Write a blog post on the benefits
and drawbacks of big and little OER approaches.
Big OER approaches can result in high quality OER. A large collection
of good quality OER from an institution can help show that free to use does not
mean low quality, therefore the OER is worth a learner’s time investment and
also serves the institution’s purpose of sharing large OER as a taste of its
educational offering to encourage formal enrolments. However, as McAndrew et al
(2009) research revealed, use of big OER that is high quality can result in
less repurposing or adaption of OER for local context than might be expected because
it isn’t always apparent how to repurpose the OER or users lack motivation to
do so.
Big OER often requires significant academic and production time investment to create, similar to preparing formal course materials, so is not a by-product of preparing formal learning resources.
To maximise the potential for repurposing, Big OER needs to be accompanied by OER which suggest ways the big OER could be adapted for local use.
Little OER approaches do not always result in high quality OER; however this is not necessarily a disadvantage. Weller suggests little OER apparent low quality can encourage engagement and repurposing by other academics because compared with Big OER they don’t require so much time investment to create or respond to, but they do rely upon building and maintaining a variety of informal networks (via social media) to increase their visibility and reuse.
Building networks is a necessary part of academic practice, though the way it is done has changed over time. Weller argues that little OER approaches such as blogging, which can help develop ideas and explore theories in practice, or preparing and sharing presentations for teaching and conferences are by-products of modern academic practice. Such little OER don’t require advanced technical skills to create and share, though they do require familiarity and confidence to do so. If an academic knows how, then creating and sharing their ideas via video, audio or photo images can also be part of their academic practice and strengthen ties with their networks as well as raise recognition of their academic profile.
Little OER can become dynamic and essential elements driving discussions about ideas and practices, this can lead towards creation of new perspectives, connections and projects, creating a continuous “creativity-openness feedback cycle” (Weller, 2011) of innovation. Although audiences for little OER might be small and unpredictable, this factor can make the outcomes from adopting such open approaches fruitful as they can provide new avenues to research and new methods of distributing and sharing ideas, so little OER have the potential for high reuse.
Little OER approaches might not be valued by existing institutional reward and recognition systems, so although academics might use some little OER approaches in their work, they may need to harness their networks to build a case for updating institutional reward and recognition policies to include little OER digital scholarship as valid academic practice.
References
McAndrew, P., Santos, A. Lane, A., Godwin, S., Okada, A., Wilson, T., Connolly, T.; Ferreira, G., Buckingham Shum, S., Bretts, J. & Webb, R. (2009), OpenLearn Research Report 2006-2008, The Open University, Milton Keynes, England. Available at http://oro.open.ac.uk/17513/1/Researchfinal_low.pdf (Accessed 3 April 2021).
Weller, M. (2011a) Academic Output as Collateral Damage, slidecast [Online]. Available at http://www.slideshare.net/mweller/academic-output-as-collateral-damage (Accessed 1 April 2021).
Weller, M. (2012) ‘The openness–creativity cycle in education’, Special issue on Open Educational Resources, JIME, Spring 2012 [Online]. Available at http://jime.open.ac.uk/article/view/2012-02 (Accessed 1 April 2021).