1. Theory and methodology Gráinne Conole SCORE presentation, 27th January 2011

2. Impact Changes Organisational structures Learning & teaching Technology Roles and skills Funding Initiatives New technologies Drivers

3. Linking research to theory, practice and policy Research Theory Practice Policy

4. Practice Resources Development Learning Theory Develops Enhances Shapes Builds Policy Networks Guides Improves Consolidates Informs Strategy Research

5. Contextual factors Funding and policy drivers Cultural dimensions Subject-specific aspects Current hot topics Accessibility and social inclusion Widening participation Lifelong learning Open Educational Resources Learning Design Personalised Learning Environments Use of new social and participatory media New business models Plagiarism, digital rights, IPR Digital scholarship

6. Underpinning technologies New and emerging technologies mobile and ubiquitous intelligent agents social and participatory media Understanding the media multiple forms of representation different characteristics of media A distributed electronic environment standards and interoperability infrastructure and architectures Access to information structuring and distributing information integrating different portals, gateways and resources exploiting the different communication mechanisms

7. Pedagogical aspects Student and staff experiences Best methods of representing information designing and accessing resources and learning activities encouraging communication and collaboration integrating with other learning and teaching methods Development issues new forms of literacy needed (Jenkins et al., 2006) mechanisms for skills updating and development Understanding the affordances of technologies Exploring the potential for new forms of pedagogy

8. Organisational issues Developing models for mapping institutional structures supporting institutional processes sharing knowledge distributing information supporting change engaging different stakeholders Awareness of external factors Understanding changing roles and identities Linking strategy and practice

9. Common characteristics Change Political dimension Interdisciplinary Access and inclusion Convergence and interoperability Interactivity

10. Reality check on OER research Vision: free resources for education Significant investments (UNESCO, Hewlett, JISC) Focus to date mainly on developing repositories Now many high quality resources available BUT: Not much evidence of uptake and little reuse Evaluation given us deeper understanding of barriers and challenges Olnet and OPAL projects

11. Discipline issues Variety of feeder disciplines education research, cognitive psychology, instructional design, computer science, business and management, philosophy, semiotics, critical discourse analysis Benefits wealth of methods and approaches different perspectives Drawbacks no shared language and understanding lack of cohesion to the area

12. Research questions Most effective ways to develop OER? Intellectual property issues? Barriers and enablers to development and use? Models of production, QA etc? Sustainable business models? Accessibility, inclusion and cultural issues? Pedagogical models? How to evaluate? Conole and McAndrew, 2010

13. Theoretical frameworks Drawing on broader theoretical frameworks from Social Sciences Socio-cultural perspective dominate Activity Theory, Actor Network Theory, Communities of Practice, Systems Thinking, Distributed Cognition New learning theories: constructivist, situative and connectivism

14. Key names In the field: Laurillard, Salmon, Mayes, Oliver, Reeves, Luckin, Duval, Goodyear, Cantoni, De Laat, Hawthornthwaite, McConnell, Anderson, Wiley, Siemens, Downes More broadly: Vygotsky, Engestrom, Laurillard, Collins, Patton, Lave, Wenger, Rogoff, Boden, Gardener, Wertsch, Cole, Schon, Becher and Trowler, Salomon, Suchman, Kay, Dowling and Brown, Strathern, Daniels, Latour, Nardi, Salomon

15. Methodological approaches Ethnography and virtual ethnography Case studies Action research Evaluation Design-Based Research

16. Methods Surveys Interview Learning analytics Focus groups Content analysis Audio and video logs Diaries

17. Choice of research methods Tension between Focus on evaluation or research Quantitative vs. qualitative approaches Choice of methodologies Has an impact on outcomes Tends to be based on previous experience, favoured methods Approaches Exploring individual case studies Developing generic models Undertaking systematic reviews Applying specific theoretical perspectives Active involvement and action research Accounting for context - Activity theory, Actor Network Theory

18. Discussion - additional questions What additional OER research questions are there? What other theoretical perspectives are OER researchers drawing on? What other methodologies are OER researchers using? What other methods are OER researchers using?

19. Themes The good and the bad of ICT Speed of change New collaborations and discourses User focussed Changing practice Wider impact

20. Theme I The good and the bad of ICT Institutional vs. loosely coupled systems The affordances of technologies Appropriateness, fit for purpose Ownership vs. open source Simplifying the complex Balance of content and activity

21. Theme II Speed of change, the Web in 2011 Explosion of Web 2.0 (and 3.0 and…) Immense amounts of information New tools and resources The Web for nomads Predicting the unpredictable Researching where the light is A world beyond the Web Conole and Alevizou, 2000

22. Theme III Supporting new collaborations and discourses New distributed Communities of Practice Self-sustaining Communities of Practice Interacting with the media Tailored and contextualised Making sense of it all - new forms of digital literacy and the power of narrative

23. Theme IV Harnessing needs, understanding end users Adaptive and personalised Ethnographic approach to users The (semantic) web of meaning Supporting the whole learning cycle The perpetual beta Developing for the unknowable

24. Theme V Changing practice Reflective research/practitioner Changing roles Passive to interactive technologies The need for new organisational structures and processes How do you motivate people to do this? New methodologies for design and evaluation

25. Theme VI Wider impact New models for society Blurring of boundaries Distributed cognition ‘Compelling’ experiences A changing world Technology is here and will continue to have an impact

26. Changing context of research Changing nature of academic discourse Increasing influence of the blogosphere Wikis for collaborative co-construction The power of social and participatory media Twitter facebook LinkedIn Sykpe Audio and video conferencing

27. Implications for research Reaching a larger audience, higher profile Harnessing Web 2.0 technologies Tension between open & traditional publishing If it’s not online people won’t read it What are the new indicators of esteem? New forms of distributed collaboration Making raw data openly available

28. Open practices Collective intelligence The wisdom of the crowds Peer critiquing and dialogue Collective aggregation User generated content Distributed cognition Multiple postings & communication channels Community formation Digital personas Digital scholarship The network effect

29. Paradoxes created by the digital Death of expertise/ everyone an expert Expansive knowledge domain Multiple pathways/lost in cyberspace Hierarchy & control less meaningful Beyond ‘digital space’/New metaphors Increasingly complex digital landscape Multiple (co-)locations/ loss of content integrity Content distributed, everything is miscellaneous Social collective/digital individualism Collective intelligence Issues re: ownership, value, business models Free content & tools, open APIs and mash ups Conole, 2009, Keynote, ASCILITE conference

30. References Conole, G. and McAndrew, P. (2010), A new approach to supporting the design and use of OER: Harnessing the power of web 2.0, M. Edner and M. Schiefner (eds), Looking toward the future of technology enhanced education: ubiquitous learning and the digital nature. Conole, G. (2010), Theory and methodology in networked learning, available online http://cloudworks.ac.uk/index.php/cloud/view/2881 Conole, G. (2010), Review of pedagogical models and frameworks, report for the HEFCE e-learning task force, available online http://cloudworks.ac.uk/index.php/cloud/view/2982 Conole, G. , Scanlon, E., Mundin, P. and Farrow, R. (2010), Technology enhanced learning as a site for interdisciplinary research, report for the TLRP TEL programme, April 2010. Conole, G. (in progress), Designing for learning in an open world, draft chapters available http://cloudworks.ac.uk/cloudscape/view/2155 Conole, G. and Alevizou, P. (2010), Review of Web 2.0 tools and practices, http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/assets/EvidenceNet/Conole_Alevizou_2010.pdf

31. Blog: www.e4innovation.com