Openness at the University of Cape Town
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Panel presentation from the University of Cape Town at Cambridge 2012: Innovation and Impact - Openly Collaborating to Enhance Education
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Openness at the University of Cape Town
- 1. From Project to Mainstream in a constrained environment: Towards openness at the University of Cape Town Laura Czerniewicz Gregory Doyle Glenda Cox Cheryl Hodgkinson- Williams Cambridge 2012, 16-18 April 2012
- 2. Structure of presentation Glenda Cox Academic Laura Czerniewicz Institutional Student Technical tutor Cheryl Hodgkinson- Gregory Doyle Williams
- 3. Academic Institutional Student Technical tutor
- 4. Inculcating openness at UCT: An institutional perspective Laura Czerniewicz Director: OpenUCT Initiative University of Cape Town laura.czerniewicz@uct.ac.za
- 5. Institutional perspective Some premises • OERs overlap with Open access and Elearning Open access OER Elearning • OER part of a broader open movement • Innovation usually starts with soft funding (external & internal) • Institutional context and culture critical to how OER and open agenda play out
- 6. Institutional perspective Institutional cultural types Policy definition: Loose Collegium Bureaucracy Control of Control of implementation: implementation: Loose Tight Enterprise Corporation Policy definition: Tight McNay, I. (1995). From collegial academy to corporate enterprise: The changing cultures of universities.
- 7. Institutional perspective Institutional cultural types Policy definition: Loose Collegium Bureaucracy Control of Control of implementation: implementation: Loose Tight Enterprise Corporation Policy definition: Tight
- 8. Institutional perspective The collegium type • Characterised by – loose institutional policy definition – informal networks and decision arenas – and innovation at the level of the individual or – department. (McNay 1995) • The organisational response – ’laissez faire’, few targeted policies or processes (Rossiter, 2007). – Core value of collegium is freedom • Defines organizational expectations in terms of freedom from external controls (Yee-Tak 2006)
- 9. Institutional perspective University of Cape Town • Oldest South African university – Top ranked African university – QS World University Rankings – The Times Higher Education World University Rankings – Academic Ranking of World Universities • Medium sized – +/- 25 000 students – 982 permanent academics (of 5 442 total staff)
- 10. Institutional perspective Prestigious research university • 5 Nobel Laureates • Booker Prize winner • Numerous internationally recognised research initiatives – Africa Earth Observatory Network (AEON – The Department of Mathematics and Applied Mathematics is an international centre for research in the fields of cosmology and topology. – The Department of Physics is home to the UCT- CERN research centre, – The Department of Electrical Engineering is involved in the development of technology for the Karoo Array Telescope (KAT), a precursor to the Square Kilometer Array
- 11. Institutional perspective Teaching at UCT • Residential • Funding subsidy for • Face to face headcount & throughput (not curriculum or content) • Almost no distance ed • Centre for Higher Educational • Not set up for “non- Development active, strong traditional” courses academic development
- 12. Open agenda at UCT: projects Scholar Scholar Scholar Scholar Student Community 2007 Opening Scholarship 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014
- 14. Our approach to the openness agenda in the light of UCT’s culture
- 15. Institutional perspective Strategic approaches • Individual agency/ control • Maximum flexibility • Network / community building • Enabling (not requiring) • Champions at different levels Collegium culture: loose institutional policy definition informal networks and decision arenas and innovation at the level of the individual or department. (McNay 1995)
- 16. Institutional perspective Historically • Opportunities for open agenda in the eLearning space (CHED)(rather than OA ) – Contributed to change strategy • No institutional repository
- 17. Institutional perspective Multiplicity • Multiple strategies • Many small sites of innovation and activity, aiming for agglomeration across the institution, to achieve critical mass • Change at all levels of the university • Develop networks and build community
- 18. Champions • At senior level – DVC signs Cape Town Declaration (2008) – VC signs Berlin Declaration (2011)
- 19. Institutional perspective Champions • Senior & middle level • OER Health Sciences - Dean
- 20. Institutional perspective Champions • Bringing the work of “early adopters” above the radar
- 21. Institutional perspective Champions & change • In our experience of our cultural context – Senior level support symbolic – Vertical relationships do not cause change per se, only when actual projects in place (eg HS) – Champions work best in horizontal networked relationships, building communities of practice • New roles and reconfigurations – The rise of the non-specialist “expert,” (or the “extended professional”)
- 22. Incentives: small grants • 9 small grants in 2011 • £ 800 each • Health Science, Engineering, Law, CHED, Science • To create and/ or adapt OER • From course level to smaller resources
- 24. Institutional perspective Academic agency • Decentralised uploading – Individual academics upload and maintain their resources directly • Pride of authorship – Quality assurance with the individual – Quality assurance part of broader teaching and learning systems, not separate • Minimal moderation – Copyright compliance
- 25. Institutional perspective Flexibility • Granularisation of resources important • Whole courses • Single resources – Ebooks – Presentations – Podcasts – Lecture notes – Animations – Images
- 26. Institutional perspective Institutional Community • IP Law Unit • Knowledge Co-op • Citizen Science projects in COL • Enterprise Content Management Project • Eresearch • Library • Communications Office • Faculties
- 27. Institutional perspective New IP policy • Work enabled by new UCT IP Policy – Specifically addresses issues relating to the creation of OER resources and the licensing processes to be followed – Expressly states the support for publication of materials under Creative Commons licenses
- 28. How we are doing in terms of institutional participation
- 29. Institutional perspective 50 100 150 200 250 0 01-2010 01-2011 02-2010 02-2011 03-2010 03-2011 04-2010 05-2011 06-2010 06-2011 07-2010 07-2011 08-2010 08-2011 09-2010 09-2011 10-2010 10-2011 11-2010 12-2010 11-2011 1-2012 12-2011 2-2012 Growth to date 3-2012 Resources added Growth of total content
- 30. Institutional perspective Faculty contributions Centre for Higher Education 11% Development 3% 24% Commerce Engineering and the Built Environment Health Sciences 8% Humanities 34% 4% Law 16% Science Faculty contributions February 2010- March 2012
- 31. Institutional perspective Types of resources Video 10% Audio 28% Text/HTML Webpages Audio 20% Downloadable Documents Graphics/Photos Other Text/HTML Webpages Other Video 3% Downloadable Documents Graphics/ 38% Photos 1%
- 32. Institutional perspective Concluding comments • A steady upswell rather than mainstream • Integration of resourcing requirements into existing structures • Acceptance of non-linear organic process • Slow approach more likely to be sustainable & effective • A research-based approach to inform strategy
- 33. Institutional perspective References • Czerniewicz, L and Brown, C (2009) study of the relationship between institutional policy, organisational culture and e- learning use in four South African universities in Computers & Education 53 (2009) 121–131 • McNay, I (1995) From collegial academy to corporate enterprise: The changing cultures of universities. In T. Schuller (Ed.), The Changing University. Buckingham: Society for Research into Higher Education and Open University Press • Rossiter, D (2007) Whither e-learning? Conceptions of change and innovation in higher education. Journal of Organisational Transformation and Social Change. 4 (1), pp.93–107 • Yee-Tak , W (2006) Student Expectations in the New Millennium: An Explorative Study of Higher Education in Hong Kong, Dissertation, unpublished dissertation
- 34. Technological considerations when creating OER - “the nuts and bolts” Gregory Doyle Faculty of Health Sciences: Education Development Unit gregory.doyle@uct.ac.za
- 35. Academic Institutional Student Technical tutor
- 36. Technical perspective Technical issues Institution OER team http://www.flickr.com/photos/mandj98/3546292216/
- 37. UCT signs Cape Town Open Education Declaration 2008 Technical perspective http://www.capetowndeclaration.org/
- 39. The ‘ordinary’ academic • Enabling factors Technical perspective http://www.omnitechsupport.com/img/technical-support.gif • Division of Labour: Time and effort http://teamdoubledouble.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/drivethruneon.jpg http://www.imageenvision.com/150/37952-clip-art-graphic-of-a-pink-guy-character-pushing-an-orange-orb-by-jester-arts.jpg
- 40. Technical perspective http://creativecommons.org/licenses/
- 41. Raise OER Source content Clear copyright awareness and (volunteers) (dScribe) interest Technical perspective Production Package OER Process Publish OER Review OER Publicize OER (internal) (repository)
- 42. Content creation • Creating interactive modules Technical perspective – e.g., click and drag, simulations • Lecture recording – Convert PPT to video – Automatically • Video recording – Procedures / lectures – Converting videos – Camtasia or similar
- 43. Copyright clearance & packaging • dScribe Technical perspective – Images – substitute / redraw / permission • Packaging – Bandwidth (video, compressing, annotating) • OER-tech mailing list – Recommended Practices for Packaging and Distributing OER
- 44. Institutional issues • How will resources be distributed Technical perspective http://www.marketingmo.com/common/files/distribution-channels.jpg?c34083 • What software platform to use http://image.made-in-china.com/2f0j00FeaEfyuKANol/Stage-Platform-XF3-.jpg
- 45. Technical perspective How do people find UCT OER http://www.slideshare.net/mpaskevi/365-days-of-openness
- 46. Technical perspective OER Support @ UCT
- 47. Technical perspective Conclusion http://files.coloribus.com/files/adsarchive/part_213/2132805/file/motorcycle-courses-training-wheels-small-77878.jpg http://scm-l3.technorati.com/10/07/19/15067/community-manager.jpg
- 48. Technical perspective Conclusion http://files.coloribus.com/files/adsarchive/part_213/2132805/file/motorcycle-courses-training-wheels-small-77878.jpg http://scm-l3.technorati.com/10/07/19/15067/community-manager.jpg
- 49. “Why would you do it, ... would a student actually be interested?” Understanding the barriers and enablers to academic contribution to an OER directory Glenda Cox Centre for Educational Technology University of Cape Town Glenda.cox@uct.ac.za
- 50. Academic perspective Organisational issues Student Technical tutor issues perspective
- 51. Academic perspective About the research 6 interviews Science. Engineering, Commerce and Humanities From Professors to Lecturers Purposive sampling for range of faculty and rank 3 who have not contributed- to find out why not And 3 who have contributed, to find out why and also why they feel their colleagues have not added Pilot study more to follow Test Activity theory as a lens for understanding OER contribution and non-contribution
- 52. Tools: OpenContent Directory, PDF’s, PPT< Video, Academic perspective Podcasts Subject: Object: Teaching Outcome: Open The Education resources academic materials for sharing Rules: explicit and Division of implicit norms that Community: regulate the Labour: academics, Academic as university (e.g. departments, the Promotion is based teacher and as institution, OER researcher, CET on research team, students, published) as facilitators users of Open (Power and Content status) The Activity system ( Engeström 1987)
- 53. Framing the interviews Tools: Are their aspects about the directory itself that prevent academics adding materials? Subject: Object: Teaching Outcome: Open The Education resources academic materials for sharing Rules: Are Division of concerns around Community: Are the rules of Labour: Are their concerns you concerned promotion being around peers in the based on research about the time department not and effort it will output and not supporting OER? Are teaching take? there concerns materials? Are around poor quality there concerns materials? about IP infringement or violation? The Activity system (Interview questions)
- 54. FINDINGS
- 55. Barriers: purpose of OERs Tools Outcome: Subject Object Open Education resources Division of Rules Labour Community Implicit rule: Pedagogical Concerns about the purpose and use of OER
- 56. “why would you do it;...would students actually be interested? And my materials “...may not make any sense to anybody else without lots of structure, and notes...” “Who cares?” “Not convinced it would make a big difference to someone”
- 57. Academic perspective Barriers: concerns about quality Tools Object Subject Division of Rules Labour Community (implicit) Concerns about the quality of materials
- 58. “..it would take some time to get to the quality that I will be happy with to getting it online...”
- 59. Barriers: culture of sharing Tools Subject Object Division of Rules Labour Community The influence of colleagues, no culture of sharing
- 60. “...It is not valued by my unit, so I wouldn’t worry about it”
- 61. Barriers: time Tools Subject Object Time Division of Rules Labour Community Time
- 62. “there is a lot of extra work here...I do not have the time...”
- 63. Enablers: an obligation to share Tools Enablers Outcome: Open Subject Value Object Education Resources Division of Rules Labour Community
- 64. “ ... I think it's an obligation to share our knowledge with people who can’t afford these resources..." "...increase reachability of resources that were previously only available in a few places..."
- 65. Enablers: Content shareable Tools Outcome: Open Subject Content Object Education shareable resources Division of Rules Labour Community
- 66. “ Not all teaching materials are readily accessible in terms of structure and content...other courses we teach are not so full of such rich multimedia materials...”
- 67. Enablers: Technological ability Tools Technological ability Outcome: Open Subject Object Education Resources Division of Rules Labour Community
- 68. “...I have set up a system over the years and it easy for me to record lectures and share them...it’s going to be hard to get everyone to buy into this sort of uniform model...”
- 69. Enablers: Small grants Tools Outcome: Open Subject Object Education resources Division of Rules Labour Community Small grant
- 70. “...the grant bought student time to adapt the materials...”
- 71. Enablers: stage in career Tools Outcome: Open Subject Object Education Stage in resources career Division of Rules Labour Community
- 72. “...I am at the stage in my career where I am not worried about making money from text books...’...”
- 73. In the light of these findings WHAT CAN BE DONE?
- 74. Transforming academic practice Tools e.g. lecture recording, reposi tory Outcome: Open Subject Object Transform Education the activity resources Awareness of need and purpose Division of Rules Labour Community Alt Part of academic metrics, Citati Cases of use practice, support and ons and credit and feedback small grants in University reward system
- 75. Academic perspective Open Education: some questions Is it a personal philosophy or can ‘we’ grow a culture of sharing within our institutions? What are the enabling factors to support open practices for academics?
- 76. “It’s part of my campaign” Using Perceived Attributes as a framework to understand postgraduate students’ adaptation of academics’ teaching materials as OER Cheryl Hodgkinson-Williams & Michael Paskevicius Cambridge 2012 Conference 16-18 April 2012
- 77. Academic perspective Organisational issues Student Technical tutor issues perspective
- 78. Enablers and barriers to OER contribution Student tutor perspective Organisational Technical Academic Signing of CTOED UCT Champions OpenContent Willingness Incentives directory No policy Limited technical Lack of time expertise No rewards
- 79. WHAT ENCOURAGES STUDENT TUTORS TO CREATE OER?
- 80. Student tutor perspective Post-graduate students’ participation • One way to support academics to rework existing materials is to use postgraduate students – Masters’ level – tutors, graduate assistants and interns • Shuttleworth Foundation funding for 3 students in a department and 2 in the Centre for Educational Technology, Hewlett Foundation funding for 1 student in the Health OER project • Process similar to that devised by the University of Michigan – DScribe process – participatory model for creating OER
- 81. Research study • Little published on practice or theoretical Student tutor perspective explanation of: – “What might encourage postgraduate students to rework existing materials?” • Case study research of 6 students – 3 employed by a department (interviewed) – 3 by OER projects • 2 from the UCT OER project (interview & questionnaire) • 1 from the UCT Health OER project (interviewed)
- 82. Theory • Use Moore and Benbasat’s extension of Student tutor perspective Rogers’ Theory of Perceived Attributes to explain the adoption of the new innovation of creating OER: Rogers (1983) Moore and Benbasat (1991) Voluntariness Image/Status 1. Relative Advantage Relative Advantage 2. Compatibility Compatibility 3. Ease of use Ease of use 4. Observabiity Result demonstrability Visibility 5. Trialability Trialability
- 83. Student tutor perspective Compatibility Departmental policy of sharing Departmental open initiatives Departmental website with open materials Academics’ personal websites I like to link to university Academics’ online textbooks sites to help answer other peoples’ Students’ community engagement questions. It’s part of my campaign. (Student 2) Students’ online research activities Students’ engagement with social media Students’ interest in the OER content Students’ altruistic dispositions
- 84. Student tutor perspective Relative advantage • Relative advantage (more institutional than personal) – Institutional OER directory and/or repository – Indexing system of materials – Licensing system I think it’s good for their PR in some – Funds available ways, just to have a centralised presentation from UCT [department] to say this is what we can provide, and say to anybody this is what you can look at. (Student 1)
- 85. Student tutor perspective Ease of use Familiarity with dScribe process Ability to find alterative images Ability to use a range of software Knowledge of Creative Commons licensing So it takes work for the lecturers to create new content. Whereas what we did it did not require that much work from the lecturers side (Student 3).
- 86. Student tutor perspective Status Perception that institution’s image will be enhanced Perception that department’s profile will be raised Perception that OER development enhances their CVs A good thing to be a part of; it looks good on your CV that always motivates people (Student 2).
- 87. Student tutor perspective Voluntariness Willing to participate without payment Developing OER as part of community service I think we could have done it without being paid. Being paid was just a nice bonus (Student 1). … As you know we were paid to do this process, and we may have done it anyway, but it was good to get paid in order to help prioritize (Student 2). There is a specific amount of community service and volunteer that you must do. I don’t see why this can’t be on the list, this thing is so big like building a house, important … they should put that on the list (Student 4).
- 88. Student tutor perspective Visibility Presence of OER platform For many academics, there would have been no place previously where they could share teaching resources they were really proud of. So the project provided avenues for academics to share the content they created, providing visibility for themselves and the university (Student 6).
- 89. Student tutor perspective Result demonstrability Alterative metrics for measuring use of OER As one can … track when social media is accessed, one can develop new metrics for measuring impact and engagement with the wider community (Student 6).
- 90. Student tutor perspective Trialability Control over uploading of OER Yea there will be a link on the [departmental] web site. So perhaps what I can do is also put the links on the OpenContent. But we are sort of in the middle of trying to decide whether to post them locally or put them on YouTube. YouTube has its advantages and we cannot stream video locally. So we will probably offer both local download and YouTube (Student 3).
- 91. What encourages student tutors to create OER? Student tutor perspective Compatibility Ease of use Digital Voluntariness identity? Trialability
- 92. References • Moore, G.C. & Benbasat, I. (1991). Development of an instrument to measure the perceptions of adopting an information technology innovation. Information Systems Research, 2(3): 192-222. • Rogers, E.M. (1983). Diffusion of Innovations (3rd edition). New York: The Free Press.
- 93. Authors Laura Czerniewicz Laura.Czerniewicz@uct.ac.za Glenda Cox Glenda.Cox@uct.ac.za Cheryl Hodgkinson-Williams cheryl.hodgkinson-williams@uct.ac.za Michael Paskevicius mike.vicious@gmail.com Gregory Doyle Gregory.Doyle@uct.ac.za OpenContent Directory: http://opencontent.uct.ac.za Companion site on Vula: https://vula.uct.ac.za/portal/site/openuct OER UCT project blog: http://blogs.uct.ac.za/blog/oer-uct OpenUCT Initiative: http://openuct.uct.ac.za/ OpeningScholarship : http://openingscholarship.uct.ac.za/ Follow us: http://twitter.com/openuct Presentations: http://www.slideshare.net/laura_Cz This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.5 South Africa License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5/za/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, 171 Second Street, Suite 300, San Francisco, California, 94105, USA.
Editor's Notes
- McNay, I. (1995). From collegial academy to corporate enterprise: The changing cultures of universities. In T. Schuller (Ed.), The changing university. Buckingham: Society forResearch into Higher Education and Open University Press.A study of the relationship between institutional policy, organisationalculture and e-learning use in four South African universitiesLaura Czerniewicz *, Cheryl Brown in Computers & Education 53 (2009) 121–131
- Rossiter, D. (2007) Whither e-learning? Conceptions of change and innovation in higher education. Journalof Organisational Transformation and Social Change. 4 (1), pp.93–107.From http://edoc.ub.uni-muenchen.de/5730/1/Wan_Yee-Tak.pdfStudent Expectations in the New Millennium —An Explorative Study of the Higher Education in Hong Kong, Dissertation, zurErlangung des Doktorgrades der Philosophie an derLudwig-Maximilians-UniversitätMünchen, vorgelegt von Yee-Tak Wan ausHongkong, LMU München, 2006
- From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Cape_Town
- There's a 'teaching input' subsidy that works on the basis of enrolled students (full-time equivalents, not just headcount). It's weighted by subject category, so an Engineering or Music student earns more than a regular Hum or Commerce student. Also weighted by academic level, but not in a very nuanced way. This element is by far the biggest of the overall teaching (as opposed to research-related) subsidy. The 'teaching output' subsidy funds graduate output, so this is the reward for success. But it's not very large, only about 14% of total teaching subsidy at present. It's calculated in a fairly complicated way but a university can improve the size of its slice of the cake by improving its grad output relative to other universities'. Overall, the output incentive is commonly said to be not large enough to persuade institutions to privilege success over access, but it's certainly not negligible. For a growth-averse institution like UCT, it's important. (Scott 2012,perscomm)Bear in mind that Masters (the research component) and doctoral grads are funded from a different pot, and output here is seen to be quite lucrative (tho no-one does the cost-vs-income sums properly)
- Scholar to scholar and scholar to community- traditional sites of open access movementScholar student – traditional site of elearning
- The second key concept is the power of individuals to make a positivecontribution to bringing about change. According to Giddens’‘structuration theory’ (1984), power resides in the meshing of individualaction with organisational structures; individuals can become ‘extendedprofessionals’ (Hoyle, 1969) and act strategically to make a positivecontribution to bringing about change (Somekh & Thaler, 1997)…
- Intellectual Property policy and OERCreators of Open Educational Resources (OER) are to take note of and act in accordance with the newly-updated Intellectual Property (IP) policy of the University of Cape Town. The updated version now specifically addresses issues relating to the creation of OER resources and the licensing processes to be followed. The policy also now expressly states the support for publication of materials under Creative Commons licenses.In term of the updates, an Intellectual Property (IP) Advisory Committee is to be established to manage the processes relating to IP for UCT. Section 9 of the policy relates to creators of OER resources. It states that software development projects involving Open Source Licensing (OER) should, from the outset, submit the intended type of license agreement for review to the Research Contracts and Intellectual Property Services (RCIP) office for review in terms of compliance to South Africa’s Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) Act and guidelines.Notable aspects of the updated policy also include IP related to the creation and licensing of films as a teaching learning medium/tool. Others are (Section 8.2): UCT automatically assigns to the author(s) the copyright, unless UCT has assigned ownership to a third party in terms of a research contract, in: Scholarly and literary publications Paintings, sculptures, drawings, graphics and photographs produced as an art form Recordings of musical performances and musical compositions Course materials, with the provision that UCT retains a perpetual, royalty-free, nonexclusive licence to use, copy and adapt such materials within UCT for the purposes of teaching and or research Film.
- *
- * Displays the most diverse number of authors per faculty - not necessarily the highest number of resources submitted by faculty
- The academic who wants to publish OERThe team support OERThe institution where to put the OER
- Telling academic what is available does not really helpInternet Archive / Google advanced search / wiki media commons / creativecommons searchFlickr / compfight / Flickr storm / pixabay / alegri photos / Creativity 103 / pic drome / geograph uk /Open images / wellcome images / opengraphic / deviantArt / DryIcons / AcademicEarth / KhanAcademy / OpenVideo ProjectFreeSound / FreeMusic Archive / Jamendo / CCMixter / FreeLoops / IntraText / SourceForge / MITOpenCourseWare / OER Commons / ConnexionsXKCD / AbstruseGoose
- What are the enabling factors to support open practices for academics?Division of Labour: Are you concerned about the time and effort it will take?Time / Indexing / Publishing / Packaging / Who will pay for my time / Where will I find the information / What software do I need to know /Solution: Full time tech assistant. Part time administrators and reps
- Which license do I use, what does it mean, and where do I put it, how do I ensure I will get acknowledgement. Since we are suppose to be a 1 stop shop what can I do in terms of the university’s IP policy? And if I later want to publish it in a book and sell it?- Are my material being downloaded by whom, can I get some feedback / Licensing Example of Dr FreercksSolution: Access to OER IP and IP office
- tools for real-time interaction between learners/users of OER? As an example, there is an OpenStudy website (http://openstudy.com/)
- http://open.umich.edu/education/med/oernetwork/guides/distrib-guidelines/2011https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/oer-tech UCT has 'white-listed' some OER sites so that they they do not count towards student's internet quota: http://blogs.uct.ac.za/blog/oer-uct/2011/05/26/students-can-now-access-a-selection-of-international-oer-sites-freely
- OER is hosted online and linked to the UCT OpenContent directory. - Search across institutional OER collections. There is OER Commons, GLOBE (Global Learning Objects Brokering Exchange), OCWC Consortium, DiscoverEd (?) and the Learning Registry is a new one - a place for organizations or individuals to register their learning content Via open content website as directory, using sakai as repositoryDrupal content management system. Lifetype for bloggingMetadata : use a loosely defined oai_dc format. Our format is based on the requirements from OER Commons
- Pilot study to test robustness of Activity theory but also to start collecting cases...
- Kuutti (1996, p. 13) defines AT as “...a philosophical and cross-disciplinary framework for studying different forms of human practices as developmental processes, with both individual and social levels interlinked at the same time...”. Activity Theory enables the researcher to investigate activity within a social setting, which is also referred to as the activity system. Engeström (1987) formulated a model of the structure of this system which includes the subject, object, tools, division of labour, community, rules and outcome. In this system the Tools, Rules and Division of labour are the mediating artefacts through which the object is transformed into the outcome (Figure 1). These mediating artefacts influence how the subject (s) acts on the object in order to arrive at the outcome. The subject is therefore influenced by the rules of the system, the community and also the division of labour (Engestrom, 1987). One of the key principles of Activity theory as a dialectical theory is the concept of ‘contradiction’. Contradictions are historically present in Activity systems. When a new activity is introduced into the system internal ‘ primary’ contradictions result in “aggravated secondary contradictions where some old element collides with a new one...” (Engeström, 2001). Contradictions are present and are crucial driving forces of transformation ( Engeström and Sannino, 2010). Articulating the location of these contradictions in the system and overcoming them can transform the activity.These contradictions occur when there is a “misfit within elements, between elements, between different activities, or between different developmental phases of a single activity” (Kuutti, 1996, p.34). These contradictions can be visible or invisible, intentional or ‘...unintentional disturbances...’ (Engestrom, Brown, Christopher & Gregory, 1991, p.91)
- The research included reading much of the published material around motivations for contribution and concerns from various institutions. The literature together with the Activity theory nodes helped me group the concerns of academics from the literature and also to frame interview questions so.....
- “why would you do it;...would students actually be interested? And my materials “...may not make any sense to anybody else without lots of structure, and notes...”“Who cares”“Not convinced it would make a big difference to someone”
- There was a concern about the time it would take to get materials “..it would take some time to get to the quality that I will be happy with to getting it online...” and a concern about the ‘correctness’. One academic said he had a 1000 slides he would like to share but the images needed to by updated and improved.
- again “ who cares” but also one academic felt that there was not support and there needed to be a “unit wide and institutional conversation around adding content...”“It is not valued by my unit, so I wouldn’t worry about it”
- “ ... I think it's an obligation to share our knowledge with people who can’t afford these resources..." "...increase reach ability of resources that were previously only available in a few places..."
- Keep in mind that although the three key reasons given below enable academics to contribute OER they are also potential barriers.The academic who referred to teaching materials as being “readily accessible” also mentioned that other courses were not as media rich and could not stand alone
- One academic described how for years he had been recording his lectures and putting them up on his website. He had set up a system that meant he could easily do this. However he felt “ it’s going to be hard to get everyone to buy into a uniform model...you know people get stuck in their ways...”
- One of the academics who was interviewed who had contributed was a “OpenUCT’ grant holder. We started to allocate small grants and 800 pounds for academics to employ students, illustrators, web designers and/or desktop publishers in order to adapt existing materials or develop new materials. ( We allocated 14 grants in 2011 and will do more this year).This small grant meant a student could adapt existing materials.
- A commerce professor stressed how it was his stage in career that enabled his sharing. He added that the nature of commerce is to make money in corporate and sell courses and text books- NOT share
- Tools:Ease of use and convenienceRules:Reward excellent teaching. Eliminate concerns about promotion for research only and reward great teaching materials which will allay concerns about the quality of materials. CommunityShow cases were OER;s are used well and effectively in the class or for learning. DOLOutcome: Transform the activity so that teaching materials are open and copyright free and great quality from the start!