The OER university: pushing – and pulling – the boundaries in higher education

Gabi Witthaus

For Follow the Sun Learning Futures Festival,29/03/2012 (www.tinyurl.com/followthesun)

TOUCANS: Testing the OERu Concept and Aspirations: A National Study

www.le.ac.uk/toucans

Image by Tim Sträter

Teaching one-to-one

Image by marinakvillatoro on flickr

Local assessment

and credentialling

Friesen & Murray, 2011: http://tinyurl.com/openlearning2-0

Teaching one-to-many(ish)

Image by Daniel Scully on flickr

Friesen & Murray, 2011: http://tinyurl.com/openlearning2-0

Local assessment

and credentialling

Local assessment

and credentialling

Friesen & Murray, 2011: http://tinyurl.com/openlearning2-0

But can these models work…

for teaching on a massive scale?

Image by James Cridland

http://wikieducator.org/Oeru

OERu partners aim to reach 100

million under-served adults

Local assessment

and credentialling

Friesen & Murray, 2011: http://tinyurl.com/openlearning2-0

This is… “Open Learning 2.0”: … Any student can study any content, supported in any number of instructional arrangements… The “local” institutional evaluation and accreditation… (remain) at the centre of the model… Even though learning is achieved through flexible arrangements, it can… still be rigorously assessed and credentialed. (Friesen and Murray, 2011)

http://tinyurl.com/openlearning2-0

But will it work for the learners?

Help!!!!!

Photo by Erik Charlton

Volunteers to the rescue?Photo by MisterJamie

Learner supportAdministrative Technical Academic

Many thanks to the following people for their generous sharing of information:

•Prof. Terry Anderson (Professor and Canada Research Chair in Distance Education, Athabasca University, Canada)•Dr Elizabeth Archer (Specialist: Institutional Research at the University of South Africa)•Kevin Bell (Innovation Team: Leader of Learning and Development, Southern New Hampshire University, USA)•David Bull (Director: University Preparatory Programs, University of Southern Queensland, Australia)•Irwin DeVries (Director, Instructional Design, Thompson Rivers University, Canada)•Vasi Doncheva (Flexible Learning Manager, Northtec Polytechnic, New Zealand)•Wayne Mackintosh (Director: International Centre for Open Education, Otago Polytechnic, New Zealand, and Founding Director of the OER Foundation)•Prof. Rory McGreal (Associate Vice-President, Athabasca University, Canada)•Prof. Joyce McKnight (Associate Professor, State University of New York/ Empire State College, USA. Speaking in her personal capacity as a scholar.)•Terry Neal (Flexible Learning Manager, Open Polytechnic, New Zealand)•Paul Stacey (Director, Curriculum Development, BC Campus, Canada)•Herbert Thomas (Electronic Learning Media Team Leader, Canterbury University, New Zealand)•Prof. Sandra Wills (Executive Director, Learning and Teaching, Wollongong University, Australia) Thanks also to Dr Patrick McAndrew at the Open University and colleagues at the University of Leicester, especially Dr Ming Nie and Dr Alejandro Armellini, for their support in this research. 

Image by Clearly Ambiguous on flickr

Blog: toucansproject.wordpress.com

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