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Summary of ‘Open educational resources repositories: Towards a comprehensive quality approaches framework’ (Clements et al., 2015)

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Edited by Henry James Robinson, Tuesday, 2 Jun 2020, 13:31


Image: Baumgartner, P. (2016) ‘Economic Aspects of OER’ 


Open educational resources repositories: Towards a comprehensive quality approaches framework’

The following is a summary based on direct quotes from the title article by Clements et al. (2015). The purpose is to provide a context for the design of our learning object repository (LOR) website that we are designing as a team of students on the Masters in Online and Distance Education (Open University).  Find our under construction website and more of my team's article summaries among the 'preliminary research' pages here: Higher Education Open Education Resources.

'OER are commonly stored... within Learning object repositories (LORs), which have recently started expanding their design to support collaborative teaching and learning. ...many LORs struggle to find sustainable business models and get the users’ attention. Previous studies have shown that Quality assurance ....is a significant factor (in) the success of the repository (Clements et al. p. 1098, 2015). This opening statement could be confusing for anyone who has learned to distinguish between OER and LO - learning objects (there is no need for any fundamental distinction).  For example, the Centre for Innovation in Teaching & Learning (CITL) describe the distinction as being that OER typically undergo the 4Rs of revise, remix, reuse and redistribute, whilst learning objects are often just repurposed and redistributed.  So whether our site will finally be categorised as an OER repository or LO repository, the implications of the article's conclusions are similar.  Please note, the article title is paraphrased above.  Its analysis and conclusions are drawn from a literature review of related sources. 

Origins (history, key figures)
The authors claim to have 'systematically analysed technology enhanced learning literature regarding LORs’ quality approaches and specific collaborative instruments.' The outcome is claimed to represent a comprehensive framework of LOR quality assurance framework (LORQAF) 'that will 'assist LOR developers in designing sustainable quality assurance approaches utilizing full the potential of collaborative quality assurance tools' (Clements et al. p. 1098, 2015).  

Key ideas, concepts, and principles
OER enable forms of collaborative learning (Dillenbourg, 1999) and LORs of today can be considered as computer supported collaborative learning (CSCL) environments as they provide users tools for posting knowledge productions into a shared working space and providing tools for progressive discourse interaction between the users (Scardamalia & Bereiter,1994).  Adding social and collaborative features has been a recenttrend of LORs to facilitate wider user engagement (Monge,Ovelar,  &  Azpeitia,  2008;  Sánchez-Alonso,  Sicilia,  García-Barriocanal, Pagés-Arévalo, & Lezcano, 2011). However, repositories are not used up to their full potential (Dichev & Dicheva, 2012; Mitchell & Lutters, 2006; Ochoa & Duval, 2009) because of deficiencies in quality control, assurance and evaluation (Downes, 2007; Palavitsinis, Manouselis, &Sánchez-Alonso, 2013).  Therefore, it is vital to study LORs quality approaches (Clements, Pawlowski, & Manouselis, 2014). 

The study investigated quality approaches for LORs with a systematic literature review (Kitchenham (2004) in order to understand the holistic phenomenon of quality assurance and to form a quality approaches framework which LOR developers can consider when designing or improving repositories. 

The following classification was used as the starting theoretical framework:

Learning object repositories quality approaches have previously been classified as (Pawlowski & Clements, 2010):
1. The Generic Approach of Quality standards (e.g. ISO 9000 standards) (Stracke,  2009),  European  Foundation  for  Quality Management Excellence (European Foundation for Quality Management, 2014).
2. Specific Quality Approaches (e.g. Content development criteria or competency requirements) (Leacock & Nesbit, 2007).
3. Specific Quality Instruments (e.g. user-generated collaborative quality approaches such as rating (Nesbit, Belfer, & Vargo,2002), peer review (Neven & Duval, 2002) or recommender systems. 



Fig. 1 Learning object repositories quality assurance framework (Clements et al. 2015, p. 1102).

Implications
Repositories are in fact collaborative tools.  Social interaction is considered to be the dominant factor affecting the success of collaboration. Quality control must logically involve knowing what the audience expects and working with them to deliver.

Quality assurance must involve using specific instruments.

Therefore, the design and delivery/publication process must involve (e.g.) ‘peer-reviewing’ and ‘recommendation systems’. 
Developers have to go deeper than rating systems to understand the dynamic behind OER use and repository 'popularity' - what works on E-bay might not work in the field of education.

Therefore, a mixed approach to assuring quality is recommended including expert review to evaluate the substance of the resources in the repository alongside user-generated collaborative quality instruments such as peer reviews, comments, and rankings.   Both are needed to build the community.
 
References

Baumgartner, P. (2016) ‘Economic Aspects of OER’ [Online]. Available at: 

https://slideplayer.com/slide/6599837/ (accessed 02 June 2020).

Centre for Innovation in Teaching & Learning (2020) 'Learning Objects (LO) vs Open Educational Resources (OER)' [Online]. Available at: https://blog.citl.mun.ca/instructionalresources/courses/learning-object-vs-open-educational-resource-oer/ (Accessed 02 June 2020).

Clements, K., Pawlowski, J. and Manouselis, N. (2015) 'Open educational resources repositories literature review–Towards a comprehensive quality approaches framework.' Computers in human behavior51, pp.1098-1106 [Online]. Available at https://reader.elsevier.com/reader/sd/pii/S0747563215002162?token=5B32DA88FFF9C26D5C6E94BDC1F3F034ED748C8061EF68DC0F36C6580CFA93DD51BF77639D64E533F05A2AE4FFF8A286  (Accessed 01 June 2020).

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Henry James Robinson

the future of open education: open repositories, open pedagogy and global working

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Edited by Henry James Robinson, Wednesday, 13 May 2020, 15:48


Image Source: Global Hands

Macbeth:
"Is this a dagger which I see before me..."
Macbeth (II, i, 33)


Hi! This is my response to a study assignment on the same topic of open learning. See my original spoken version on YouTube. Also my articles on LinkedIn.


We were asked to imagine the future of learning. I didn't need to go beyond the guidelines my course on online learning had already laid down for me. Still, we all have our own unique take on things. And like McBeth, I am in awe of the awful choices involved in reaching out to it and aware of the part my own hands will play in my own future.


The future is probably in the clouds, so long as current trends continue and that is definitely towards universities posting more and more content online to both attract learners to learning and also provide a subsistence through the paid services the university offers. Once learners get hooked by the free services offered, there is more chance they become more general subscribers.


So based on trends (open learning facilitating by open educational resources - OER - are on the up), I think that in the future, most universities will have created repositories for open educational resources; it will be for the purpose of marketing the institution. It will both hook into the current trend for online engagement, educational apps, and more sophisticated hardware - smartphones, laptops, and whatever other mobile and semi-mobile devices evolve.


I think that all universities will have them, I think that artificial intelligence will be the systems that organize them. They’ll be much more discoverable because the current aggregators will have refined. Repositories will be more interactive internally because the functions will be voice-responsive, and they'll teach the skills the user needs to conduct searches, without having to type in the input. This will be within a future of OER, where most institutions of education have gone online and so I see a decline in brick and mortar institutions. There will be far less need for physical resources like paper, and that will be another cause of the cost of education going down.


So, for economic reasons, I think that education will go global in the sense that we'll teach all over the world remotely. That that will facilitate much more face-to-face contact via video - tutors will have to open up their schedule, so they are not working the standard 9 to 5 hours within their time zone if they want to benefit from being able to work. We'll be compelled to be compatible with wherever our clients are. Then they will be doing more like shift work in the future. 

More to the point, jobs will be harder to find and at the moment we are already moving to the commodification of labour. No surprise that OER is one of those things that helps facilitate it more! Being part of the global marketplace is not all negative, what I am suggesting may be one way that more teachers stay relevant and employed and internationalization is surely a challenge we embrace, even if we have to adapt to a different sleep pattern.


I think that sums up my view of the future of education. It's not all negative because we still have at least the chance to work, despite my students repeatedly envisaging a world free of teachers - I'm sure it's personal! See my previous articles on connectivist and rhizomatic forms of teaching because for OER to kick in, so do new ways of teaching and learning.


I'd never have been so cocksure of myself, of course, were it not for COVID-19. It's worth reflecting on how this one little pandemic can change our whole perspective on life!

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Henry James Robinson

Representing open education

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Edited by Henry James Robinson, Wednesday, 25 Mar 2020, 12:38



Hi everyone,
This week we were asked to read two resources that provide views on different aspects of what openness means in higher education.  and to create a visual representation that defines openness in education by drawing on some of the concepts listed in our two chosen resources (I tried to include all of what I thought were the key ones). Our tutors suggested PowerPoint, Prezi or any other tool of our choice. I decided I would also share details about my tool of choice to try and help others decide what tool to use.
I didn't want to use PowerPoint because of the bad press it's getting so I went with the suggestion to use an online tool such as Prezi and found out about MS Sway.  My key concepts of openness are taken from Weller et al. (2018) and Tait (2018).  Here is my presentation: Representing open education (MS Sway)

About Microsoft Sway 
PowerPoint is too much associated with shiny-suited people with no speaking skills. Anybody can use Sway if they sign up for a free Microsoft account. People with an Office 365 can also use Sway, the free version provides more than enough for the average user.  If you enter a term Sway will produce the outline of a presentation for you, with definitions, uses, areas to cover, suggested linked topics, images, and more. This is all powered from Wikipedia data and gives full links back to the pages it uses.   So Sway helps you overcome 'writer's block'. 

I think the main advantage of SWAY is compatibility and share-ability.  It is compatible with the Web using Microsoft Edge, Internet Explorer 11, Firefox 17 or later, Chrome 23 or later, and Safari 6 or later.  It works with Apple (online) and MS devices. You can embed a wide variety of content — including images, video files, audio clips, and maps — from several web sites in your Sway.  With Sway, you have a few options for who you can share with (specific people, your coworkers, anyone) and what access they will get (view only or edit). You also can control whether or not they have access to share it with others.

CC LICENCE

References

Weller, M., Jordan, K., DeVries, I. and Rolfe, V., 2018. Mapping the open education landscape: citation network analysis of historical open and distance education research. Open Praxis10(2), pp.109-126. [Online].
https://www.learntechlib.org/p/183582/article_183582.pdf (Accessed 21 March 2020).

Tait, A. (2018) ‘Open Universities: the next phase’, Asian Association of Open Universities Journal, vol. 13, no. 1, pp. 13–23 [Online]. DOI: 10.1108/ AAOUJ-12-2017-0040 (Accessed 21 October 2019).

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Henry James Robinson

The Open Education Experience

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Edited by Henry James Robinson, Wednesday, 25 Mar 2020, 12:41

Experience with Open photo

Hi Everyone!

I want to tell you about m experience with Open Education.  So, settle down put yo feet up... blah blah blah. 

My experience with open education has been quite short in my view. I wanted to add to the knowledge I'd gained as a master's student of applied linguistics in 2000 because I surmised the field had changed a lot since then.  I was planning to do a Ph.D. course at UoB at the time.  I joined the Future Learn corpus linguistics course by Lancaster Uni.  It was just at an introductory level but I'd never studied in that field before.  However, what I'd already learned about the field was much more advanced than the course material, so my contact with other participants was very minimal.  I used it just to browse some of the content, not to be seriously involved. Still, it was useful for learning more about the terms and concepts and it led to me joining subsequent courses where I was much more involved and it has culminated in where I am now - familiar with how working collaboratively and independently online with the help and guidance of a tutor and other course members. 

I've done the H880 course - it was my full induction into working with others, I even had a few full-on disagreements and even arguments that dragged in the OU staff and my tutor - I think that's real evidence of my involvement in the community aspect.  I think that really helped seal my initiation because I went on to join the course Whatsapp group and made some really fruitful formal and informal connections with some who I am still in touch with. Looking back, it was great!

I've studied several MOOCs on Blended Learning, Online, and Open, including with Leeds and Auckland; I've used some open resources as part of my assignments but I've never engaged fully with open access publications.  It sounds like something I should do if I want to have a proper online presence as a contributor. I would like that I can set up a blog and popularise it based on the fact that my professional and technical experience has reached a point where people are interested in what I have to say and offer.  That would be good too. 

Just like for Sophie Washington, for me, the flexibility of OE is the main thing. I do like interacting with people and having contacts that stimulate or benefit my career and I think OE does that too.  In some ways, it's more motivating than f2f because contact with others (and learning to a large extent) depends on your completion of assignments and of course you want to be original and to be in the loop early so you get noticed more. 

CC LICENCE



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