2-D histories: media texts and the creation of the past

Why might it be desirable or possible for historians to analyse media texts? The objective of this paper is to outline some theoretical considerations which seem necessary to the planning and execution of such a research project. I will discuss the question of how both media and history relate to the past, examine the significance of narrative as a device that brings coherence to media and historical texts, and finally relate these points to the construction of national identity

Method or Madness? Textual analysis in media studies

Scholarly analyses of media have tended to view the media text (e.g. film / programme / article) as the logical site of enquiry. However, this focus on the text has often resulted in a privileging of the text as the locus of meaning. The validity of textual analysis as a research method has increasingly been called into question due to the influence of poststructuralist theories and the critique of textually-based research emerging from the ‘new audience studies’. In this paper I examine the debates surrounding texts, audiences and meanings from a poststructuralist perspective. I argue that the rethinking of subjectivity achieved by discourse theory provides the key to a new conception of textual analysis, which remains a vital and rewarding approach to the study of media and culture

A vision of quality in repositories of open educational resources

In the future, Open Educational Practices (OEP) will facilitate access to open materials by promoting collaboration among educators, who will share, reuse and evaluate digital pedagogical content using Repositories of Open Educational Resources (ROER)

Blackboard Teaching and Learning Conference 2010

Conference revie

Open in the Evening: Openings and Closures in an Ecology of Practices

Recently a critical turn has emerged in the open education literature. In addition to voices which have critiqued open education as under-theorised (Bayne, Knox & Ross, 2015; Edwards, 2015; Gourlay, 2015; Knox, 2013; Oliver, 2015; Veletsianos & Kimmons, 2012), another strand has called upon scholars and practitioners to refocus their attention on open educational practices (OEP). From this perspective, open forms of education (like education in general) are framed as a range of processes undertaken by human beings, rather than consisting specifically in the resources they create or amend. This framing appears to offer the possibility of deeper insights into actual practices, but whereas the forms of openness afforded by OER or MOOCs are well understood, it is less obvious what exactly makes a practice open. However, this inherent ambiguity might be viewed as a strength rather than a weakness of OEP: while much of the literature discussing OEP has framed the concept in relation to OER, there is a more expansive concept of OEP which recognises other forms of openness and ways of opening (Havemann, 2016; Cronin, 2017; Cronin & MacLaren, 2018; Roberts et al, 2018). Taking its cue from this line of enquiry, this chapter considers the question of what is open about (or opened by) open education, and how the concept of OEP can potentially aid this investigation. It focuses on a case study of practice at Birkbeck, University of London, which is an institution of higher education that itself grew out of a particular instance of opening almost 200 years ago. The case study will illustrate the senses in which Birkbeck, along with the particular case of practice under study, is characterised by an interplay of openings and closures

Researching the registry: establishing an open education policy dataset

Much discussion of open education policy has occurred at the supranational level and in some cases, nations and subnational governments have taken up the challenge of incorporating open resources and practices into policymaking. What is less clear, and less straightforward to investigate is the extent to which individual institutions are developing policy to support openness. This session reports on work in progress towards the author's current study of OE policymaking in higher education institutions. In order to sketch some key features of the OE policy landscape for this wider study, it is necessary to collect and examine a wide range of existing institutional policy documents. The OER Policy Registry is an existing dataset, previously maintained by Creative Commons, which has been imported into the OER World Map (oerworldmap.org) in 2018. At the time of writing the registry contains 148 policies, or more accurately, records of policies indicating the source organisation and link and some metadata regarding type. It is not yet clear whether the current metadata held and/or schema are well-suited to the use cases of potential visitors to the registry. Furthermore, it is not yet clear that all records represent an actual 'policy', and if not, what other designations will be most appropriate. Therefore, prior to conducting research based on the registry as dataset, there is a need to audit the contents of the registry to understand what exactly it contains and establish inclusion and exclusion criteria for this aspect of the study, as well as helping to enhance the use of metadata to describe the current collection and future entries. This session will tell part of the author's research story, of identifying and describing an OE policy dataset, and initial findings from the investigation

Open to all? We need to be more critical - and more connected

Blog post for OER18 conference website

Literacies for open practice: open up and say OER?

Presentation on Open Educational Resources (OER) and Open Educational Practice (OEP), which can be understood as blogging, tweeting, presenting about, debating, and other forms of transparency around academic practice, in ways that promote reusability, revision, collaboration. Delivered at BLE event: Digital Literacy for Teaching and Research, held at IOE, London, 19 February 2014

Crowdsourcing quality (or, why openness matters)

In a trajectory that did not simply begin from MIT OpenCourseWare (OCW), via Open Educational Resources (OER), and latterly arrive at a promised land of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), a plethora of institutions, organisations and individuals have attempted through various and numerous interventions to ‘open up’ the education landscape to a wider range of travellers, inhabitants and tourists. And in a way, the question of quality has always dogged open education’s steps. Would open universities attract ‘quality’ students? Would open resources and courses be of good enough quality, and how could we be sure? Open, it seemed, might pose a threat to quality, or at least place a question mark over it. Yet, as openness has gained traction, it has also been suggested that quality might be bolstered and supported through the wisdom of crowds

Skills Not Silos: Open Data as OER

Open Data is produced and used at various levels in research, governance, policy making and civil society. So far though, conversation around its value and significance has tended to occur within an Open Data silo, existing in parallel with other open discussions around Open Educational Resources and Open Access. In our presentation we explore practices which make use of Open Data as OER, with a focus on the the opportunities and challenges inherent in this approach. For the OECD, "All citizens should have equal opportunities and multiple channels to access information, be consulted and participate. Every reasonable effort should be made to engage with as wide a variety of people as possible." A central challenge in higher education is to develop skills useful not only at subject/professional level, but which also engage students with real-world problems. The skills needed to participate in democratic discussions can be understood as transversal skills, defined by UNESCO (2015) as "Critical and innovative thinking, inter-personal skills; intrapersonal skills, and global citizenship". If one of our goals as educators is to develop these transversal skills in students, towards enabling them to function as citizens, to actively participate in the discourse and debates of society, then we propose that Open Data can play a key role. Open Data has been understood as key to research, policy and governance development, and also heralded as a force for democratic discourse and participation, but in our view, this is not achieved by opening data alone. By using Open Data in research- and scenario-based learning activities, educators can enhance the information, digital, statistical and data analysis literacies that can empower students, and ultimately citizens and communities. Such pedagogic activities allow students to learn using the same raw materials researchers and policymakers produce and use. Drawing from a series of case studies of the use of Open Data as OER, we suggest educators consider the following elements : Focus: define the research problem and its relation to the environment students. Practicality: match technical applications and practices to expected solutions. Expectations: set realistic expectations for data analysis. Directions: support in finding data portals which contain appropriate information. Training: provide training materials for the software students will need to analyse the data. Location: use global, local and scientific data which is as granular as possible. Modelling: develop model solutions to guide students on the challenges and activities. Collaboration: support students to work collaboratively and at multidisciplinary level. Communication: support students in communicating their findings to local or wider communities