Developing sustainable business models for institutions’ provision of open educational resources: Learning from OpenLearn users’ motivations and experiences

Universities across the globe have, for some time, been exploring the possibilities for achieving public benefit and generating business and visibility through releasing and sharing open educational resources (OER). Many have written about the need to develop sustainable and profitable business models around the production and release of OER. Downes (2006), for example, has questioned the financial sustainability of OER production at scale. Many of the proposed business models focus on OER’s value in generating revenue and detractors of OER have questioned whether they are in competition with formal education. This paper reports on a study intended to broaden the conversation about OER business models to consider the motivations and experiences of OER users as the basis for making a better informed decision about whether OER and formal learning are competitive or complementary with each other. The study focused on OpenLearn - the Open University’s (OU) web-based platform for OER, which hosts hundreds of online courses and videos and is accessed by over 3,000,000 users a year. A large scale survey and follow-up interviews with OpenLearn users worldwide revealed that university provided OER can offer learners a bridge to formal education, allowing them to try out a subject before registering on a formal course and to build confidence in their abilities as learners. In addition, it was found that using OER during formal paid-for study can improve learners’ performance and self-reliance, leading to increased retention and satisfaction with the learning experience

Open educational resources for all? Comparing user motivations and characteristics across The Open University’s iTunes U channel and OpenLearn platform.

With the rise in access to mobile multimedia devices, educational institutions have exploited the iTunes U platform as an additional channel to provide free educational resources with the aim of profile-raising and breaking down barriers to education. For those prepared to invest in content preparation, it is possible to produce interactive, portable material that can be made available globally. Commentators have questioned both the financial implications for platform-specific content production, and the availability of devices for learners to access it (Osborne, 2012). The Open University (OU) makes its free educational resources available on iTunes U and via its web-based open educational resources (OER) platform, OpenLearn. The OU’s OER on iTunes U reached the 60 million download mark in 2013; its OpenLearn platform boasts 27 million unique visitors since 2006. This paper reports the results of a large-scale study of users of the OU’s iTunes U channel and OpenLearn platform. A survey of several thousand users revealed key differences in demographics between those accessing OER via the web and via iTunes U. In addition, the data allowed comparison between three groups: formal learners, informal learners and educators. The study raises questions about whether university-provided OER meet the needs of users and makes recommendations for how content can be modified to suit their needs. As the publishing of OER becomes core to business, we reflect on reasons why understanding users’ motivations and demographics is vital, allowing for needs-led resource provision and content that is adapted to best achieve learner satisfaction, and to deliver institutions’ social mission

How to Assist Tutors to Rebuild Groups Within an ITS by Exploiting Traces. Case of a Closed Forum.

Computer Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL) is a new mode of teaching and one of the popular approaches for learning process. It allows virtual interactions between groups by providing tools such as: chat, internal email and discussion forums. One of the major problems caused by this learning process is the neglect and isolation of learners in groups, and usually is the cause of a heterogeneous group through social, cognitive or emotional ways. The method used is based on the exploitation of traces left on the online learning platform by learners and groups. The data collected from the environment can be observed and exploited in order to build social and cognitive indicators. Our approach is to design a model which assists the tutor to rebuild groups who are not homogeneous in order to prevent their isolation and abandonment. Our model offers the tutor the opportunity to rebuild the groups in an automatic way and based on the characteristics of quantitative indicators of all learners. Our work allowed us to test our algorithm from a functional and technical point of view and also identifies real variables from a collaborative online learning. It also allowed us to evaluate six different indicators proposed for this experiment, showing that they may assist the tutor to rebuild many groups again. The results show us that after the rebuilding groups, there has been a lot of participation in the forum and a considerable number of shares and documents deposited to the forum for each group. This high frequency of interaction between learners, lead them to a fruitful collaboration, and a good quality work at the end. The integration of other more advanced indicators may provide to tutor a better visibility to rebuild the groups that face difficulties

Creative space - creating space - digital technology in a women's prison : a case study

Prison education has the potential to transforms offenders. It forms part of prison regimes for female offenders. At the beginning of the 21st century prison education and basic skills development are at the centre of rehabilitation debates. Computer technology has transformed human communication and interactions rendering digital literacy a basic skill in the 21st century and part of the rehabilitation agenda. However, prison education is not just entangled within rehabilitation debates. It is also an economic and prison security debate. Computer technology is already in use to manage offenders in local institutions and within wider prison and probation networks. Its application in prison education has been slow due to security imperatives of prisons. However, it has great potential to, on one hand, enhance learning opportunities for prisoners and, on the other, create inclusive prison classrooms that account for the diversity of its learners. The focus of this thesis is the application of computer technology in prison education for women. It, however, extends its view outside of ICT prison classrooms to account for the actors involved in shaping local classroom contexts. The thesis is not concerned with teaching techniques nor does it attempt to provide teaching guidelines. Using an actor-network approach, it, however, analysis how groups such as the female offender are stabilised to inform local procedures. It understands prison induction as start points of (in)dividual prison learner journeys. It examines closely the technologies and procedures that create educational data fragments - ‘virtual’ educational risk and needs potentialities - used to allocate learner in classes, but, more importantly, to create tightly managed, pre-formatted learning spaces. It, further, analyses how tutors and women appropriate those pre-designed spaces and provides detailed recommendations for the implementation of computer technology in prison classrooms for women

Review of Learning 2.0 Practices: Study on the Impact of Web 2.0 Innovations on Education and Training in Europe

Over the last few years, ¿web 2.0¿ or ¿social computing¿ applications like blogs, wikis, photo- and video-sharing sites, as well as online social networking sites and virtual worlds, have seen unprecedented take up. This has changed the way people access, manage and exchange knowledge, and the way they connect and interact. Younger people especially are using these tools and services as a natural way of extending their personal relations and as a means of keeping in touch with friends. This trend is accompanied by the emergence of structurally different learning styles, especially among young people. As a result, living, learning and working patterns have already changed significantly and are expected to change even more dramatically in the future. Education and training systems need innovative ways of fostering new skills for new jobs, taking into account the changing living, working and learning patterns in a digital society. So far, however, education and training systems have not, on the whole, reacted to these changes. Neither schools nor universities have seized the potential of digital media for enhancing learning and addressing their learners¿ needs. Due to the novelty of social computing, take up in education and training is still in an experimental phase. There are various diverse small-scale projects and initiatives all over Europe, which try to exploit social computing for a multitude of learning purposes, but research on enabling and disabling factors is scarce. This study is part of a collaboration project between the European Commission¿s Joint Research Centre (JRC-IPTS) and its Directorate General for Education and Culture (DG EAC). The objective is to investigate the innovative and inclusive potential of social computing applications in formal education by reviewing current practice. The report identifies, structures and analyses existing Learning 2.0 practice in Europe with a view to generating evidence on the impact of social computing for learning and its potential in promoting innovation and inclusion. It combines a review of research on Learning 2.0 with the collection of experience and good practice from a broad variety of cases.JRC.J.4-Information Societ

Located Lexicon: a project that explores how user generated content describes place

This extended conference paper explores the use and potential of location data in social media contexts. The research involved a series of experiments undertaken to assess the extent to which location information is present in exchanges, directly or indirectly. A prototype application was designed to exploit the insight obtained from the data-gathering experiments. This enabled us to develop a method and toolkit for searching, extracting and visualising mass-generated data for open source use. Ultimately, we were able to generate insights into data quality and ‘scale of query’ for emerging pedagogical research in learning swarms and distributed learners

Student Expectations: The effect of student background and experience

CONTEXT The perspectives and previous experiences that students bring to their programs of study can affect their approaches to study and the depth of learning that they achieve Prosser & Trigwell, 1999; Ramsden, 2003). Graduate outcomes assume the attainment of welldeveloped independent learning skills which can be transferred to the work-place. PURPOSE This 5-year longitudinal study investigates factors influencing students’ approaches to learning in the fields of Engineering, Software Engineering, and Computer Science, at two higher education institutes delivering programs of various levels in Australia and New Zealand. The study aims to track the development of student approaches to learning as they progress through their program. Through increased understanding of students’ approaches, faculty will be better able to design teaching and learning strategies to meet the needs of an increasingly diverse student body. This paper reports on the first stage of the project. APPROACH In August 2017, we ran a pilot of our survey using the Revised Study Process Questionnaire(Biggs, Kember, & Leung, 2001) and including some additional questions related to student demographics and motivation for undertaking their current program of study. Data were analysed to evaluate the usefulness of data collected and to understand the demographics of the student cohort. Over the period of the research, data will be collected using the questionnaire and through focus groups and interviews. RESULTS Participants provided a representative sample, and the data collected was reasonable, allowing the questionnaire design to be confirmed. CONCLUSIONS At this preliminary stage, the study has provided insight into the student demographics at both institutes and identified aspects of students’ modes of engagement with learning. Some areas for improvement of the questionnaire have been identified, which will be implemented for the main body of the study