This presentation was given at Association for Learning Technology Conference 2013 at Nottingham UK on 10 September 2013.

1. www.le.ac.uk
China is harvesting your iTunes U
and other findings from researching how overseas students
engage with open learning materials
Terese Bird
Learning Technologist
& SCORE Research Fellow
Institute of Learning Innovation
University of Leicester

2. What shall we talk about?
• Current HE climate -> OER
• iTunes U Reach Project
• Uni of Leicester’s OER
• Chinese Open Course
harvested from iTunes U
• How OER can help Chinese
students choose your
university
• What is China looking at?
Photo by ToGa Wanderings
on Flickr CC-BY-NC

3. OER and Open Ed: Their time has come
• Reaching for overseas
students
• Distance learning
• MOOCs
• OER as ‘soft marketing’
• JISC Factors 2011:
– Financial constraints
– Reputation
– Course marketisation
(McGill, 2011)

4. iTunes U Reach – HEA OER International
Aims & Objectives
• To gather and create high-quality open-licensed learning materials
by University of Leicester for release into iTunes U
• To document and arrange into a framework the procedures and
standards utilised in the choice and preparation of iTunes U OER
• To ascertain how international students who use iTunes U materials
find, select, and view/listen to them, and to discover whether and
how these students make conclusions about the universities that
provide them.
• To inform and listen to University of Leicester academics in
discussion considering how iTunes U may be of use to share out
their materials and message to international students

5. Online Survey N=102 ‘potential students’
(Bird, 2013)

6. Do you use, or have you ever used, iTunes U?’

7. ‘Do you use, or have you ever used, iTunes U?’ –
by country

8. How do/did you select suitable materials?

9. What was your reason for selecting these
materials? (Choose all that apply)

10. Have these materials helped you to
achieve this aim?

11. As a result of your experiences with these
materials, would you consider studying at
the institution that produced them?

12. Leicester’s Multimedia OER
• YouTube channel videos
• Narrated presentations
• Still images or screencasts with
voiceover
• Audio lecture recordings
• Audio research vigniettes
• Ebooks – pdf, epub, .ibooks

13. Happy Harvesting
• Netease software company
joined OCW 2011
• Harvest CC-licensed(?)
Western VIDEO of interest to
interns working at Netease,
for OpenCourse app:
– Western law
– Media / Social Media
– Philosophy / Death
– Kahn
– TED

14. Your university’s OER can encourage
enrollment by Chinese students
• Agents
• League tables
• After being accepted,
students search for
course content and
sample lectures

15. What did China look at on Univ Leicester
iTunes U? 1-10 August, 2013
Subject Video Audio Doc Browse/Subscribe
English 5 5 20
Medicine 13 10 1
History 1 4
Engineering/Programming 2
Psychology 10
Media & Communications 7
Management 4 5
Forensic Science 2
Actuarial Science 6 1
Chemistry 6
Public Lectures 1

16. Final tips for a Chinese Connection
• Post a video on YouTube, embed on Youku
• Try SinaWeibo, the Chinese Twitter
• Contact Netease to suggest your university’s open
material for their app
Image from
Netease
recorded
lecture by M
Sandel

17. Thank you!
• Bird, T. (2013). iTunes U Reach: Case Study of
University of Leicester’s Release of Open Educational
Resources for International Students through iTunes
U. Leicester, UK.
• McGill, L. (2012). OER Synthesis and Evaluation / OER
Synthesis and Evaluation Project. OER Synthesis and
Evaluation Project. Retrieved March 09, 2013, from
https://oersynth.pbworks.com/w/page/29595671/O
ER Synthesis and Evaluation Project