The current situation of OpenCourseWare in Spain

Edmundo Tovar (Universidad Politécnica de Madrid)

edmundo.tovar@upm.es edmundo@opencourseware.eu

opencourseware.eu with the support of the Lifelong Learning Programme of the European Union 1

Past studies

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Studies on the impact of OCW

• A New Model for Open Sharing (MIT): Margulies (2004)

– Methodology: survey – Findings: OCW statistics on use and its consequences.

Advantages for MIT OCW: • Reference site for many teachers • Preserving teacher materials and pedagogy (a record is kept) • Preservation of course materials (notes and transcripts); • Graphical assistance • Greater visibility for teaching; promotes grant applications.

Studies on the impact of OCW

• Studies at MIT (2004, 2005, 2007, 2010, 2011). – Methodology: survey and analysis

of access – Findings: this study covers three

areas: access, use and impact. • OCW site use statistics • Source and type of users. • Ease of use • Impact on users.

Studies on the impact of OCW

• “Impacto del Open Course Ware (OCW) en los docentes universitarios” María Dolores Frías Navarro, Juan Pascual Llobell, Héctor Monterde i Bort y Marcos Pascual Soler (2010): – Methods: Survey sampled from

Spanish and Lat American professors; – Findings:

• Number of courses and their type. • A study of contents of a randomly

selected group • A poll that has been answered by 255

Spanish professors and 53 from Latin American universities

Studies on the impact of OCW

• “OER Impact Study”: (Liz Masterman y Joanna Wild (2011):) – Methodology: interviews and

focus groups with professors, students and OCW managers

– Findings: Potential benefits of OER to both educators and students.

Studies on the impact of OCW

• Chapter of advantages and disadvantages, detected several areas:

• Pedagogic: – Provenance: Quality – Pedagogic intent, explicitly developed for educational

purposes – Granularity. – Media. Rich.

• Attitudinal: – emphasizes the enhancement of students' autonomous

learning, increased confidence when professors publish their own materials, teacher openness to learn them too., etc

• Logistics: – the amount of resources in some areas is insufficient,

lack of quality of content, • Strategy

– to identify individuals and groups using OER

Studies on the impact of OCW

• “The impact of OpenCourseWare on paid enrollment in distance learning courses” (Justin K. Johansen, 2009):

– Methodology: experimental method focusing on several courses compared with previous years using statistical techniques

– Findings: • OCW is sustainable because of the

new students attracted.

Studies on the impact of OCW

• “Measuring our Impact: the Open.Michigan Initiative”

(Emily Puckett Rodgers, 2011): – Metodología: SWOT analysis,

using opinion survey, interviews and user feedback

– Findings: how to implement a culture of quality measurement in the MU OCW:

International context

Our survey in the EU OCW project

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Survey Results EU OCW Project

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Factors enabling OCW/OER initiatives Factors inhibiting OCW/OER Initiatives • Institutional support

An institution supports open sharing in education through: -Actively encouraging participation in the production and sharing of OCW/OER amongst faculty members -Implementing open content or open access policies -Providing resources (financial and staff) to assist faculty members in the production of OCW/OER -Providing incentives to faculty members to engage in the production and sharing of OCW/OER • Positive attitudes from faculty members

• Lack of institutional support

• Negative attitudes from faculty

• Copyright-related challenges

• Lack of information about institutional benefits related to OCW/OER projects

• Difficulties with finding appropriate and quality OCW/OER (when attempting to reuse materials produced elsewhere)

Factors

Benefits of OCW/OER Initiatives for the involved Institutions

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• The content used by educators, professionals, and individual users. • Allows to work in a business model. • It increases the quality of education. • OCW has become the KPI of the university. • Medium for sharing information among a community of institutions. • Increased visibility of the university. • Increased visibility of teachers and materials. • Collaboration with other universities. • Teacher recognition (awards). • Attracting new students. • To provide to the society the knowledge generated in the university. • Contribution to national development. • Provide users with materials - free of charge. • Medium to share materials among teachers. • OER integrated into the objectives of the academic or research organizations, scholarships, etc…

Aplicación de tecnologías web emergentes para el estudio del impacto de repositorios OpenCourseWare españoles y latinoamericanos en la Educación Superior EA 2011-120

Grant of the Spanish Ministry of Education

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Challenges on management of OCW information generated and shared by Organizations (1) Large amounts of unstructured, and semi-structured data. (2) Although the collected data from OCW repositories may have certain structure accepted by community, but not all data have an similar or compatible structure and meaning. (3) Open education materials are shared as Information Silos or "Walled Gardens"

Application of Semantic technologies: Faceted Query of OCW based on Linked opencourseware data

GICAC UPM-UTPL Educational Innovative Group

Focus Group: What is OCW for your institution?

• It is a way of promotion of our University • It is a shop window for others, new students and

new clients • It is an altruistic initiative to help those who have

no access to Higher Education • It is an opportunity for students to know class

materials before enrolling • It is a website that allows teachers and students

publish freely available contents in a structured way and with a reasonable cost

Focus group: …but it has some problems

• In some cases it has been a failure, mostly due to lack of institutional support (no resources and no personnel devoted to it)

• It is something that is good having, but managers do not really care about

• It is hard to reach professors and motivate them to collaborate

• There is a problem with licenses (too restrictive) and acceptance by professors of the Open culture

• There are problems with platforms and several duplicities (moodle, OCW, Aula Virtual, etc.)

• There is not a good set of incentives for professors to take part in it

Focus Group: …and offers opportunities for those taking part in it

• Way of promotion of professors’ work, with potentially thousands of users looking at their materials

• Way of learning one of each other • Offers prestige to the institution hosting it • Increases the quality of teaching materials • Allows to inspect how professors are doing

regarding their teaching techniques and materials • Saves money by reusing materials of other peers

Survey (First data): Teachers’s view

Porcentaje válido

El proceso de publicación tarda demasiado 2,6 He necesitado respaldo jurídico sobre el funcionamiento de los derechos del copyright y no lo he encontrado 10,5

Hubiera querido acceder a material OCW de otras universidades pero no tenía recursos para encontrarlo 7,9

Me hubiera gustado tener más feedback de quién visita mi página y no lo he tenido 31,6

No existían guías sobre cómo publicar 13,2 No fue posible colgar determinados contenidos que deseaba compartir 2,6 Problemas con el contrato OCW 5,3 Resulta complicado cambiar cualquier cosa una vez publicada 23,7 Resulta difícil acceder a la información relevante sobre el OCW 2,6

(n=73)

• OCW Problems

Survey (First data): Teachers’s view

Porcentaje válido

Mayor reconocimiento como publicación 74,3 Reconocimiento del tiempo dedicado a la preparación de los cursos como tiempo de docencia 57

Incentivos salariales a través de los complementos docentes 37,1 Facilidad a la hora de publicar 28,6 Concursos que premien a las mejores asignaturas publicadas 20,0 Mayor publicidad de las personas que han publicado un curso 17,1 Cursos de formación sobre lo que es el OCW 14,3

• Incentives to publish

Survey (First data): Teachers’s view

Porcentaje

válido Fomento del uso de OCW en asignaturas concretas 57,1 Creación de un taller sobre su uso para los profesores 51 Implantación del uso del OCW en los programas de máster y de preparación del profesorado 48,6 Creación de un programa de "tutorías" para que el profesorado acceda al OCW 22,9 Creación de comunidades de estudiantes de cualquier parte del mundo interesados en una asignatura 20,0

Incorporación de materiales de OCW a una red social 14,3 Creación de un grupo de profesores pioneros que fomenten el uso del OCW 11,4

• Priorities to improve OCW

SWOT Analysis (First draft)

Welcome to the Open philosopy

Users’ perception of Quality of some courses

Infrastructures operatives (many) Receptivity and wish of improvement

Unknowledge of the Open Philosophy Low Quality Materials

Dificulty to publish and update

Lack of information

Spanish Language Early arrival to the community

OCW as teh future OCW Consortium

Explosion of social networks

Disappointing of the good authors becasue the

quality Global competence

Unknowledge by teachers and students Recognition policies may not depend on

univeersities Economical situation

Unknowledge by the Society

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Thanks! Edmundo Tovar

(Universidad Politécnica de Madrid) edmundo.tovar@upm.es

edmundo@opencourseware.eu

opencourseware.eu with the support of the Lifelong Learning Programme of the European Union 24