open educational resources: impact, evidence & narrative
DESCRIPTION
This session critically evaluates attempts that have been made to support communication and collaboration through ‘mapping’ OER focussing on The Open Learning Network (OLnet) Evidence Hub which used the concept of ‘Contested Collective Intelligence’ and The UNESCO OER Mapping Project which set out some quite specific protocols for metadata. There will be a demonstration of the new Evidence Hub being developed as part of the OER Research Hub (OERRH) project. This hub is designed to overcome some of the issues that manifested themselves in these earlier projects, a range of different data sources, the importance of data visualization, and account for how different types of evidence might be flexibly accommodated. There will be an opportunity for delegates to discuss the idea of ‘mapping’ the OER evidence base and what the OER community might want from such services.TRANSCRIPT
Dr. Robert Farrow, The Open University
Open Educational Resources: Impact, Evidence & Narrative
#oerrhub / #RSConline13
Evidence of OER Impact
Background
Rationale
Design
Implementation
Data Visualization
Future Iteration
Call for Evidence / Feedback
Background
About me
• Philosopher & Educational Technologist
• Based at the Institute of Educational Technology (IET) Open University UK
• Research Associate (OER Research Hub)
• http://flavors.me/philosopher1978
• Twitter @philosopher1978
About The Open University
• Europe’s largest distance learning university
• Access: foremost provider to mature, disabled and working students
• A world leader in technology-enhanced pedagogy
• Head of the FutureLearn MOOC consortium
About the Project
• Funded by William & Flora Hewlett Foundation for two years
• Two professors lead four researchers among a team of ten
• Tasked with building the most comprehensive picture of OER impact
• Organised by eleven research hypotheses
• Working across different educational sectors
• Collaboration model
• Global reach but with a USA focus
• http://oerresearchhub.org
Collaboration Model
Collaboration Model
Rationale: why evidence of OER impact?
Filtering data according to sector, hypothesis & polarity
Framework for comparing disparate evidence types
Collaborative research, analysis & dissemination
Openness in action: openly licensed research instruments, data
Effective evidence-based decision-
making and advocacy
Keyword Hypothesis
Performance OER improve student performance/satisfaction
Openness People use OER differently from other online materials
Access OER widen participation in education
Retention OER can help at-risk learners to finish their studies
Reflection OER use leads educators to reflect on their practice
Finance OER adoption brings financial benefits for students/institutions
Indicators Informal learners use a variety of indicators when selecting OER
Support Informal learners develop their own forms of study support
Transition OER support informal learners in moving to formal study
Policy OER use encourages institutions to change their policies
Assessment Informal assessments motivate learners using OER
Research Hypotheses
Methodological Challenges
Incommensurability Granularity
Previous Initiatives
UNESCO Mapping Project (2012)http://unescochair.athabascau.ca/oer-mapping-exercise
• Mapping to raise awareness of OER
• Tracking complexity, identifying major players & actions
• Community building, communication and advocacy
• Localised data with centralised quality control
OLnet Evidence Hub (2011-2012)http://ci.olnet.org/
• Explore and debate key challenges for OER movement
• Collective intelligence: raise questions, propose solutions
• Sharing relevant web resources
OLnet Evidence Hub Data Model
Designing a new evidence model
DesignFiltering / navigation
Diverse, fragmentary
evidence
Encouraging contribution
Metadata specification
Mapping locations
UI / Accessibility
Polarity (+ve/-ve)
K.I.S.S.
Information Architecture
• Text Title• Text / HTML• Supports embedding of multimedia contentCopy• Association of evidence with hypothesisHypothesis• Evidence is either +ve/-ve in relation to a hypothesis Polarity• Geotagging / GPSLocation• School (K12) / College / Higher Education / InformalSector• Academic citation• Hyperlink / URLCitation
Evidence FLOW
Case Study
Anecdotes
Case Study
Institute Metrics
Survey Data
YouTube Interview
Academic Papers
Implementation
http://oerresearchhub.org/2013/10/04/building-an-evidence-hub-plugin-for-wordpress/ Technical Development
• Popular OS platform• Easy to customize• Over 27,000 existing plugins
Wordpress
tinyurl.com/oerimpact
Sample Entries
Flexible
Granular
Support comments, sharing
Citations field
Node Examples
Visualizing the Data
Sankey Diagrams track the flow of evidence
Global Evidence Map
See summaries by country with click-through to evidence
Detailed map view
Explore Projects
Filter evidence (College evidence in USA)
Summaries of evidence gathered for each hypothesis
Future Iteration
Explore Survey Data
Policy Map
Machine curation
API Integration: SurveyMonkey,
Google, etc.
Data Visualizations
Human curation
bookmarklet
Data mashups using open
data
Exporting data sets under open
license
Argumentation analysis
Call for Evidence / Feedback
We want your feedback!
… and your data!tinyurl.com/opened13
