Open educational resources : conversations in cyberspace

172 p. : ill. ; 25 cm.Libro ElectrónicoEducation systems today face two major challenges: expanding the reach of education and improving its quality. Traditional solutions will not suffice, especially in the context of today's knowledge-intensive societies. The Open Educational Resources movement offers one solution for extending the reach of education and expanding learning opportunities. The goal of the movement is to equalize access to knowledge worldwide through openly and freely available online high-quality content. Over the course of two years, the international community came together in a series of online discussion forums to discuss the concept of Open Educational Resources and its potential. This publication makes the background papers and reports from those discussions available in print.--Publisher's description.A first forum : presenting the open educational resources (OER) movement. Open educational resources : an introductory note / Sally Johnstone -- Providing OER and related issues : an introductory note / Anne Margulies, ... [et al.] -- Using OER and related issues : in introductory note / Mohammed-Nabil Sabry, ... [et al.] -- Discussion highlights / Paul Albright -- Ongoing discussion. A research agenda for OER : discussion highlights / Kim Tucker and Peter Bateman -- A 'do-it-yourself' resource for OER : discussion highlights / Boris Vukovic -- Free and open source software (FOSS) and OER -- A second forum : discussing the OECD study of OER. Mapping procedures and users / Jan Hylén -- Why individuals and institutions share and use OER / Jan Hylén -- Discussion highlights / Alexa Joyce -- Priorities for action. Open educational resources : the way forward / Susan D'Antoni

Public Services 2.0: The Impact of Social Computing on Public Services

This report presents the findings of the study on "Public Services 2.0: The Impact of Social Computing on Public Services" conducted by TNO and DTI on behalf of IPTS from 2008 to 2009. The report gives an overview of the main trends of Social Computing, in the wider context of an evolving public sector, and in relation to relevant government trends and normative policy visions on future public services within and across EU Member States. It then provides an exhaustive literature review of research and practice in the area of Social Computing and identifies its key impact areas in the public sector. The report goes on to discuss four case studies of Social Computing-enabled communities in different areas: education (Connexions), health (Doctors.net.uk), inclusion (PatientsLikeMe) and governance (Wikileaks). This is followed by the findings of a scenario-building exercise in which two alternative scenarios were developed and related future opportunities and risks discussed. Additionally, the report presents the results of a cross-case analysis and an ad-hoc online survey which identifies the level of usage, the general characteristics and the key drivers of Social Computing for public services. The report concludes with a summary of research challenges and policy-relevant recommendations. Evidence from the study indicates that Social Computing technologies, applications and values have already been adopted in many areas of government activity. Social Computing affects several aspects of public service, related to both the front office (citizen-government relations) and the back office activities of public administrations. Social Computing is leading to new forms of ICT-enabled participation, capable of enhancing users¿ social awareness and involvement. Social Computing is also transforming relationships and ways of working within and between public sector organisations and opens the way to innovative service delivery mechanisms.JRC.J.4-Information Societ

A flexible open source web platform to facilitate Learning Object evaluation

Systematic evaluation of Learning Objects is essential to make high quality Web-based education possible. For this reason, several educational repositories and e-Learning systems have developed their own evaluation models and tools. However, the differences of the context in which Learning Objects are produced and consumed suggest that no single evaluation model is sufficient for all scenarios. Besides, no much effort has been put in developing open tools to facilitate Learning Object evaluation and use the quality information for the benefit of end users. This paper presents LOEP, an open source web platform that aims to facilitate Learning Object evaluation in different scenarios and educational settings by supporting and integrating several evaluation models and quality metrics. The work exposed in this paper shows that LOEP is capable of providing Learning Object evaluation to e-Learning systems in an open, low cost, reliable and effective way. Possible scenarios where LOEP could be used to implement quality control policies and to enhance search engines are also described. Finally, we report the results of a survey conducted among reviewers that used LOEP, showing that they perceived LOEP as a powerful and easy to use tool for evaluating Learning Objects

The 2010 Horizon report

Titre de l'écran-titre (visionné le 22 mars 2010

Enhancing curriculum design and delivery with OER

This paper reports on the key findings from the EVOL-OER project which aims to develop a deeper understanding of the reuse of open educational resources (OERs) by academics in Higher Education Institutions (HEIs). This paper builds on the JISC OER Impact study by exploring and expanding on the Ratified quadrant of the study’s landscape of reuse framework (White & Manton, 2011). This paper puts forward a different four-quadrant diagram called ‘OER-enhanced curriculum’ to illustrate different approaches adopted by academics to embedding OER into curriculum design and delivery. Key issues in relation to motivation and challenges in reusing OER are discussed

Lifelong guidance policy and practice in the EU

A study on lifelong guidance (LLG) policy and practice in the EU focusing on trends, challenges and opportunities. Lifelong guidance aims to provide career development support for individuals of all ages, at all career stages. It includes careers information, advice, counselling, assessment of skills and mentoring