Reflecting on the diverse innovations and impacts prompted by an OER project

Beck Pitt, Tim Coughlan & Rob Farrow OER16, Edinburgh, Scotland19 & 20 April 2016

The project aimed to offer free, open educational resources to prepare adults to successfully and confidently transition to a college environment in the US, to pursue advanced qualifications, or to be successful in their chosen careers…

Next Generation Learning Challenges

OER Hub Hypotheses

Use of OER leads to improvement in student performance and satisfaction.The open aspect of OER creates different usage and adoption patterns than other online resources.Open education acts as a bridge to formal education, and is complementary, not competitive, with it.Participation in OER pilots and programs leads to policy change at institutional level.Use of OER is an effective method for improving retention for at-risk students.

Post project impact of Bridge to Success

Follow up collaborative research to assess longer term impact of project during the OER Research Hub:

• 2013 & 2014 • 15 interviews (students, administrators, educators)• 1 faculty focus group

University Maryland University College (UMUC)

“…We have decided that textbooks/course materials are very expensive, and so we as a University want to do whatever we can to reduce the cost of course materials for students. So much so that we have another initiative in which we’re trying as much as possible to put e-resources in every class and not require the students to buy additional materials. So we would like to go as close as possible to the zero cost per course. And so this is perfect because … Bridge to Success kind of got us thinking about that.”

(Assistant Dean, UMUC, June 2013)

Different contexts, different audiences

“There is just a huge disconnect between the content in that course and what our content is here… we can find places where the curriculum matches, but its not our curriculum… to help students prepare for credit level math, that means a certain thing to us… When we saw the content: Great content, but not at all aligned with what we do here”. (College educator, June 2013)

Different contexts, Different audiences

“But really I’m looking for something that’s easy to use, the reading level for me is really important because a lot of people coming through here don’t have higher than a 5th grade reading level and so that when I look at it I look for is it easy to read, is it easy to comprehend, is it user friendly because a lot of people are really intimidated by the computers. Those are the main things that I look for when I’m looking for resources online. Is it short? Because people’s attention spans are very short so I don’t want a long tool…” (Non-profit facilitator, June 2013)

Different Contexts, Different Audiences

“My students liked coming into a class … they could sit at round tables and we could have 3 or 4 students at a table and they could sit with their computers in front of them and we could do some of the work together… I could have small group discussions. I could have large group discussions. But I just felt like my 18 year old students would rather have a computer in front of them than a book.”

(Educator, June 2013)

Badged Open Courses (BOC)

Concluding remarks

Value of looking back at a project:- What happens next? - Capture broader engagement - Different focus for research - Opportunity for reflection and perspective - Capture longer term impacts - Best practice

Bibliography and AcknowledgementsImage CreditsSlide 3 repurposed from Pitt, Ebrahimi, Coughlan & McAndrew: http://www.slideshare.net/BeckPitt/assessing-oer-impact-across-varied-organisations-and-learners-experiences-from-the-bridge-to-success-initiative-39892305 (Slide 4) Slide 4 images by Beck Pitt CC-BY 2.0 Slide 5: Resources for learning about open innovation by opensource.com, CC-BY-SA 2.0 https://www.flickr.com/photos/opensourceway/4968547566 Slide 6: Inspire Scrabble by Jeff Djevdet, CC-BY 2.0 https://www.flickr.com/photos/jeffdjevdet/18836102305 Slide 7: Whole earth globe_west_2048 by Jim Forest https://www.flickr.com/photos/jimforest/15783017749/ CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 Slide 8: Badges by Darren Wood https://www.flickr.com/photos/darren/3905141/ CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 Slide 9: 100% by Alberto G. https://www.flickr.com/photos/albertogp123/5843148147 CC-BY 2.0 Slide 11: Plasticine Labyrinth by Peter Shanks CC-BY 2.0 https://www.flickr.com/photos/botheredbybees/1475770502 Slide 13: The Winding Path by Stephen Bowler, CC-BY 2.0 Generic https://www.flickr.com/photos/50826080@N00/9920259196

Bibliography

Assessing OER Impact across organisations and learners: experiences from the Bridge to Success project (Pitt, R. Ebrahimi, N, McAndrew, P. & Coughlan, T.) In: Journal of Interactive Media in Education (JIME). December 2013. http://www-jime.open.ac.uk/articles/10.5334/2013-17/

Building open bridges: collaborative remixing and reuse of open educational resources across organisations. Coughlan, T. Pitt, R. & McAndrew, P (2013). In: 2013 ACM SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems Proceedings, 29 April - 02 May 2013, Paris, France. http://oro.open.ac.uk/36473/1/B2S-CHI-2013.pdf

Karen Vignare on UMUC’s move to an 100% e-resources/OER model https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-To9FBi6pU

Self-Study report for the Middle States Commission on Higher Education, UMUC, Spring 2016 http://www.umuc.edu/visitors/about/accreditation/upload/umuc-middle-states-self-study.pdf

Open Education projects - through the lens of innovation by Vivien Rolfe http://www.umuc.edu/visitors/about/accreditation/upload/umuc-middle-states-self-study.pdf

Thank you!

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