Open shelving, University of Edinburgh Main Library.
I spent some of last week in sunny Cardiff at OER15. The conference was very good. Lorna and I have agreed to host it in Edinburgh next year. It’ll be a wonderful chance to gather like-minded folks together in our own town to discuss open culture and cultures of openness.
Edinburgh will be hosting a veritable festival of digital education conferences around that time since the international learning analytics conference (LAK16) and Learning@Scale will be here too!
The University’s mission is the creation, dissemination and curation of knowledge. As a world-leading centre of academic excellence we aim to: Enhance our position as one of the world’s leading research and teaching universities and to measure our performance against the highest international standards; Provide the highest quality learning and teaching environment for the greater wellbeing of our students; Make a significant, sustainable and socially responsible contribution to Scotland, the UK and the world, promoting health and economic and cultural wellbeing.
As a great civic university, Edinburgh …. will continue to look to the widest international horizons, enriching both itself and Scotland. (University Mission)
‘Educators worldwide are developing a vast pool of educational resources on the Internet, open and free for all to use. These educators are creating a world where each and every person on earth can access and contribute to the sum of all human knowledge. They are also planting the seeds of a new pedagogy where educators and learners create, shape and evolve knowledge together, deepening their skills and understanding as they go.’ (Capetown Open Education Declaration)
During academic year 2013-14 an OER Short-Life Task Group was established to explore possible ways to take forward an OER strategy for University of Edinburgh and to report findings and recommendations to Learning and Teaching Committee. This paper includes a proposed vision, policy, guidance and support level.
The sharing of open educational materials is in line not only with University of Edinburgh’s mission but also with a global movement in which research- led institutions play a significant role. The proposed OER vision for University of Edinburgh has three strands, each building on our history of the Edinburgh Settlement, excellent education, research collections, enlightenment and civic mission.
‘For the common good’:
Teaching and learning materials exchange to enrich the University and the sector.
To put in place the support frameworks to enable any member of University of Edinburgh to publish and share online as OER teaching and learning materials they have created as a routine part of their work at the University (e.g handouts, teaching materials, lesson plans, recorded lectures, research seminar content, blended-learning content, datasets, problem sheets and tools).
To support members of University of Edinburgh to find and use high quality teaching materials developed within and without the University.
‘Edinburgh at its best’:
Showcasing openly the highest quality learning and teaching:
To identify collections of high quality learning materials within each school department and research institute to be published online for flexible use, to be made available to learners and teachers as open courseware (e.g. recorded high profile events, noteworthy lectures, MOOC and DEI course content).
To enable the discovery of these materials in a way that ensures that our University’s reputation is enhanced.
‘Edinburgh’s treasures’:
Making available online a significant collection of unique learning materials available openly to Scotland, the UK and the world, promoting health and economic and cultural well-being.
To identify a number of major collections of interdisciplinary materials, archives, treasures, museum resources to be digitised, curated and shared for the greater good and significant contribution to public engagement with learning, study and research (e.g. archive collections drawn from across disciplines, e.g. History of Medicine/Edinburgh as the birthplace of medicine/Scottish history/social change).
To put in place policy and infrastructure to ensure that these OER collections are sustainable and usable in the medium to longer term.
DISCUSSION
The expertise to deliver each of these strands exists within the University through partnership between Schools and Information Services. This vision builds upon work, custom and practice already in place within the University but offers an opportunity to take a strategic approach to publishing open educational resources at scale.
The delivery of this vision is contingent on several areas of activity. The University is well placed to adopt an open licencing approach to learning and teaching materials for which the copyright is already held within the University.
Information Services currently offer a limited copyright advisory service to academic colleagues and students, with additional resourcing this service could be enriched to provide an OER service including training, staff development and guidance to support colleagues in making informed decisions about licencing options for their OER.
It is proposed that the service is resourced by IS for 2 years in the first instance. Once the support service is in place the ‘Common Good’ activity will be supported as part of business as usual though guidance and training.
A new short-life task group will be established to consider the resource needed to deliver the other two strands of the vision.
RISK ASSESSMENT
Establishing a clear vision for OER at University of Edinburgh will mitigate the reputational risk which may follow as a result of colleagues referring to online learning materials as ‘open’ when they are available under closed or unclear licence.
The new support service in IS will mitigate the risk that colleagues are unclear about the decisions they should make regard to the licencing, sharing and use of online materials.
EQUALITY AND DIVERSITY
OER contribute to sector-wide initiatives on openness, access, equality and diversity by enriching the knowledge commons and promoting sharing and reuse.
University of Edinburgh Digital Image Collections CC BY-NC-ND 3.0
This week I’ll be at OER15 in Cardiff. It will be lovely to see so many OER colleagues again.
The conference theme is ‘Mainstreaming Open Education’ and I’ll be talking about the development of OER policy at University of Edinburgh, which has been student-led from the start.
As 2014 opened, the EUSA vice president for academic affairs challenged University senior managers to explore how learning materials could be made open, not only for students within the University, but across Scotland and to the wider world.
These were heady days, the University was riding the wave of global interest in MOOCs, an NUS report was published to champion OER, there was an upcoming independence referendum and many in Scotland saw a strategic opportunity to contribute to a fairer society via open educational practice. A high level task group was established, including key opinion shapers, from around the University of Edinburgh.
By the close of 2014 the referendum opportunity had passed, but the impetus to push forward with OER policy remained. The University now has a strategic lead on Open Education with a vision, policy, support framework, and task groups focused on delivering more. There remains a lot of work to be done.
In this presentation for OER15 Dash, Stuart and I will draw on best practise, describe the process of linking OER to institutional mission and aims and explore the challenges of multispeed approaches; working with student leadership, University senior management, educational developers and academic innovators to deliver sustainable OER in a research institution.
‘Poulterer, Buenos Aires [Argentina]’. Photograph of a poulterer standing with his horse carrying cages of poultry on a street in Buenos Aires, Argentina in the early 20th century. Next to him is a man carrying a milk cannister, a man carrying two baskets of fruit and another man smoking a cigarette. http://images.is.ed.ac.uk/luna/servlet/s/19g4jxUniversity of Edinburgh’s new Chook MOOC will explain the general principles of chicken behaviour that can be used to assess welfare in chickens in hobby flocks or commercial farms. The focus is primarily on laying hens and meat chickens (broilers). The main course is likely to be of interest to people who own chickens as pets or keep a small hobby flock, commercial egg and chicken meat producers, veterinarians and vet nurses. You know who you are.
We can edit and we can eat cake. Picture taken by me, no rights reserved, and no leftovers.
The ‘Women, Science and Scottish History editathon‘ series of events in Innovative Learning Week at University of Edinburgh was a great success. We ran sessions on 4 days, had plenty of new students, staff and friends join us, edited more than 30 articles and trained dozens of novice wikipedia editors.
Each day, the one-hour introduction to editing Wikipedia focused on offering tips and insight into different approaches as well as practical training. Participants were welcome to attend as many days as they would like: everyday we added something new. Our Wikimedia trainers (principally Ally, the Wikimedian in Residence at the National Library of Scotland) was on hand to provide assistance, and our librarians ( Marshall, Gavin and Grant) provided specialised materials focusing on the subjects covered.
Knowledge was shared openly. Articles were created or improved. Networks of connections were made and shared topics of interest explored. Copious cake and cookies were eaten, and a fun time was had by all. We plan to do further events and some research to maintain and sustain momentum and support our fledgling crowd community. In December, at the EduWiki conf Ally reported that she had not seen much engagement from University of Edinburgh in Wikipedia projects . At least that’s changed.
Women Singing at a Table (Waulking the Cloth) by Keith Henderson http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/yourpaintings/paintings/women-singing-at-a-table-waulking-the-cloth-94160
I have been in several meetings this week discussing crowdsourcing and citizen science models for Edinburgh. The terms are often being used interchangably even though they really shouldn’t.
Remembering my time at Oxford I was thinking of the Oxford Community Collection model. This is a model of working we developed to support any organisation in creating a shared collection of digital asssets through online crowdsourcing and personal interaction.
The beauty of the model is that it combines large-scale online crowd-sourcing with personal, individual interaction. The model allows contributors to choose the way they contribute to a collection, offering those who lack the resources, ability, or opportunity to use computers an opportunity to be part of a digital initiative, sharing their material with the world.
The model also includes a real emphasis on planning for with sustainable success. Being part of and interacting with a community is central. This is described and discussed in more detail in RunCoCo: How to Run a Community Collection Online (2011), a report which presents a simple A, B, C of advice for projects:
Aim for Two-way engagement;
Be part of your community;
Challenge your assumptions.
In finding a unique approach at Edinburgh the fact that we have our successful MOOC learner communities has been mentioned. It’s no longer about what you can get 100,000 people to watch or read, it’s about what you can get them to make , do, add and share. And it’s about being part of your community. More on this later.
Screen shot of OpenSpires (C) University of Oxford CC-BY
Over the summer a couple of the interns we recruited to work at IT Services, University of Oxford have been working with IT Services staff and academic colleagues to create a new website which draws together in one place all of the Oxford massive online open collections (MOOCs), open educational resource (OER) initiatives, open science, open source and open data projects. Oxford began publishing OER in 2009. The work over the last 5 years includes everything from podcasts to crowdsourcing schemes, educational materials to whole digital archives.
The site serves as an excellent showcase of projects and initatives which have taken a proactive and deliberate approach to openness in line with the University’s mission to maintain and enhance its standing as a university of international reach in teaching, research and knowledge dissemination.
The Book of Salvation Opened, 1772 http://images.is.ed.ac.uk/luna/servlet/s/1zx3cb
The University’s mission is the creation, dissemination and curation of knowledge. As a world-leading centre of academic excellence we aim to: Enhance our position as one of the world’s leading research and teaching universities and to measure our performance against the highest international standards; Provide the highest quality learning and teaching environment for the greater well-being of our students; Make a significant, sustainable and socially responsible contribution to Scotland, the UK and the world, promoting health and economic and cultural well-being. As a great civic university, Edinburgh …will continue to look to the widest international horizons, enriching both itself and Scotland. (University Mission)
‘Educators worldwide are developing a vast pool of educational resources on the Internet, open and free for all to use. These educators are creating a world where each and every person on earth can access and contribute to the sum of all human knowledge. They are also planting the seeds of a new pedagogy where educators and learners create, shape and evolve knowledge together, deepening their skills and understanding as they go.’ (Capetown Open Education Declaration)
The sharing of open educational materials is in line not only with University of Edinburgh’s mission but also with a global movement in which research- led institutions play a significant role. I’d suggest an OER vision for University of Edinburgh might have three strands, each building on our history of the Edinburgh Settlement, excellent education, research collections, social responsibility, enlightenment and civic mission.
1. ‘For the common good’: Teaching and learning materials exchange to enrich the University and the sector.
To put in place the support frameworks to enable any member of University of Edinburgh to publish and share online as OER teaching and learning materials they have created as a routine part of their work at the University. (E.g handouts, teaching materials, lesson plans, recorded lectures, research seminar content, blended-learning content, datasets, problem sheets and tools).
To support members of University of Edinburgh to find and use high quality teaching materials developed within and without the University.
2. ‘Edinburgh at its best’: Showcasing openly the highest quality learning and teaching:
To identify collections of high quality learning materials within each school department and research institute to be published online for flexible use, to be made available to learners and teachers as open courseware.(E.g. Recorded high profile events, noteworthy lectures, MOOC and DEI course content).
To enable the discovery of these materials in a way which ensures that our University’s reputation is enhanced.
3. ‘Edinburgh’s treasures’: Making available online a significant collection of unique learning materials available openly to Scotland, the UK and the world, promoting health and economic and cultural well-being.
Identifying a number of major collections of interdisciplinary materials, archives, treasures, museum resources to be digitised, curated and shared for the greater good and significant contribution to public engagement with learning, study and research. (E.g. Archive collections drawn from across disciplines e.g History of Medicine/Edinburgh as the birthplace of medicine/ Scottish history/ social change)
To put in place policy and infrastructure to ensure that these OER collections are sustainable and usable in the medium to longer term.
I suspect the expertise ( although not the resources*) to deliver each of these strands exists within the University through partnership between Schools and Information Services. This vision would build upon work, custom and practice already in place within the University but offers an opportunity to take a strategic approach to publishing open educational resources at scale. What else should be included?
*The annual cost of running MIT OCW is about $3.5 million
Two Men in an Interior . Sean Watson (c) University of Edinburgh ECA Collection http://images.is.ed.ac.uk/luna/servlet/s/ex3a95
Last weekend I was in a conversation about the dearth of LGBT people in medical teaching cases. This may be because LGBT people never get ill and have no health, family or wellness issues. Or it might be that our curriculum doesn’t reflect diversity in society.
Never fear, I said, rather than start from scratch writing our own, lets go out to the OER-web to find materials which have been developed elsewhere that are available and licensed for us to use in our curriculum.
My colleague Jo quickly pointed out that the need for an ‘upperclassman facilitator’ might be a stumbling point if one were trying to replicate this teaching plan precisely. Luckily ,derivatives are allowed. We are free to remix, transform, and build upon the material . Phew.
The Custody is as Barbarous as the Crime. Francisco de Goya. ECA Library Image Collection http://images.is.ed.ac.uk/luna/servlet/s/n25sfo
I was in a discussion to day where the suggestion was made that licensing materials as Creative Commons for re-use would promote plagiarism. I was able to refer to the online papers from the BIS 2013 consultation about open access which explains:
At least one commenter suggested that the adoption of CC BY “[(a)] offers virtually no protection against plagiarism … [and (b)] unfettered creative commons licensing would constitute a serious infringement of intellectual property rights and pose a threat to UK intellectual capital.”
As to (a), plagiarism is the practice of taking someone else’s work and passing it off as one’s own. Plagiarism is a completely orthogonal issue to copyright infringement, and there is simply no evidence to support a claim that CC BY would promote or encourage plagiarism in a way any other solution would not as well.
As to (b), CC licensing does not infringe IP rights; rather, it is a conditional permission for the public to exercise some rights on specific terms that can only enhance UK intellectual capital by making it more readily available for wide distribution and innovative use.
!['Poulterer, Buenos Aires [Argentina]'. Photograph of a poulterer standing with his horse carrying cages of poultry on a street in Buenos Aires, Argentina in the early 20th century. Next to him is a man carrying a milk cannister, a man carrying two baskets of fruit and another man smoking a cigarette. http://images.is.ed.ac.uk/luna/servlet/s/19g4jx](http://thinking.is.ed.ac.uk/melissa/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2015/03/0053040c.jpg)
