2. Moodle Course (approach)

Existing course (new revision in Moodle)

Diminish teacher workload

Automated feedback

Non-moderated collaborative assignments

OpenER: opportunity for a pilot with a large group

Server demands

Evaluation of new self-tuition methods

2. Moodle Course (experience)

Hardly any complaints (approx. 4000 users)

Login problems

Demand for printed (printable) material

Self-tuition methods

Automated feedback (major improvement)

Non-moderated collaboration (sparsely used)

Assignments done by 11% of (OpenER) users

Conclusion

Most of all, OpenER offered us freedom to innovate and opportunity to evaluate the results of this innovation.

Questions?

Some facts and figures…

OpenER: Who does use it?

Age: avg 44 (range 15 to 82)

Sex: 69% female / 31% male

Education

01% primary

27% secondary

55% higher vocational

17% higher academic

Looking for academic education?

68% yes

32% no

0

20

40

60

primary secondary tertiary(vocational)

tertiary(academic)

0

20

40

60

yes no

OpenER: Why do they use it?

Why browse the material?

56% interest in content

32% assess material / level

12% leisure / other

How intensive?

47% superficial browsing

23% superficial studying

22% studying / some assign.

08% studying / all assign.

0

20

40

60

content material / level leisure / other

0

20

40

60

superficialbrowsing

studying / noassignments

sudying / someassignments

studying / allassignments

OpenER: What do they do next?

Inspired to purchase an academic course?

18% yes

82% no

What course?

67% introductory course

11% other psychology

22% other subject

0

20

40

60

80

yes no

0

20

40

60

80

introduction inpsychology

other course inpsychology

other subject

OpenER: Window on the future?

Interested in more OpenER?

87% yes

13% no

Interested in support?

30% only for free

26% willing to pay

44% not interested

Interested in certification?

26% only for free

62% willing to pay

12% not interested

0

20

40

60

80

yes no

0

20

40

60

only for free willing to pay not interested

0

20

40

60

only for free willing to pay not interested

Thank you for your attention