My OEP Project Report

1.Rationale: A brief explanation of the reasons behind your choice of project

I am taking the pre-service part of the APP course, for my placement I taught on a year one BA (Hons) Film and Television unit called The Politics of Screen Practice. My initial project plan (see Appendix 1, project journal) was to share learning resources I used when I taught on that unit. I am not part of the course so felt I could not share the unit brief and unit descriptor, which would be necessary as the sessions I led, focused on particular parts of the brief and learning outcomes of the unit. I thought it would be interesting to use my materials to create a stand-alone learning resource about film manifestos for film students and tutors to access, I shared learning resources and information about ‘Dogme 95: The vow of chastity’ and ‘The Free Cinema Movement’ (Appendix 2, my OER).  The aims of these sessions were for students to engage with different film movements that addressed elements of the assignment brief in different ways.  I chose this project, as these are my most recent materials and I can use the resource if I teach on the unit again and I think it could be useful to film tutors and students.

I agree with Savin-Badin’s (2008:94) view about the potential for digital spaces in education to challenge student’s view of knowledge as being passive and based in books. I decided that sharing my OER online would work really well for students and I would like to encourage them to become involved in it. As a student and tutor I have experienced wariness about OERs and sharing information but I think it is important for institutions to share information online for students and tutors and the wider community.  If I gain work as an Associate Lecturer OERs could be a useful way to share information with students easily.

2. Method: What did you do, and why did you do it this way?

The genesis of my idea was to share power points and hand outs from my lectures about film manifestos. An issue with OERs is that it is often difficult to find things, as there is so much information online.  I think it is important for institutions to fulfill a gatekeeping role and help students to find, access and navigate OERs. With this in mind, I chose to share OERs in connection with the relevant institution and try to make them visible and easily accessible by their readership of film tutors and students.  Another challenge for OERs is sustainability as occasionally online resources are set up but not maintained.  Atkins, Brown & Hammond (2007) note ways to combat this challenge by encouraging institutions to pioneer OERs, UAL has workflow, myblog and moodle/blackboard, I chose to use workflow as I used it for other units on this course and feel that it suits the needs of my project the best as it can be opened up to everyone and is local to the institution.

Having decided to create an OER about film manifestos I spent time thinking about how I could use the workflow format to create an OER with a context, separate from the Film & Television Politics of Screen Practice unit as the sessions were based on the learning outcomes of the unit. My OER needs to make sense to any film tutor or student or film enthusiast and help them to learn more about film manifestos.  In a teaching context I would like to use my OER with students, for them to contribute to it and add comments and hopefully have discussions.  Although workflow has positives it also has weaknesses in terms of ease of use, once you start making journal entries it is not easy to add to it out of chronological order. My OER is not very visually engaging or appealing as it is not easy to add images as thumbnails.

During the development of my OER I found it helpful to think about what an Open Educational Resource is.

Digitised materials offered freely and openly for educators, students and self-learners to use and reuse for teaching, learning and research (Thomas, Campbell, Barker and Hawksey, 2012:16)

When defining OERs, (Thomas, Campbell, Barker and Hawksey 2012:15) consider what a learning resource is and note that although informational content has an important role in learning and teaching, it is useful to think about resources by their levels of granularity and focus on how much information content is embedded within a learning activity. I think that unintentionally my OER turned out to be an information object – a structured aggregation of digital assets, designed purely to present information. Although it does include learning activities - tasks involving interactions with information to attain a specific learning outcome, I have not managed to create a Learning design – structured sequences of information and activities to promote learning. I used Constructive Alignment (Biggs and Tang 2007) to try to create a learning design. Learning outcome: Students take a course and are told at the beginning what they will be able to do by the end of the course.  My OERs Learning Outcome is, ‘A learning resource aimed to help people to gain a basic understanding of film manifestos’ I have communicated this through adding an introduction to my OER. I tried to include teaching and learning activities but I did not fully succeed in using the learning space and information to make it possible for the students / tutors to learn in their own way and meet the learning outcomes of the course. I planned to test if students have met the learning outcomes by hoping they make a comment about film manifestos but I would need to do more to make this more likely to happen. The OER contains a lot of information and links to other sites and some exercises and questions they can think about or use. On reflection I should have created a lesson plan and guidance notes for the seminar questions but I did not have time.  When I develop my OER I will turn it into an open lesson plan about film manifestos, with more tasks and explanatory information for tutors.

When creating the OER I thought about my role as a learner and tried to evaluate options that make learning easy to bear or make it really difficult (Brookfield, 1995). For example, I like OERs to be easy to follow and it is useful to have information in one place, as it can be frustrating if you spend a long time trying to locate things. The blogs in the learning & teaching unit on this course worked really well, particularly being in a group and I particularly enjoyed reading the blogs with images in.

3. Issues: What technical, ethical and other issues are relevant to your project, and how did you address them?

My lack of knowledge and experience of putting things online was an issue but I have built on the experience I gained on this course through using workflow, process.arts and sharing blog posts. Through taking this course I have been given the information I need to feel confident about conducting open educational practice in a strategic way that addresses and attempts to deal with copyright issues.  In Online learning: a manifesto, Stommel (2012) notes that an educational institution needs to serve and connect students who are enrolled on the course and those who are not.  I think this comes from opening up certain OERs to everyone. In the case of my project this has brought up issues, particularly copyright ones, as a lot of the work is not my own, it is information created by other people, for example the Free Cinema manifesto is not online; I created an attribution list to identify the creators of the third party work and I hope I can use the work under the ‘fair use’ exceptions in UK Copyright law (Casey 2011), as it is an educational resource or I could try to gain permission from the British Film Institute, they have a very useful OER already. I have put articles from Sight and Sound, BFI and The Guardian in there, at first I just put hyper links but some of them did not work so I made PDFs of the articles and put the hyperlinks at the top of the article.  I have used creative commons licenses where appropriate, for the sections that are my work like the seminar questions. There is a chain of rights and relationships that this unit has helped me to understand. I contacted Own-it for advice (Appendix 3), the response made me feel nervous about using images I found on google, which would improve the look of the OER, also it is not particularly easy to incorporate images in the workflow page. I have added the following disclaimer to the page. Legal Disclaimer: This workflow page has been produced on a not-for-profit basis. Its intent is to provide information to tutors and students interested in film manifestos.

It has been important to maximise visibility and accessibility of the content and be sure to reach my readership. At the final OEP teaching day tutors and peers gave me ideas for reaching my readership, for example to share my OER on twitter which I have done and ask people in the field / appropriate twitter feeds to RT (re-tweet) tag ideas: Manifestos.  I have followed filmmakers on Twitter. I am now following Lars Von Trier https://twitter.com/lars_von_trier – the leader of the Dogme 95 manifesto but I’m not sure what he’ll think about my OER. I have asked for retweets on twitter and I will ask google to crawl my page.

4. Evaluating impact: How can you evaluate the impact of your project on learning and/or teaching?

The biggest impact my project has had so far has been on my own practice as through taking this unit and especially completing this project I have engaged with and participated in open educational ideas and practice.   Atkins, Brown & Hammond (2007) recommend that you find a way to capture and structure user commentaries on the material and problems encountered by diverse student communities and teachers.  I have shared my OER on process.arts, an open contribution site for sharing art, design and research worldwide.  Anyone can comment on process.arts, and my OER has received a comment (Appendix 5), which is very positive and has ideas for how I can improve and expand my OER.  In its current state I am unsure if many people will actually use my OER as it is not very visually engaging or easy to use unless you just want information.  I feel that the OER could be shared in a more effective way but I think that if the content of the OER were better then more people would share it. On last check my OER has had 127 reads on process.arts.

Brookfield (1995) argues that critical reflection focuses on finding assumptions of power and hegemony. We need to unearth these assumptions by looking at what we do from as many unfamiliar angles as possible. The discrepancy between what is and what should be is often the beginning of the critical journey (Brookfield 1995:28).

Brookfield suggests four critically reflective lenses to view our teaching through: our autobiographies as teachers and learners, our student’s eyes, our colleague’s experiences and theoretical literature. I have considered the impact of my OER through these lenses.  Looking at my OER through the lens of autobiography, I feel that it could be a lot better, a lot more visually engaging. The OERs that I enjoy using are usually visual and easy on the eye.  This project has developed my experience of dealing with technical, ethical and other challenges. There is a lot to think about in terms of the implications of sharing information online. In my teaching I would like to emulate good experiences I have had and avoid bad ones.  From a student’s angle, it is difficult to fully evaluate the impact on learning and teaching as we are out of term time and I am not teaching at the moment.  When I teach about film manifestos again, I will use the OER, gain student feedback and involve students in the OER. In terms of colleague experiences (Appendix 4), feedback from a fellow tutor points out the flaws in the OER, for example, the seminar questions are not enough on their own, I need to add guidance notes. I think the impact of my OER would be greater if its form was better.

This lens of theoretical literature is interesting.

Problematically, though, many people in the ‘OER movement’ seem to assume that simply making content freely available for use and adaptation will improve educational delivery.  This simplistic position ignores the obvious reality that content is only one piece of the educational puzzle, and that effective use of educational content demands, among other requirements, good educators 
to facilitate the process. (Kanwar and Uvalic ́-Trumbic ́ 2011:38)

I think this really applies to my OER, I was aware of this but at the moment it is very much informational and not very user friendly. I need to work more on the OER so that it is facilitated rather than just informational. 

5. Next Steps: Where might your project go in the future?

In future, my project could be used to encourage colleagues to share OERs in this way, they could also add to the resource.  Another recommendation from Stommel (2012) is to give roles to students and involve them in OERs; I would definitely like to do this in the future.  For example blogs could give students more skills and experience for when they leave the course, they could also be used to encourage students to engage with each other’s work by fulfilling a reflection and self-regulation role (Nichol and Macfarlane-Dick 2006). As a student I found writing blogs and commenting on peers blogs really useful as it made me really think about the content and the topic in a new way. This also happened when I responded to peers questions about my blog as it made me think about my work again rather than just submitting it in and then receiving feedback and a mark. It think that if students in the Politics of Screen Practice unit had deadlines to complete and comment on blogs before tutorials it could open tutorials up and make them more productive as students would already be familiar with each others work and then they could spend the tutorial working on solutions and next steps.

I plan to modify the OER to make it into a lesson plan about understanding film manifestos using Free Cinema and Dogme95 as case studies with more guidance and information for users in terms of how to use the information and OER. I also have other ideas for the Politics of screen practice unit like using blogs as part of the assessment and possibly conducting tutorials at the locations of political protests students are exploring through their films.

The potential of OER includes bringing transparency to educational processes, facilitating collaborations between educators and students at different institutions, and establishing a new economic model for procuring and publishing learning materials. Ultimately, a key to its success will be to demonstrate that, in the medium to long term, OER will help over-stretched educators to manage their work more effectively, rather than adding new work requirements to their job description. Kanwar and Uvalic ́-Trumbic ́ (2011:44)

I agree with this point and feel that it is a good one to end this report with. I think the time spent creating an OER will save educators and students a huge amount of time, as information can be easily accessible. With the way Higher Education is changing I think that OERs can connect Universities and learners but also provide information and insights for people who may not have the opportunity to take the courses.  I have found this unit enlightening and would really like to become much more involved with OERs in the future.  I intend to continue to open up my practice and continue to create OERs and involve students and staff in them.

<a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/"><img alt="Creative Commons License" style="border-width:0" src="http://i.creativecommons.org/l/by-nc-nd/3.0/88x31.png" /></a><br /><span xmlns:dct="http://purl.org/dc/terms/" href="http://purl.org/dc/dcmitype/Text" property="dct:title" rel="dct:type">OEP Report</span> by <span xmlns:cc="http://creativecommons.org/ns#"

Bibliography

Atkins, D., Brown, J.S., & Hammond, A,L. (2007) A Review of the Open Educational Resources (OER) Movement: Achievements, Challenges, and New Opportunities. Report to The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation.

Biggs, J. & Tang, C. (2007) Teaching for quality learning at university: what the student does (3rd ed.). Maidenhead: Society for Research into Higher Education and Open University Press.

Brookfield, S. (1995) Becoming a critically reflective teacher. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Casey, J. (2011) Creative Commons Licences – are they right for you?, Published in the Arts Libraries Journal vol.37 No.22012 http://alto.arts.ac.uk/904/

Creative Commons http://creativecommons.org/about

Kanwar, A. and
Uvalic ́-Trumbic ́, S. (2011) A Basic Guide to Open Educational Resources (OER) Commonwealth of Learning, Canada and UNESCO, France.

Meyer, J.H.F. and Land, R. (2003), ‘Threshold concepts and troublesome knowledge: linkages to ways of thinking and practising’,In: Rust, C. (ed.), Improving Student Learning − Theory and Practice Ten Years On. Oxford: Oxford Centre for Staff and Learning Development (OCSLD), pp 412−424.[on-line version: Enhancing Teaching-Learning Environments in Undergraduate Courses, ETL Project, Occasional Report 4, May 2003 }

Nicol, D.J and Macfarlane-Dick, D (2006) Formative Assessment and self-regulated learning: a model and seven principles of good feedback practice, Studies in Higher Education.

Savin-Baden, M. (2008) Learning Spaces, Creating Opportunities for knowledge creation in Academic Life. England, Open University Press.

Stommel, J. Online learning:  a Manifesto (2012) http://www.hybridpedagogy.com/Journal/files/Online_Learning_Manifesto.html

Thomas, A. Campbell, L,M. Barker, P and Hawksey, M. (Ed.) (2012) Into the Wild – Technology for Open Educational Resources Copyright © 2012 University of Bolton Published by University of Bolton, Deane Road, Bolton, BL3 5AB

Appendix 1

Project journal, http://moodle.arts.ac.uk/mod/forum/view.php?id=18743

Appendix 2

My Open Educational Resource http://process.arts.ac.uk/content/film-manifestos-open-educational-resource

Appendix 3

Copyright advice from own it http://www.own-it.org (Intellectual Property advice from the creative sector)

Dear Beth, 


In order to use a CC licence you must first clear all rights in the material as you can't grant a licence if you yourself don't have the right to do so. The material you describe is very likely to be protected by copyright and you should therefore try and ask the rights holder for permission to use it unless the fair dealings rules apply. However, all fair dealing rules are interpreted very narrowly and you should be very careful if publishing material using such exceptions unless you are absolutely sure that the rules apply. 
In the UK, using copyright material for 
- research and private study (non-commercial use) 
- criticism or review (with sufficient acknowledgement), 
- reporting on current events (except photographs) 
doesn't require the permission of the copyright holder. 
The material (with the exception of the reading list) is likely to fall under the second exception but you have to give sufficient credit to the authors and ideally, also state, who owns the copyright to the material. You won't be allowed to provide a CC licence for the material you are using for the reasons explained above unless you have permission. 
It would therefore be prudent to seek the permission of the copyright holders. As to the manifestos, they are likely to be in the public domain since their purpose is to be widely distributed, but again, there is no guarantee and therefore, please research the author/publisher and ask for permission before you go ahead and publish the material for the public to see.

Best regards, 
the Own-it team.

Regards

The Own-it team

My Message to Own it:

I am taking a teaching course with CLTAD, as part of the course I am taking the Unit, Open Educational Practice and the assignment is to create an Open Educational Resource. 

I have created an OER abut Film manifestos, this is purely for educational purposes.  

It contains:

Dogme95 film manifesto - found online

Free Cinema manifesto (typed up from the BFI handout.)

Information abut both movements

A reading list

Pdfs of BFI and Guardian articles found online with links

Seminar questions I devised

I will create a Creative Commons license. Please can you advice me on the copyright issues and wording for a disclaimer?

Best wishes

Beth Wade

Appendix 4

Film Manifestos: An Open Educational Resource

Author: Beth Wade

Address: http://bwade1.workflow.arts.ac.uk/film-manifestos-1

Reviewer: Jonathan W. Leader

Review

Film Manifestos is described by the site's author, Beth Wade, as a 'learning resource ... for film students and for film tutors'. The purpose of the resource is 'to give a basic introduction to film manifestos' but, that said, the information provided already assumes a certain amount knowledge about the motivation for manifestos and why some film-makers feel inclined to submit themselves, in certain instances at least, to quite draconian rules, a case in point being the so-called 'Vow of Chastity' taken by Lars von Trier and Thomas Vinterberg (Dogme 95) in 1995.

After a short introduction, there is a list of early 'Free Cinema Films', made on very tight budgets and with few resources, for example, Wakefield Express (1952) and O Dreamland (1953), both directed by Lindsay Anderson (of O Lucky Man and If fame), available for purchase as a collection from the British Film Institute Internet site – to which there is a link. The main focus of this learning resource is, however, the Free Cinema Movement, Britain 1956-1959 and Dogme 95. There are pdf links to the manifestos of the British Free Cinema Movement (1956) and Denmark's Dogme 95 and to that 'Vow of Chastity' mentioned above. There are also links to articles that have appeared in, for instance, Sight and Sound and The Guardian, and on the BFI website. So we learn, for example, that the Dogme 95 movement helped to 'reinvent' Denmark, persuading Danes that their country could be a 'cultural force' (Patrick Kingsley, 'How the Dogme maifesto reinvented Denmark' in The Guardian, Sunday 25 November 2012). We also learn that the Free Cinema film-makers were directly reacting to what they perceived as a British cinema ‘still obstinately class-bound: still rejecting the stimulus of contemporary life’ (Free Cinema Manifesto, 1956).

The first-time visitor senses though, that this learning resource is a work in progress, something that is still evolving. For example, there are suggested model questions that teachers could use in class: 'What do you think the point of the Free Cinema Movement was?', 'Was it a protest?'. There needs to be much more of this, however, and more guidance for the teacher about how best to exploit the resource to the full. To this end, more about the contexts in which film-makers' have been provoked to publish their manifestos would be valuable. One senses that the influence of the Futurists’ penchant for manifestos might be particularly revealing but Futurism is given only the briefest of mentions.

Film Manifestos is a potentially very useful learning resource that students and teachers of film will find extremely valuable both inside and outside the classroom.

July, 2013.

Appendix 5

Comment on process.arts  http://process.arts.ac.uk/content/film-manifestos-open-educational-resource

Submitted by cfollows on 20 July 2013 - 8:22pm.

Looks like a great set of resources Beth, would be good to see them all as separate posts e.g. 'The Free Cinema Movement, Britain 1956-1959' as a post (cut and pasted) in context with other film, Cinema related content or under Tags film 

Do you know Jennet Thomas from Wimbledon College of art? -  A founder member of London’s Exploding Cinema Collective, Jennet Thomas’s work developed within the lively, anarchistic culture of London’s experimental underground film club/live art scene of the 1990s. and ‘Elbow Room’ - http://raw.wimbledon.ac.uk/?q=node/33