Designs on elearning conference: OER reuse stories

Title: OER reuse stories: exploring reuse of open educational resource in art & design practice based learning & teaching?
Conference Topic Theme: Open experimental spaces, Helsinki Finland
Conference website - http://www.designsonelearning2011.com/members/chris/profile/
Format: Presentation and group discussion and workshop
Authors: Mr. Christopher Follows (ALTO)
SCORE Fellow - (Support Centre for Open Resources in Education) Open University UK
ALTO coordinator - Arts Learning & Teaching online college coordinator (ALTO) University of the Arts London,
c.follows@wimbledon.arts.ac.uk
Introduction
In common with the rest of the UK higher education sector, the UAL faces a future of rapidly declining public funding while at the same time there are increasing pressures to improve the overall student learning experience including the delivery of more open, flexible and blended learning opportunities. But, for practice based subjects such as Art and Design where the full attendance, face-to-face teaching model is traditionally seen as the only, and the best, way to teach, extending the range of study modes and options presents a real challenge. It is clear that the traditional teaching model as well as a wide range of associated institutional support systems needs to change, the tricky questions for institutions is how to do so in such harsh times?[1]
Existing spaces
The University of the Arts London is predominately a making university; students are encouraged to be self-directed, reflective and engage in regular peer-to-peer and group critiques. Very few arts courses at UAL provide project briefs, most learning and teaching takes place in peer/tutor led small group collaborative discussions or one-to-one in an ‘open’ studio environment. This session will discuss how we create and share resources but will primarily focus on exploring the ‘reuse’ of learning and teaching resources.[2]
Creating resources and capturing process
Video, image and audio documentation is the preferred media for capturing and sharing practice based art and design tutorials and resources. Overcoming staff reluctance to create and share teaching resources can be a primary problem, time and production are the key issues for most academics and technical teachers but staff also have concerns regarding giving away their work or what they may see as defining their practice. [3]
Examples of Student and staff resource
Staff resources produced with support: The examples below demonstrate the benefits of providing staff basic support to help them create and publish their own resources, low budget support can provide teachers vital time and space to produce quality resources for their students.
Introduction to sand casting videos (4 parts): these videos have been received well, attracting quality comments and over 100,000 Views YouTube - http://process.arts.ac.uk/content/sand-casting-part-one-philip-white-and-jenny-dunseath
Life Drawing - Laurence Noga - Wimbledon foundation 2010/11 - http://process.arts.ac.uk/content/life-drawing-laurence-noga-wimbledon-foundation-201011
Disc Sander demonstration - http://process.arts.ac.uk/content/disc-sander-demonstration
Press molded ceramic sphere (2 parts) - http://process.arts.ac.uk/content/press-moulded-ceramic-sphere-part-1
Staff resources produced without support:
Small Band Saw demonstration (Model-making Wood Workshop) - http://process.arts.ac.uk/content/small-band-saw-demonstration-model-making-wood-workshop
Stretcher making worksheets 4 parts - http://process.arts.ac.uk/content/1-preparing-and-cutting-your-wood-stretcher-making-worksheet-part-1
Sound and Story - http://process.arts.ac.uk/content/sound-and-story
Contextual references English Plus Film - http://process.arts.ac.uk/content/animation-timeline-fine-art-0
Tips for documenting your work 3 Parts - http://process.arts.ac.uk/content/tips-documenting-your-work-part-2-lighting
Students producing resources for students:
Posts by student Anna McAndrew - http://process.arts.ac.uk/user/85/contents
Submerged (please see the student comments on this posts) - http://process.arts.ac.uk/content/submerged
Student documenting student - http://process.arts.ac.uk/content/eliot-jones
Student interviewing student talking about their process - http://process.arts.ac.uk/content/daniel-hoskins-wimbledon-technical-arts-student-talking-about-his-work-2009

Sharing resources?
Why do resources need to be open and if so why a dedicated website and not on Flickr or Youtube? What do students gain from sharing and what do teachers gain, how does openness and OER add value to the process?
The primary online communication tool at UAL is the internal VLE blackboard, with this each subject area is locked into its own closed section, the VLE can be complex and difficult to navigate. Blackboard does not facilitate sharing or browsing across courses or colleges and is closed to external users. As a result over the past few years with the development of Web 2.0 technology content learning and teaching is being independently dispersed across the web in various wikis, bolgs, group websites, personal youtube accounts, Flickr groups etc. Although collective participation remains a problem, good quality learning material is being produced and shared either internally hidden away in Blackboard or lost in locally shared group blogs, these resources often become dormant and lost as the onus is often placed on one person ‘the teacher’ to administer and develop this content alone, some content never leaves the classroom/studio.
http://process.arts.ac.uk/ was developed in 2009 with the aim of creating a new user driven online studio community and collaborative resource that explores process in arts practice by showing the day-to-day studio/professional practice of staff and students of the six colleges of the University of the Arts London (UAL) whilst also sharing, informing and engaging with the wider community. Process.arts tries to address how we cluster all this activity together, encouraging users to collaborate, share and develop content in an space that bridges the internal and external e.g. the content published remains affiliated to the institution ‘the hosts’, but users are free to explore and develop this content as they wish with Web 2.0 CMS functionality which provides an open social layer within an accessible, familiar, and collaborative environment.
Students: it is common practice for students, teachers and artists to document their practice through exploring and questioning the process, for example in sketchbooks or through samples and experimentation. Process.arts aims to capture and encourage student centred learning through cross-college collaboration by capturing and publishing these interactions on process.arts.
Technical, academic and support staff at university of the arts London, its hoped a wide cross-section of staff will upload related academic and technical information to support their teaching practice, as well as viewing and commenting on the posts of others. Its also hoped staff will share information about their own arts practice showing images, video or audio documentation of their studio practice.
The ALTO project (Arts Learning and Teaching Online) at the University of the Arts London received funding in 2010 to engage the University with the rapidly growing global Open Education Resource (OER) movement. The ALTO project is concerned with the creation and sharing of Open Education Resources (OERs). See more about the ALTO project here http://process.arts.ac.uk/category/tags/alto and http://www.arts.ac.uk/alto/index.html
 
UAL blogs & websites - There are many other UAL websites and blogs sharing and developing resources please visit this link - http://process.arts.ac.uk/category/discipline/research-practice/ual-blogs-websites
OER arts resources - Please forward links to OER arts resources online and I will add them to the following cluster - http://process.arts.ac.uk/category/discipline/research-practice/oer-arts-resources
OER reuse stories: Reuse of OER learning & teaching resources

Group discussion
During the run up to this conference we aim to identify a core cluster of OER arts resource websites from around the world, process.arts and ALTO have produced a significant amount of new OER arts content for the sector to use, the question for this discussion and workshop is: ‘How do we reuse OER content in art & design practice based learning & teaching?’
Authorship as selection: It’s generally unknown how OER content is going to be repurposed and reused and there is very little evidence of this happening. Its thought sites such as process.arts and ALTO will attract a mixture resources, mostly granular in nature, although these standalone pieces of content are interesting it is difficult to assess how ‘useful’ they are with regards to learning aims, objectives and outcomes. On there own, these ‘informal’ learning resources could be dismissed as having little or no academic significance or use to the curriculum framework.
In this session we would explore the most effective and efficient ways of utilising OER in arts HEIs by identifying best processes and practices individually and collaboratively for creating learning resources/objects to support the learning design process in support of greater flexible and blended learning opportunities for future students in order to extend the range of study modes and options for the sector.
Below are some possible questions for debate, please feel free to suggest new questions and/or contribute, thank you.

What are the main barriers to OER reuse?
How do we share and collaborate in this space and overcome the obstacles of use and re-use specifically when creating and designing complex rich media learning resources and objects?
Develop an Arts-OER ‘reuse’ community of practice, how would a discipline-based, cross-university online community of practice help to overcome staff reluctance to create and share teaching resources in an OER environment?
Examine the effective use of source files and edit notes in relation to producing better ‘editable’ learning resources/objects.
Investigate better methods of linking recourses with learning design by improving and exploring resource derivative information.

What are the main drivers to OER reuse?
Investigate and evaluate the most effective and efficient ways of utilising OER in arts HEIs by identifying best processes and practices for creating learning resources/objects to support the learning and teaching process.
Examine the effectiveness of inter-college and HEI collaborations.
The ALTO project team[4] has concluded that there are many strong benefits for involvement with OER and its associated communities, because:
· Support greater flexible and blended learning opportunities for future students in order to extend the range of study modes and options at the UAL and beyond.
· It is an effective institutional and professional development tool in the context of externalizing practice, pedagogic conceptions and strategies in order to support reflection and development.
· It provides a foundation to introduce and extend collaborative learning design skills amongst staff to support greater flexible and blended learning opportunities in order to extend the range of study modes and options

• It brings external business and collaboration opportunities

What evidence do we have for OER reuse?
Observe and contrast current practice in the OER community.
Share stories, explore and exchange stories and examples of existing OER reuse practice which exploit the creation of new resources through the appropriation and reworking of existing content, ideas, materials and processes.
The arts have a strong tradition of creating new meanings through the appropriation and reworking of existing content, ideas, materials and processes, how can this tradition inform and encourage the development and reuse of OER rich media content.
 

References
 
Wenger, Etienne. (1998) Communities of Practice Learning, meaning and Identity. USA: Cambridge University Press
Lave, Jean & Wenger, Etienne. (1991) Situated Learning: Legitimate peripheral participation. USA: Cambridge University Press
Shreeve, A. (2008). Transitions: variations in tutors’ experience of practice and teaching relations in art and design. PhD Thesis, Lancaster University, Lancaster.
Biggs, J. (1999). What the student does: Teaching for enhanced learning. Higher Education Research and Development, 18(1), 57-75.
Njenga, J. K. and Fourie, L. C. H. (2010) The myths about e-learning in higher education. British Journal of Educational Technology, 41(2), p206
Brookfield, S. (1995) Becoming a critically reflective teacher. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
David Wiley (2008): http://www.educause.edu/EDUCAUSE+Review/EDUCAUSEReviewMagazineVolume45/OpennessasCatalystforanEducati/209246
Manovich, L. (2001) The Language of new media. Massachusetts Institute of technology
Casey. J (2011) abstract and presentation ‘Taking Care of Business: Sustainable Engagement with OCW and OER’ - http://process.arts.ac.uk/sites/default/files/alto-taking-care-of-businessv3-cc-by.doc
Chris Taylor - chr1staylor (Twitter) source: http://aggregate.andypowe11.net/oer-reuse-landscape-what-is-reuse-ukoer
This work by Chris Follows is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
Santos Andreia, SCORE - Beyond Talk and Chalk: modes of cross-cultural OER reuse - http://cloudworks.ac.uk/cloud/view/5637

[1] Full extract taken from John Casey (ALTO) abstract and presentation ‘Taking Care of Business: Sustainable Engagement with OCW and OER’ - http://process.arts.ac.uk/sites/default/files/alto-taking-care-of-businessv3-cc-by.doc

[2] "When we consider use/reuse in our (UK Centre for Bioscience) OER project work we often use the adopt/adapt analogy. I.e. use is simply using the resource as-is (adopting), REuse is taking the resource and adapting/changing it to suit your needs, though one of our OER ph1 partners recently suggested that - when I was asking for evidence of use of their resources - "use" could equal somebody using the resource once, and "reuse" could simply mean using the same resource more than once..." Chris Taylor - chr1staylor (Twitter) source: http://aggregate.andypowe11.net/oer-reuse-landscape-what-is-reuse-ukoer

[3] Although technology is just a means to an end, academics will have to start thinking of how curriculum and teaching methodology could be adapted by integrating technology to better meet the needs of today’s learners and the learning styles. (Njenga and Fourie p206)

[4] John Casey, Hywell Davies, Chris Follows, Nancy Turner, Ed Webb-Ingall, University of the Arts London, Centre for Learning & Teaching in Art & Design, 272 High Holborn, London, WC1V 7EY