1. Update on the LORO journey:
from repositories to OER to OEP
Anna Comas-Quinn, Tita Beaven and Caroline Rowan Olive
Department of Languages, The Open University
“Learning from Languages at the OU and beyond”
eLearning Community, 25 April 2012

2. Session outline
• What was LORO about? Success measures
• Promoting and embedding openness: from
OER to OEP
• A user’s experience

3. Languages Open Resources Online
http://loro.open.ac.uk/

4. Languages Open Resources Online
http://loro.open.ac.uk
LORO is about:
• ...making all teaching materials for all levels
and languages available to all users,
• …allowing users to share their own materials
with the OU languages community,
• …making all tutorial materials available to the
wider languages community,
• …starting a change in the way we work (OER,
access, reflection, transparency, quality).

5. Success measures
• 1.5 million page views to date
• 20,000 downloads in the last 6 months
• over 1100 registered users
• over 2500 resources
• 900+ visitors a month from around the world
(data from LORO inbuilt stats and Google
analytics)

6. Success measures
LORO Project, Highly Commended in the
Learning Contexts category
OPAL Awards for Quality and Innovation
through Open Educational Practices.

7. The 'embededness' of the OER practice
within courses is praiseworthy. It is
anchored in a clear vision and strategy
and aims fundamentally to change the
practice of both the academics and the
teachers to include processes of sharing,
showcasing, adapting and re-using
resources.
(OPAL jury statement)

8. Definitions
• Open Educational Resources (OER) are “materials
used to support education that may be freely
accessed, reused, modified and shared by anyone”
(Downes, 2011).
• Open Educational Practices (OEP) “support the
production, use and reuse of high quality OER
through institutional policies, which promote
innovative pedagogical models, and respect and
empower learners as co-producers on their
lifelong learning path.” (ICDE, 2011).

9. Integrating OER into practice: OEP
• Embed LORO into workflows
• Make openness and OER part of other
activities
DoL Training workspace
Performing Languages
www.performinglanguages.eu
Collaborative Writing and Peer Review

11. Although the primary aim of the learning
partnership is not to produce materials but to
share experiences and develop common
understandings, the resources we produce for
our project (such as workshop activities,
lesson plans, texts and video recordings) will
be made into Open Educational Resources
(OER), freely available under a Creative
Commons license. (…) In this way, we will
ensure that the experiences and ideas from
this project can be either replicated by others
as such, or adapted to their specific context
and needs, thus increasing the impact of the
project.

12. LORO: a user’s view
Digital natives
at work (I am
not one of
these).

13. Life
before
LORO

14. My life with LORO
• Member of first Focus Group
• Uploaded Open University materials
for L313 Variationen (Advanced German)
• And so far 18 of my own resources for
L313 and L193 Rundblick, Beginners
German

15. • Download and use numerous materials,
usually as a source of ideas, which I adapt to
my own teaching style, student group,
learning objectives etc.
• but sometimes to use as they are “off the
peg.” In some emergency situations, LORO
has made the difference between a tutorial
and no tutorial.
• 2012: took part in the Collaborative Writing
project, sharing the process of peer review.

16. Short-term fellowship
July 2011 developed my
•
theoretical
understanding
of OER in a
global context
Web-based open and
distance learning
holds considerable
potential for
sustainable
development by
increasing access
and quality of
education towards
realisation of the
fundamental right to
http://wikieducator.org/UNESCO_OER_Toolkit_Draft education for all.

17. • Gave me time and support to develop a
substantial teaching resource on Migration
in Germany, addressing cultural difference
and racism.
http://loro.open.ac.uk/1263/

18. LORO as a virtual staff room
Collaborative writing
project
• Give and receive
feedback
• Introduction to peer
review
• Generate ideas
• Keep up to date with
technology (e.g. Jing)
• Maximise use of
existing resources

19. Working across languages – adapting resources
from different languages

20. “When something you’ve done is going to be
on paper for years and your name will be
attached to it, you feel the need to ensure it is
perfect. When it’s online, even if it’s open to
the rest of the world, it is incredibly
temporary, it can be changed all the time.
There is no perfect final product. I’ve never
been so aware of it before.”
(participant in the Collaborative Writing and Peer Review project)

21. Thank you for your
attention!
Contact FELS-Repository@open.ac.uk
or
Anna Comas-Quinn
A.Comas-Quinn@open.ac.uk