Presentation of Edmundo Tovar at the EIF2012 conference of the Analysis of existing research and best practices.

1. OpenCourseWare in the European HE context
Analysis of existing research and best
practices
Edmundo Tovar (Universidad Politécnica de Madrid), Igor
Lesko (OpenCourseWare Consortium), Eva Sancho
(Universidad Politécnica de Madrid)
Email address(es): edmundo.tovar@upm.es;
igorlesko@ocwconsortium.org;
eva.sancho.zamora@alumnos.upm.es;
with the support of the Lifelong Learning
opencourseware.eu Programme of the European Union
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2. Introduction
• The aim was to identify successful practices for implementation and use of
OCW/OER in HE and to investigate how OCW/OER could facilitate student
virtual mobility.
 Not to provide a thorough analysis of the use of OCW/OER around the
world but to highlight important lessons learned from the studied
initiatives.
 The research was carried as part of the Project on “OpenCourseWare in
the European Higher Education Context: how to make use of its full
potential for virtual mobility”.
• A survey has been done by leaders of OER initiatives from all around the
world.
 Responses to the survey were received from 31 Higher Education
Institutions and organizations from 14 different countries.
 Majority of respondents (81%) defined initiatives at their Institutions as
OpenCourseWare (OCW) with the remaining 19% contextualizing their
projects within the broader spectrum of Open Educational Resources
(OER).
with the support of the Lifelong Learning
opencourseware.eu Programme of the European Union
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3. Results
with the support of the Lifelong Learning
opencourseware.eu Programme of the European Union
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4. Results
The use of OCW/OER in
Teaching and Learning
Target group Frecuency %
Frecuency % To achieve professional 7 22%
qualifications
Learners 25 80%
To obtain official degrees 4 12%
Faculty members 14 45% To support teaching 25 80%
Organizational Leaders 26 83% To increase physical mobility 2 6%
To increase virtual mobility 6 19%
Profesionals 9 29% To simply provide open materials 24 75%
Other 24 77% Other 7 22%
Characteristics of Means of evaluating or certifying
published OCW/OER learning processes via OCW/OER
Frecuency % Frecuency %
Texts 31 100% Degrees 8 25%
Slides 24 77% Diplomas 3 9%
Audio materials 18 58% Certificates 6 19%
Video materials 26 83% Test 7 22%
Exercises 22 70% Exams 10 32%
Rubrics 4 12% Other 6 19%
Other 11 35%
with the support of the Lifelong Learning
opencourseware.eu Programme of the European Union
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5. Factors
Factors enabling OCW/OER initiatives Factors inhibiting OCW/OER Initiatives
• Institutional support
• Lack of institutional support
An institution supports open sharing in
• Negative attitudes from faculty
education through:
• Copyright-related challenges
-Actively encouraging participation in the
production and sharing of OCW/OER amongst
• Lack of information about institutional benefits
faculty members
related to OCW/OER projects
-Implementing open content or open access
policies
• Difficulties with finding appropriate and quality
-Providing resources (financial and staff) to
OCW/OER (when attempting to reuse materials
assist faculty members in the production of
produced elsewhere)
OCW/OER
-Providing incentives to faculty members to
engage in the production and sharing of
OCW/OER
• Positive attitudes from faculty members
with the support of the Lifelong Learning
opencourseware.eu Programme of the European Union
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6. Benefits of OCW/OER Initiatives
for the involved Institutions
• The content used by educators, professionals, and individual users.
• Allows to work in a business model.
• It increases the quality of education.
• OCW has become the KPI of the university.
• Medium for sharing information among a community of institutions.
• Increased visibility of the university.
• Increased visibility of teachers and materials.
• Collaboration with other universities.
• Teacher recognition (awards).
• Attracting new students.
• To provide to the society the knowledge generated in the university.
• Contribution to national development.
• Provide users with materials - free of charge.
• Medium to share materials among teachers.
• OER integrated into the objectives of the academic or research organizations,
scholarships, etc…
with the support of the Lifelong Learning
opencourseware.eu Programme of the European Union
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7. Uses of OCW/OER: mindmap
with the support of the Lifelong Learning
opencourseware.eu Programme of the European Union
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