OER: opening doors and breaching boundaries

The white paper on higher education (BIS, 2011) refers to the government’s social mobility strategy, Opening doors, breaking barriers (HM Government, 2011). The expressed aspirations of the OER (open educational resources) community resonate with the white paper’s three central challenges: attaining sustainability; improving the learner experience; and taking responsibility for social mobility. Lee (2008), writing of the potential of OER, recalls the actions of the eponymous Jude the Obscure, whose anger at exclusion from university led him to graffiti the closed gates of ‘Biblioll College’ (Hardy, 1895). However, while both groups agree that change is necessary, there is little common ground in mapping solutions to opening doors to HE

Factory modernisation and union identity: new challenges for unions : reflections from Brazilian case studies

trade unions;modernization;industrial enterprises;Brazil;labour relations

A learning object success story

This paper outlines an approach to designing a course entirely in learning objects. It provides a theoretical basis for the design and then presents evaluation data from a master’s level course using this design. It also describes several re-uses of the learning objects on other courses and in different contexts. Each learning object is conceived as a whole learning experience, thus avoiding many of the problems associated with assembling components of disparate kinds

Employer 'Dependence' and Worker 'Allegiance' within the Factory of the Future: Evidence From Brazil

Abstract: Some commentators have suggested that employers who modernise their factory operations will become dependent on the skills and attitudes of their employees. Others go beyond this and suggest that workers in modernised firms will be persuaded to go 'beyond contract' due to the emergence of a strong and direct form of attachment to their employer. Moreover, with 'us and them' attitudes removed, it is uncertain what effect this may have on workers' attitudes to the union. This paper puts these debates about factory modernisation and workers' attitudes to the employer and the union to the test using detailed data from the Brazilian white goods industry during the 1990s. The research suggests the following in respect to this 'axis of allegiance'. First, workers can be persuaded to think in terms of an effort bargain which includes issues beyond just remuneration. Many employees are also taking a more inward-looking, 'employer positive' approach. However, their degree of attachment to the modernised firm is both limited and contingent on future, expected benefits. Secondly, in terms of the worker-union relation, the cynicism of Brazilian workers to unions may have been heightened by the policies of the modernising firm. While part of this result may be due to the modernising firms' selection policies, the union's 'electorate' may also have shifted its priorities. Despite this, many workers would still like unions to have an active and independent role. Yet this is dependent on union policies being directed towards the promotion of worker's key (and often new) workplace concerns. Finally, while these results are influenced by the Brazilian context they do raise questions about the attitudinal and behavioural underpinnings of modernisation in any environment. As long as employers act to minimise the risk to which they may become more dependent on workers, employee behaviour will, at best, only appear to indicate that they have more allegiance to the employer. Moreover, workers' concerns about workplace modernisation policies suggest that unions may not necessarily become more ineffectual and irrelevant

Development through global value chains and the achievement of decent work : challenges to work and representational processes

The co-ordination of global production and trade within value chains has amplified debates concerning the impact of globalisation on labour, especially for developing countries. Whilst many development agencies argue for value chain insertion and upgrading as optimistic development pathways, many studies suggest a nuanced, conditional evaluation of the potential impacts on labour. One fundamental aspect of labour rights and conditions concerns representation and representational processes: that is, as encapsulated by the social dialogue component of Decent Work, whether representation is both effective and autonomous. This paper uses a model of organisational identity to deepen our understanding of the impacts of value chain insertion and upgrading on labour. It uses three studies of labour conditions in value chains in one country (Brazil) to evaluate the effectiveness and challenges to representation at the local level. These studies come from the food production (tomatoes), fruit collection/processing (passion fruit) and metals (refrigeration/washer) sectors and encompass industrial unions, rural unions and cooperatives. Whilst further work is required on the local, national and international contexts surrounding these studies, the analysis does suggest amplified and new complications for organisational identity as a result of value chain engagement. This adds another component to recent (but general) conceptual-empirical considerations of labour in value chains (Knorringa & Pegler, 2006). Responding to this, and the re-juvenation of representation, requires not only well linked strategies at local and international levels (thus substantial resources) but that representative organisations confront many developments which, potentially, also hold out promising opportunities for labour (e.g. Corporate Social Responsibility and Human Resource Management strategies)

Reuse and Repurposing of Online Digital Learning Resources within UK Higher Education: 2003-2010

This research set out to examine developments in reuse and repurposing of online digital resources within higher education (HE) in the United Kingdom (UK) over a period (2003-2010), when the emphasis of educational resource reuse and repurposing activity shifted from reusable learning objects (RLO) to open educational resources (OER). It aims to contribute to understanding of this transition, and locates this shift within a broader picture of UK HE activity within the UK, and a wider understanding of reuse of learning resources in digital, online form. The research presents a review and critical examination of the environment in which reuse practice occurred. It does this through macroenvironmental, mesoenvironmental and microenvironmental level reviews. The microenvionmental review is presented through research analysis of five case examples from UK HE and a sixth example from HE in Ireland. The mesoenvironmental review examines the significant changes in resource facilitation and practice during the research period. This thesis is particularly concerned with identifying and understanding how reuse of digital online learning resources was facilitated in practice, and whether reuse occurred, or occurred in the form(s) anticipated. The thesis identifies and examines themes and factors which appeared to have influenced, or had potential to influence, reuse in each case. Cross-case comparison offers a synthesis of the research observations. Finally, a structured approach to classifying factors is suggested based on this research. This leads to generalisable recommendations of how to facilitate digital online resource reuse in the future