Open Education and Social Software – A Solution for All Education Problems?

Experiences from the OpenScout project

Henri Pirkkalainen & Jan Pawlowski

Global Information SystemsUniversity of Jyväskylä

Global Information Systems

Mission StatementCreating and validating new solutions for Information Systems in a global context - this includes the support of individuals and organizations to improve competitiveness, performance, and mutual understanding

TopicsDesigning work and learning processes in globally distributed organizations Design & development methods for global information systems Culture analysis and awareness Support tools for knowledge intensive processes in global organizations ICT4D: ICT for development E-Learning and knowledge management in global organizations

Open Educational Resources (OER)Open Educational Resources (OER) have become a widely discussed and promising concept for educators

Ongoing discussions and past studies regarding open education often connected to a specific resource or an artifact

The focus – OER”technology-enabled, open provision of educational resources for consultation, use and adaptation by a community of users for non-commercial purposes” – UNESCO 2002

Such as: digital learning objects (full courses, modules etc.), articles, textbooks, software tools, simulations or animations, electronic textbooks, as well as syllabi, curricula and teachers’ guides

OER examples

Full courses available to be reused or modified to different contexts

http://openlearn.open.ac.uk/course/view.php?id=4387

OER examples

Presentations such as the one you are looking at or the one below

http://slidestar.de/main.html#slideware/view:10

OER examplesArticles, papers, books or journals etc.

Even material that doesn’t have learning outcomes attached to them but can be used as support material

Article example

OER examplesEven images, links, short texts and similar web assets that are not usable on their own but can be embedded

to learning materials

http://slidestar.de/main.html#slideware/view:1013

http://slidestar.de/main.html#slideware/view:1051

http://slidestar.de/main.html#slideware/view:1076

But also..

OER is very connected to concept of

open educational practices

includes access to • instructional designs, • didactical plannings such as lesson plans, case

studies or curricula

also includes one of the most valuable resource: sharing experiences about materials and lessons

between colleagues

..andClosely connected to concept of Open Source

Software tools

Open services

Problems related to online content and OER

How do you know which information you can re-use that you come across online? IPR issues

Where to find good resources?

Currently no “Google learn”

Open materials scattered in several repositories and databases

Single access points needed!

Licensing: Creative Commons You are free:

to Share — to copy, distribute and transmit the work to Remix — to adapt the work

Under the following conditions:Attribution. You must attribute the work in the manner

specified by the author or licensor (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work).

Noncommercial. You may not use this work for commercial purposes.

Share Alike. If you alter, transform, or build upon this work, you may distribute the resulting work only under the same or similar license to this one.

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/ http://www.slideshare.net/jan.pawlowski

Social SoftwareUmbrella of technologies under a fuzzy concept

Easy way to spread, distribute, and disseminate information to a wide community

Encourage people to dialogue and discourse

Easy content creation and sharing

Aggregating wisdom of the crowds

Transparent

OpenScout ProjectOpenScout is a European project

Co-funded by EU eContentplus Programme

Targeted Project in the area Educational Content

18 partners in 14 countries organized in 8 groups

Duration: Sep. 2009 – Aug. 2012

OpenScout stands for

Skill-based scouting of Open user-generated & community-improved content for management

education and training

OpenScout approach

OpenScout first prototype

Supporting internationalization of OER

Aiming to identify usage patterns how open contents are modified and applied to new settings – fitting the requirements of the users

Giving recommendations which type of tools can be used with specific type of learning materials– According to the license of the material– For example Microsoft Word and

GoogleDocs (collaborative writing) for .DOC-files

– ..or simple web editors for web based materials etc.

Material prepared for different learners (Blanchard et al. 2005)

Social Software in OpenScout

OpenScout and social software

Community building (social networking functionalities)

Experience sharing possibilities (messaging facilities offering forums, instant messaging and commenting etc.)

Offering ways to collaboratively edit materials and being tightly connected to the interest groups in the portal

Social Software applied to OER processes

Bundling Social Software within the portal– Some as key components of the portal, some as supportive tools for

specific processes

Using SoSo for communication to support the collaborative scenarios

..also to adapt materials

Social networking functions as a framework to attract people to groups and raise awareness and share experiences about OER – Utilizing blogs, feeds, social bookmarks in the social network to bring

the wisdom of the crows to relevant audience

Also connecting to OpenScout from existing social networks – LinkedIn, Facebook, iGoogle etc.– Or from Learning Management Systems (LMSs): Moodle etc

SNS as a framework for discourse and

networking

Communication tools

Material type

Search interface

Quality and competence

services

Adaptation tools

Educational tools

• Packaging• Learning

design• Knowledg

e mapping….

Social software as collaborative adaptation tools• collaborative

writing• Wikis

• Note sharing…

IM

Forums …

Conferencing

Bundling Social Software within the portal

License

ExperiencesPeople want to use familiar tools – Not willing to change to other tools, even if these would be

more stable or richer on functionality

Having tools available isn’t enough, they have to be presented in a meaningful way at the right time

Tools have to respond fast and be effortless to use

Tools should have effortless access

Tools should be bundled to accomplish specific action – e.g. building your own course out of open material

Challenges and possibilities• Lack of trust and awareness towards the materials

• Lack of awareness towards copyright issues• Distribution of open materials and services within the web makes it hard for

individuals to understand “where to find what”• Sticking to old ways of doing things – willingness to share material

• Immature or unstable technologies• Unclear procedures how to adapt materials for own purpose

• Easily adjusting and using materials already applied in real life practices

• Shared with open licenses that allow easy re-use and modification• Using familiar and easy-to-use technologies as support – such as

Social Software• Lots of interest towards open content and tools

Many initiatives and organizations supporting and trying to find solutions for these aspects

Contact us…

Prof. Dr. Jan M. Pawlowskijan.m.pawlowski@jyu.fi

GLIS on the web…

http://users.jyu.fi/~japawlow

OpenScout http://www.openscout.net

M.Sc. Henri Pirkkalainenhenri.j.pirkkalainen@jyu.fi

Thank you for your attention