Étiquette : Open educational resources

Catégories
EN

How to Fight Fair Use Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt : The Experience of One Open Educational Resource

Author : Lindsey Weeramuni

At the launch of one of the early online open educational resources (OER) in 2002, the approach to addressing copyright was uncertain. Did the university or the faculty own their material? How would the third-party material be handled? Was all of its use considered fair use under Section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Act (Title 17, United States Code) because of its educational purpose?

Or was permission-seeking necessary for this project to succeed and protect the integrity of faculty and university? For many years, this OER was conservative in its approach to third-party material, avoiding making fair use claims on the theory that it was too risky and difficult to prove in the face of an infringement claim.

Additionally, being one of the early projects of its kind, there was fear of becoming a target for ambitious copyright holders wanting to make headlines (and perhaps win lawsuits). It was not until 2009 that the Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for OpenCourseWare was written by a community of practitioners who believed that if fair use worked for documentary film makers, video creators, and others (including big media), it worked in open education as well.

Once this Code was adopted, universities and institutions were able to offer more rich and complete course content to their users than before. This paper explains how it happened at this early open educational resource offering.

URL : How to Fight Fair Use Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt : The Experience of One Open Educational Resource

DOI: https://doi.org/10.17161/jcel.v3i1.9751

Catégories
EN

Open Practices in Public Higher Education in Portugal: faculty perspectives

Authors : Paula Cardoso, Lina Morgado, António Teixeira

In recent years, the Open Educational Resources (OER) and Open Access (OA) movements have been essential in creating opportunities in all scholarly activities, within the context of higher education.

The main purpose of this research was to understand how perceptions and practices of faculty towards OER are related to their perceptions and practices towards OA. It is an exploratory and descriptive study, with a mixed methods approach, undertaken in Portugal.

Results indicate that, although faculty already show some degree of knowledge and use of OER and OA in their teaching and research practices, there is still a general lack of knowledge in both fields.

However, the convergence of perceptions regarding both fields provide evidence on the possibility of a common approach to both fields in faculty’s educational practices, with the purpose of opening up their educational and scientific resources, thus reinforcing the principles of transparency, collaboration and openness to knowledge.

URL : Open Practices in Public Higher Education in Portugal: faculty perspectives

Alternative location : https://openpraxis.org/index.php/OpenPraxis/article/view/823

Catégories
EN

Strategies for Supporting OER Adoption through Faculty and Instructor Use of a Federated Search Tool

Authors: Talea Anderson, Chelsea Leachman

INTRODUCTION

Open educational resources (OER) are gaining traction in higher education and becoming accepted by academics as a viable means for delivering course content. However, these resources can be difficult to find and use, both due to low visibility and confusion about licensing.

This article describes one university’s work with faculty members to identify barriers in their search process when they are looking to adopt OER.

DESCRIPTION OF PROGRAM

A scholarly communication librarian and science librarian partnered to collect faculty and instructor reactions to a particular OER search tool, with the intention of better understanding the difficulties encountered during the search process.

Eight interviews were conducted as participants were asked about their preferences when it comes to locating OER, understanding licensing information, and adopting materials for class.

NEXT STEPS

From these interviews, the librarians identified practical recommendations for instruction/liaison librarians and technical services/systems librarians as they continue working to support faculty and instructors through the OER discovery and selection process.

These recommendations relate to four themes uncovered in interviews with faculty and instructors: the need for increased transparency in search tools, the importance of intuitive narrowing and broadening features in search tools, the need for detailed and consistent metadata in OER records, and the need for clarity in intellectual property statements.

The librarians note that these recommendations might best be pursued through wide-scale collaboration across library units and, more generally, between libraries, consortia, and institutions.

URL : Strategies for Supporting OER Adoption through Faculty and Instructor Use of a Federated Search Tool

DOI : https://doi.org/10.7710/2162-3309.2279

Catégories
EN

Equipping the Next Generation for Responsible Research and Innovation with Open Educational Resources, Open Courses, Open Communities and Open Schooling: An Impact Case Study in Brazil

Authors : Alexandra Okada, Tony Sherborne

There has been an increasing number of projects and institutions promoting open education at scale through Open Educational Resources (OER) and Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC) to broaden learning opportunities for all. However, there are still many challenges in relation to sustainability, effective implementation and evidence-based impact to support educational policies.

To explore this gap, this paper focuses on an integrated model that combines OER, MOOC, Communities of Practice (CoP) and Open Schooling to promote open education and foster inquiry skills for Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI), a key approach coined by the European Commission.

This study focuses on the ENGAGE Project, with 14 partners in Europe who produced more than 300 OER, 60 MOOC in ten languages and supported 27 CoP with more than 17,000 members in the world including more than 2,000 from Brazil.

Through a novel framework on impact assessment of OER for RRI underpinned by a mixed method approach, this study examines the influence of open education on academic and non-academic groups and the correlation between the outputs developed in the project with the outcomes reported by the Brazilian communities.

Qualitative and quantitative data from the ENGAGE platform, journal articles produced by the Brazilian participants and interviews with authors were analysed.

Findings report the different ways that the community developed open schooling projects, the changes in their practices to foster digital scientific literacy, and outcomes with implications for society.

URL : Equipping the Next Generation for Responsible Research and Innovation with Open Educational Resources, Open Courses, Open Communities and Open Schooling: An Impact Case Study in Brazil

DOI : http://doi.org/10.5334/jime.482

Catégories
FR

Analyse de l’offre des objets pédagogiques numériques dans les archives ouvertes

Authors : Mohamed Ben Romdhane, Rachid Zghibi

Ce  travail de  recherche  s’inscrit dans  le  cadre  d’une  étude exploratoire relative à l’analyse de  l’offre des objets pédagogiques dans les  archives  ouvertes  à  l’échelle internationale en nous basant sur le répertoire  OpenDOAR  comme source  d’information  principale.  Parmi les 545 dépôts recensés, 177 ont été sélectionnés formant, ainsi, le corpus de l’étude.

Pour l’analyse du contenu des dépôts retenus, nous nous sommes fondés sur un ensemble des critères tels que l’origine géographique, le logiciel utilisé, la ou les langue(s) des ressources et de l’interface, le schéma des métadonnées adopté, le nombre d’objets pédagogiques, les licences et droits d’auteurs, etc.  Les résultats de cette étude montrent que cette offre reste.

URL : https://archivesic.ccsd.cnrs.fr/sic_01944237

Catégories
EN

Barriers, incentives, and benefits of the open educational resources (OER) movement: An exploration into instructor perspectives

Authors : Serena Henderson, Nathaniel Ostashewski

Open educational resource (OER) barriers, incentives, and benefits are at the forefront of educator and institution interests as global use of OER evolves. Research into OER use, perceptions, costs, and outcomes is becoming more prevalent; however, it is still in its infancy.

Understanding barriers to full adoption, administration, and acceptance of OER is paramount to fully supporting its growth and success in education worldwide.

The purpose of this research was to replicate and extend Kursun, Cagiltay, and Can’s (2014) Turkish study to include international participants. Kursun, et al. surveyed OpenCourseWare (OCW) faculty on their perceptions of OER barriers, incentives, and benefits.

Through replication, these findings provide a glimpse into the reality of the international educators’ perceptions of barriers, incentives, and benefits of OER use to assist in the creation of practical solutions and actions for both policy makers and educators alike.

The results of this replication study indicate that barriers to OER include institutional policy, lack of incentives, and a need for more support and education in the creating, using, and sharing of instructional materials.

A major benefit to OER identified by educators is the continued collegial atmosphere of sharing and lifelong learning.

URL : https://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/9172

Catégories
EN

On the role of openness in education: A historical reconstruction

Authors : Sandra Peter, Markus Deimann

In the context of education, « open(ness) » has become the watermark for a fast growing number of learning materials and associated platforms and practices from a variety of institutions and individuals. Open Educational Resources (OER), Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC), and more recently, initiatives such as Coursera are just some of the forms this movement has embraced under the « open » banner.

Yet, ongoing calls to discuss and elucidate the « meaning » and particularities of openness in education point to a lack of clarity around the concept. « Open » in education is currently mostly debated in the context of the technological developments that allowed it to emerge in its current forms.

More in-depth explorations of the philosophical underpinnings are moved to the backstage. Therefore, this paper proposes a historical approach to bring clarity to the concept and unmask the tensions that have played out in the past.

It will then show how this knowledge can inform current debates around different open initiatives.

URL : https://journals.openedition.org/dms/2491