Designing Open Educational Resources through Knowledge Maps to enhance Meaningful learning

This paper demonstrates some pedagogical strategies for developing Open Educational Resources (OERs) using the knowledge mapping tool Compendium. It also describes applications of Knowledge Maps to facilitate meaningful learning by focusing on specific OER examples. The study centres on the OpenLearn project, a large scale online environment that makes a selection of higher education learning resources freely available via the internet. OpenLearn, which is supportedby William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, was launched in October 2006 and in the two year period of its existence hasreleased over 8,100 learning hours of the OU's distance learning resources for free access and modification by learnersand educators under the Creative Commons license. OpenLearn also offers three knowledge media tools: Compendium(knowledge mapping software), MSG (instant messaging application with geolocation maps) and FM (web-based videoconferencing application). Compendium is a software tool for visual thinking, used to connect ideas, concepts, arguments, websites and documents. There are numerous examples of OERs that have been developed and delivered by institutions across the world, for example, MIT, Rice, Utah State, Core, Paris Tech, JOCW. They present a wide variety of learning materials in terms of styles as well as differing subject content. Many such offerings are based upon original lecture notes, hand-outs and other related papers used in face-to-face teaching. Openlearn OERs, however, are reconstructed from original self study distance learning materials developed at the Open University and from a vast academic catalogue of materials. Samples of these “units” comprise a variety of formats: text, images, audio and video. In this study, our findings illustratethe benefits of sharing some OER content through knowledge maps, the possibility of condensing high volumes of information,accessing resources in a more attractive way, visualising connections between diverse learning materials, connecting new ideas to familiar references, organising thinking and gaining new insights into subject specific content

Responsive Open Learning Environments at the Open University

Personal Learning Environments (PLEs) offer new opportunities for supporting personalized and self regulated learning both in formal and in informal education. The Open University in the UK is an early adopter of PLEs through a number of different initiatives, one of which is the European project ROLE (Responsive Open Learning Environments). This paper presents some of the lessons learned and best practices from the introduction of ROLE technologies within an informal learning test-bed at the Open University

College-aged ageism: A study of the perceptions and discourse surrounding the aging process

Ageism has become a much more prevalent issue in recent years. The biases and prejudices that exist towards the aging only reinforce the narrative that portrays aging as a process of decline. This study aims to discover the perceptions that current college students have towards aging, as viewed through their discourse and manners of speaking about the aging process. In addition, through the use of the Anxiety about Aging Scale (Lasher & Faulkender, 1993) this study highlights the degree of anxieties this age group might have towards their own aging process as compared against similar collegiate-aged data from 15 years ago. Findings show still a significant, articulate level of ageist stereotyping present in current college student’s discourse, most notably in regard to its focus on appearance as central to a person’s value

ICOPER Project - Deliverable 4.3 ISURE: Recommendations for extending effective reuse, embodied in the ICOPER CD&R

The purpose of this document is to capture the ideas and recommendations, within and beyond the ICOPER community, concerning the reuse of learning content, including appropriate methodologies as well as established strategies for remixing and repurposing reusable resources. The overall remit of this work focuses on describing the key issues that are related to extending effective reuse embodied in such materials. The objective of this investigation, is to support the reuse of learning content whilst considering how it could be originally created and then adapted with that ‘reuse’ in mind. In these circumstances a survey on effective reuse best practices can often provide an insight into the main challenges and benefits involved in the process of creating, remixing and repurposing what we are now designating as Reusable Learning Content (RLC). Several key issues are analysed in this report: Recommendations for extending effective reuse, building upon those described in the previous related deliverables 4.1 Content Development Methodologies and 4.2 Quality Control and Web 2.0 technologies. The findings of this current survey, however, provide further recommendations and strategies for using and developing this reusable learning content. In the spirit of ‘reuse’, this work also aims to serve as a foundation for the many different stakeholders and users within, and beyond, the ICOPER community who are interested in reusing learning resources. This report analyses a variety of information. Evidence has been gathered from a qualitative survey that has focused on the technical and pedagogical recommendations suggested by a Special Interest Group (SIG) on the most innovative practices with respect to new media content authors (for content authoring or modification) and course designers (for unit creation). This extended community includes a wider collection of OER specialists. This collected evidence, in the form of video and audio interviews, has also been represented as multimedia assets potentially helpful for learning and useful as learning content in the New Media Space (See section 4 for further details). Section 2 of this report introduces the concept of reusable learning content and reusability. Section 3 discusses an application created by the ICOPER community to enhance the opportunities for developing reusable content. Section 4 of this report provides an overview of the methodology used for the qualitative survey. Section 5 presents a summary of thematic findings. Section 6 highlights a list of recommendations for effective reuse of educational content, which were derived from thematic analysis described in Appendix A. Finally, section 7 summarises the key outcomes of this work

A small project and a big venture: sharing practices between two different scale OER developments

Sharing knowledge between OER initiatives and the reality of what actually happens in practice can lead to the fostering of openness amongst yet further initiatives and consequently enable our communities of practice to grow (Lane and Darby, 2012). Such knowledge sharing and learning of valuable lessons involves OER projects both large and small; projects ranging from those involving a few individuals, to those based in departments, and covering discipline areas as well as those that have arisen as a result of large institutional OER investments. This paper sets out to offer insight into, and contrast, the practices and knowledge sharing of two very different UK based OER projects: the internationally recognised OpenLearn project (McAndrew et al, 2009), established by the Open University in 2006 and the smaller scale Open Resource Bank for Interactive Teaching (ORBIT) project established at the University of Cambridge in 2012 (Hassler at al, 2012). In turn it highlights the other initiatives that informed or were informed by these two projects. On the one hand we provide a direct comparison between OpenLearn, established at a University as a big institutional approach and aiming to reach a broad academic audience, with ORBIT, developed as a small specialised project within a Faculty of Education and focused on a more targeted audience: that of primary and secondary school teachers of mathematics and science, and teacher educators in those areas. On the other hand we set out the expectations of the principal stakeholders - learners and educators – as well as mapping out the wide range of other projects and initiatives that they shared knowledge with and vice versa. If we are to understand and facilitate the spread of open practice, it is important to examine the knowledge sharing practices and approaches of both smallscale and large-scale ventures as well as the role of knowledge brokers

OERopoly: A game to generate collective intelligence around OER

Collective Intelligence (CI ) is a phenomenon that emerges at the crossroads of three worlds: Open Educational Resources (OER), Web 2.0 technologies and Online Learning Communities. Building CI for the OER movement means capturing the richness of information, experiences, knowledge and resources, that the movement is constantly generating, in a way that they can be shared and reused for the benefit of the movement itself. The organisation of CI starts from collecting the knowledge and experiences of OER's practitioners and scholars in new creative forms, and then situating this knowledge in a collective 'pot' from where it can be leveraged with new 'intelligent' meanings and toward new 'intelligent' goals. This workshop is an attempt to do so by engaging participants in a CI experience, in which they will contribute to, and at the same time take something from, the existing CI around OER, Web 2.0 technologies and Online Learning Communities

Introducing personal learning environments to informal learners: lessons learned from the OpenLearn case study

Personal Learning Environments (PLEs) hold the potential to address the needs of informal learners for multi-sourced content and easily customisable learning environments. This paper presents the lessons learned from a case study regarding the use of widget-based PLEs by informal learners for finding and evaluating Open Educational Resources (OER). The lessons learned from this case study have allowed the authors to detect some of the obstacles for the successful adoption of PLEs by informal learners, as well as to identify ways for overcoming these obstacles

Post Stroke Survivors' Experiences of the First Four Weeks During the Transition Directly Home From the Hospital

Thesis advisor: Ellen K. MahoneyPurpose: The purpose of this qualitative descriptive study was to investigate the experiences of post stroke survivors (PSSs) during transition from hospital discharge home during the first four weeks. Background: PSSs describe the transition from hospital to home as an important time in recovery and stress various physical and cognitive concerns early within the recovery period. Research to date fails to adequately reflect PSSs' experiences early after discharge home. This gap in research limits the ability to create interventions for PSSs during this critical time period. Methods/analysis: Semi-structured telephone interviews were conducted with 31 participants, recruited from a large metropolitan hospital in the northeastern United States. The use of in-vivo codes lead to the development of themes that described PSSs' experiences during the four week transitional period. Credibility and transferability of findings were strengthened through memoing, field notes, reflexivity of analysis, member checking, and peer review throughout the analysis process by qualitative experts. Results: The five major themes were: (a) the shock of a stroke interrupting a normal day, (b) transition to an unfamiliar home, (c) experiencing a life riddled with uncertainty, (d) a journey to a new sense of self, and (e) adjusting to a new sense of self. Throughout their journey all PSSs had to cope with uncertainty and adjust to a new sense of self. PSSs that experienced less uncertainty were able to return to their prior daily routine, knew how to prevent another stroke, had a helpful support system, and had frequent follow-up and communication with health care professionals. Conclusion: All PSSs are at risk for complications regardless of stroke severity. To address PSSs complex needs, nurses can provide care beyond symptom management by fostering a dynamic intentional relationship to support recovery. The framework resulting from this study can provide the platform for advanced neuroscience nurses to engage with PSSs to improve their recovery and adjustment to a new sense of self as they transition from hospital to home.Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2014.Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.Discipline: Philosophy

Creating open educational resources: a workshop

This session aims to provide an opportunity for conference participants to learn about and share their knowledge and expertise in the creation of Open Educational Resources (OERs). In the first part of the session, the convenors will share their experience from the OpenLearn project, describing some examples from different disciplines and topic areas, with a view to illustrating broad areas of concern as well as opportunities for re-use and repurposing. The main part of the session, however, will offer participants the opportunity to co-create an OER, share their views and experiences and discuss the benefits, limitations and issues they envisage