New ways of mediating learning: Investigating the implications of adopting Open Educational Resources for tertiary education at an institution in the United Kingdom as compared to one in South Africa

Access to education is not freely available to all. Open Educational Resources (OERs) have the potential to change the playing field in terms of an individual's right to education. The Open University in the United Kingdom was founded almost forty years ago on the principle of 'open' access with no entry requirements necessary. The University develops innovative high quality multiple media distance-learning courses. In a new venture called OpenLearn, The Open University is making its course materials freely available worldwide on the Web as OERs ( see http://www.open.ac.uk/openlearn). How might other institutions make use of these distance-learning materials? The paper starts by discussing the different contexts wherein two institutions operate and the inequalities that exist between them. One institution is a university based in South Africa and the other is a college located in the United Kingdom. Both institutions, however, deliver distance-learning courses. The second part of the paper discusses preliminary findings when OERs are considered for tertiary education at these two institutions. The findings emphasise some of the opportunities and challenges that exist if these two institutions adopt OERs

Investigating supported or unsupported individual and group work in open forums in an open educational resources repository

Open Educational Resources (OERs) can play a part in advancing the lifelong learning and social inclusion agendas (Geser, 2007). The focal point of this paper is on how learners of different ages will be encouraged to adopt OERs by their teachers and facilitators. The discussion starts by looking at how the facilitators will support their learners in an open arena. This is followed by the facilitators approach to individual and group work in an open access environment. The discourse then moves on to whether open forums attached to OERs will be used instead of closed and password protected areas. This paper gives initial feedback about the intended usage of OERs for co-operative and collaborative learning

Transformation for an open education repository: issues associated with IT and computing distance learning course materials

The number of Open Educational Resource Repositories available worldwide continues to grow and many contain course materials from campus-based institutions. The Open University in the United Kingdom (UK) has influenced the OER movement by releasing traditional distance learning course materials as OERs. This paper discusses issues associated with the transformation of Open University distance learning course materials in the IT and Computing subject area into OERs

Hijacking hypermedia and other highways to learn computer science on a distance‐learning course

Centres for higher education are seeking to adopt online systems to improve their course presentation. The investigation of how these facilities can be beneficial to teaching and learning is essential STILE (Students’ and Teachers’ Integrated Learning Environment) is a project which involved four universities in the United Kingdom. The online facilities were provided in both campus and distance‐learning situations. The system used was based on the World Wide Web. However, because the Web did not comfortably facilitate conferencing in 1995, at the Open University we also adopted a proprietary conferencing system. This paper describes not only how interested the students were in the extra material provided online in both the conferencing and Web environments, but also how beneficial they felt each medium was to their learning. The tutors’ perceptions of their students’ participation with these online facilities is also discusse

E-Learning and support tools for Information and Computer Sciences

The availability of Web 2.0 tools together with associated Open Educational Resources (OER) enables the creation of new social and collaborative learning spaces. This paper investigates student preferences (across three cohorts) in terms of openly and freely accessible Web 2.0 tools to provide a space where students can interact with each other and their tutor to discuss concerns that arise within their final year project-based learning. This intervention was planned since existing arrangements that support communication between tutor and distance learning students appeared insufficient to facilitate the necessarily intense episodes of interaction required for productive supervision. The findings suggest that different student cohorts are interested in using a variety of Web 2.0 tools. This paper gives initial feedback about intended usage of Web 2.0 tools for co-operative and collaborative learning for final year project work

Piloting a new approach: Making use of technology to present a distance learning computer science course

Computer‐Mediated Communication (CMC) systems have been described and evaluated in a number of ways by different researchers in the field. This paper proposes that computer conferencing systems should be designed to encourage students to participate in three dimensions previously treated by separate researchers. These can be summarized as a knowledge dimension, a social dimension and a motivational dimension. This paper reports on how one particular conference, that of M205‐STILE, was constructed to take account of these dimensions and to facilitate students’ computer‐supported cooperative learning

Is it sustainable? A comparison of student and tutor online time across three distance‐learning courses

Distance‐learning course providers world‐wide are looking to new technology to enhance their course presentations. One of the areas they are beginning to assess is that of integrating Computer Mediated Communication (CMC) into their courses. An important factor to be borne in mind with the adoption of CMC is the amount of time required to be an active participant. It is important therefore to investigate how much time tutors and students spend online, and if this is sustainable in the longer term. This paper discusses tutor and student involvement in the Open University M205 ‐ STILE project, and compares these findings with the time spent online by students and tutors on two other Open University courses. Our aim was to see if our findings were atypical. The comparisons are discussed, and recommendations are made about how future online courses can benefit from the findings of this study

Sharing software engineering resources and open source software across entities

This paper describes a number of ‘good ideas’ designed to assist staff who are involved in the management, delivery or support of student project work. The ideas were formed from a Disciplinary Commons. The good ideas discussed include online forums, a project repository, alternative project structures, project preparation, progress reviews, instant supervision, peer support and anti-cheating mechanisms. Readers are encouraged to dip in, consider the ideas and implement those of most use for their own institutions