Meeting notes: Open Education at the UAL

Meeting notes: Open Education at the UAL A focus and discussion group meeting - All Welcome

Where: Central St. Martins, Wednesday, 11th Jan - 3-5 pm

Rough meeting notes by Chris Follows, please feel free to comment and suggest additions. (last updated 12/01/12)

Apologies to those who could not attend this meeting, there was a mix up with the all staff email that should have gone out in advance, the ALTO team were under the impression this had been sent to 'all staff' before Christmas where it had only been sent to a section of staff. The event had been advertised through UAL blogs, websites and twitter. We received many email enquires and encouraging responses following the 'all staff 'email sent on the day of the event. There will be follow up meetings and workshops covering the same/similar questions and developing ideas.

Eleven members of staff attended the meeting this was an encouraging number given the last minute email call out and together with the email responses demonstrates the effectiveness of an all staff email at UAL to deliver and provide direct information. The event details posted UAL blogs, websites and twitter had seemingly little effect.

Staff email question to group: http://process.arts.ac.uk/content/open-source-use-ual

Most participants had an understanding of what OER and creative commons licensing meant, less than half had ever heard of JORUM.

1. Question to the group: Could you tell us what you consider your most valuable learning resource? There was a mixed response to this question:
   
   1. The OER community, internet and Google were seen as a vast useful resource to use.
   2. Self produced video documentation and resources
   3. Other staff and fellow colleagues were viewed as resources, individuals who are immersed in specialist subjects 'fonts of knowledge', it was mentioned that these specialist clusters tend to stay siloed specialist clusters and its difficult to expand share this specialism, OER and open practice/debate could be a good platform to open and share specialist knowledge.
   4. Process.arts.ac.uk and scoopit were tools identified as being useful to create specialist 'subject specific' knowledge clusters/communities, human aggregation and meta data (tags) use helps cluster knowledge and information together.
   5. Knowledge communities, staff and students sharing resources on one platform (related content)
   6. Students were seen as resources, this is very true for most. Staff can to learn from students as much the other way an equal partnership. (see Shreeve's (2008) Five categories of practice - http://emmacritchley.myblog.arts.ac.uk/files/2011/10/Shreeve-2008-Ch-41.pdf

    

2. Can you tell us about OERs produced
   
   1. Many participants had created resources as you would expect for teaching although no resources were OERs as such. The resources we viewed and used within a course only and seen as specific to that course only. We proposed a case study experiment where we see what if any parts of specific instructional videos could be 'useful' and used/reused by others (see camberwell sand casting videos, these are specific to Camberwells area resource and have also proved extremely valuable to the wider community - http://process.arts.ac.uk/content/examples-staff-content
   2. There was an example of a member of staff teaching weave given the students were observed using their iphones to video capture the process being demonstrated, students as producers of OERs (process.arts was built for this - Posts by student Anna McAndrew - http://process.arts.ac.uk/user/85/contents
   3. Local subject specific website to promote course and support course communication
   4. Lynda is being used to support staff - http://www.arts.ac.uk/e-library/databases-a-z/lynda-registration/

    

3. What are the benefits of getting involved
   
   1. To save time
   2. Make life/work easier
   3. Eliminate repetition so time can be spent doing more fulfilling parts of teaching, reducing the tedious routines.
   4. Encourage independent learning/learners
   5. Encourage participation and sense of community
   6. Improve quality of resources as they are public all need to be continually reviewed and updated
   7. Improve response to students, better quality and response using 'knowledge clusters'

    

4. What are the negative aspects of getting involved  (addition question)
   
   1. Example given of a student open negative comment, their natural response to a visiting lecture posted online (the college is building links with this external partner) this could have a negative impact. We produce students who a critical thinkers therefore can not prevent or discourage this type of response. Open blog/site managers and staff should manage open spaces and advise participants the correct level/ tone of open engagement they are encouraging for the platform. All to often people are asked to engage in blogs and open practice without support or guidance provided, knowledge skill levels are presumed and often over estimated. (an example - http://process.arts.ac.uk/content/striking-balance-between-practice-and-open-practice
   2. Managing feedback and open content, who's comments do you reply to?
   3. There was discussion about Creative commons (CC) licensing and concerns about recalling content. Content you put out to the world on a CC licence can be distributed under the terms of use you have suggested. The user always has the 'moral right' to recall CC content being used inappropriately. The CC licence sits on top on the copyright licence (its guidance for use).
   4. Need to consider the distinction between open publishing and OER where reuse (resource is licenced and made available for download and reuse)
   5. Google is not a useful OER finder, you can spend/waste lots of time searching for OER content to use, not viable.