Tag: openness

Open Education

Open Up: OER for Higher Ed Teaching, Learning, and Support Services

Laura Pasquini

In my previous blog post on Creative Commons, I shared a bit about copyright and the rights users can apply when sharing/licensing their work. This is often a common practice for those who create “works” (e.g. media, photos, designs, writing, songs, etc.); however, more educators need to consider how they actually share in open ways. Opening up your practice in higher ed is not a new concept – but sadly, open licensing is not a commonly used practice among my peers who teach, publish, and support learners. I think we could do better go get even postsecondary educators (graduate students, staff, faculty, and administrators) to join this open movement by educating and informing them about open licensing and OER practices.

Let’s first get on the same page by review the UNESCO’s (May 2019) definition of Open Educational Resources (OER):

“Teaching, learning and research materials in any medium – digital or otherwise – that reside in the public domain or have been released under an open license that permits no-cost access, reuse, repurpose, adaptation, and redistribution by others.”

Openness in higher education is often used by librarians, instructors, and a handful of other professionals around campus. Storing, archiving, and sharing artifacts from our work in academia is often left to those publishing, authors, and academic librarians. I think we could do better as individual professionals, at our institutions, and even within our professional organizations/associations. For example, when is the last time a conference or workshop suggested you share your presentation, paper, etc. with a given license on it for it to be reused, remixed, or adapted?

For those of you who are interested and want to get acquainted with the land of the OER, have I got a resource for you! There is an excellent OPEN toolkit on the topic of open licensing recently released by the National Forum Teaching & Learning (NF T&L) in Ireland,

This past week, NF T&L also offered an Introduction to Open Educational Resources (OER) and Open Licensing to accompany this open publication. [Thanks for hosting and sharing about this, @catherinecronin]:

The National Forum Open Licensing Toolkit

The National Forum Open Licensing Toolkit outlines the National Forum’s commitment to open licensing, which enables the creation and sharing of open educational resources. The toolkit provides a detailed description of Creative Commons (CC) licenses, the global standard for open licensing, as well as a 4-step guide to choosing, creating and adding CC licenses to resources in order to make them OER, i.e. able to be shared, reused and adapted in different institutional, disciplinary and program contexts.

Reference:

National Forum for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education. (2019, May 15). The National Forum Open Licensing Toolkit in teachingandlearning.ie Retrieved from https://www.teachingandlearning.ie/publication/the-national-forum-open-licensing-toolkit/.

This webinar and toolkit offers some great ways to start thinking about and applying OER into your daily work in higher ed. I have been a big fan of The 5 R’s for OER (from The Power of Open Educational Resources by @opencontent) for a while as I always appreciate an open educational remix. The 5 R’s offer ways to have control of rights, accessing others work, and updating works for your own projects and work (if permitted, and licensed):

  1. Retain: make and own a copy
  2. Reuse: use in a wide range of ways
  3. Revise: adapt, modify, and improve
  4. Remix: combine two or more
  5. Redistribute: share with others

Professionals using OER are not just limited to higher education (e.g. libraries, faculty, students, researchers or administrators), but a number of businesses, NGOs, publishers, museums, government, galleries, and more are finding open licensing helpful in their occupational domains. Beyond the CC Search (https://search.creativecommons.org/), there are OER repositories that house openly licensed materials, images, media, files, lessons, books, etc. Here is a short list (not exclusive) of OER repositories mentioned in the NF T&L webinar and a few others I like to use for teaching, learning, and projects:

As you search, find, and perhaps use one of the 5 R’s, you can then choose to share your work by selecting the appropriate open license. This continues the cycle of openness as you disseminate your practices and scholarship openly for others to access. If you search and find an OER object for your teaching, learning, and/or services on campus, you will want to include TASL with the open license for attribution:

  • Title: name of item, object, media, or work
  • Author: who created said “thing”
  • Source: this is the URL or website where it was found or retrieved from
  • License: include the CC BY open license label

In the @CreativeCommons regularily updated Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) list, there is a wealth of information and resources, regarding the legal and use copyright laws. These are the typical questions you might have and seek answer for to understand more about CC BY licenses. Two shared in the webinar, were the following questions (with linked/URL responses):

Can I combine material under different Creative Commons licenses in my work?

Answered in the URL connected to the question, but I thought I’d share this visual. This chart offers a helpful crosswalk of how you can use CC BY work, and how you can remix and license your work after using a particular CC BY object. This is very useful for when you might want to remix or reuse OER content for teaching, learning, and support services AND redistribute this updated version of your work:

If I create a collection that includes a work offered under a CC license, which license(s) may I choose for the collection?

This chart identifies what licensing can and cannot be use commercially if utilizing any Creative Commons licensed materials. Beyond attribution and use, it is important to note the legal* rights and protections of works with CC BY licenses.

Thanks for a helpful 101 for open licensing and OER resources NF T&L: http://bit.ly/NF-OER — I look forward to following along with your educational offerings and I will definitely share these with my colleagues to expand openness in postsecondary education.

*I am not a lawyer, nor should you consider this specific legal advice when it comes to copyright. Just overarching advise and direction of where to get started. Get a copyright lawyer and/or campus attorney to inquire more about intellectual property and copyright. Thanks!
#HEdigID

#HEdigID Chat No. 2: Openness in Higher Education

Laura Pasquini

As it is Open Education Week, I thought it was a good idea to talk about openness in higher education for the March Higher Education Digital Identity (#HEdigID) Twitter chat.

Openness has the power to build capacity among our higher education institutions/organizations and empower professionals to enhance what we do each day. For me, personally, sharing is not just caring. Being an open educator has afforded me the opportunity to cross-train, meet interesting colleagues working on creative projects, discover new ideas or insights for teaching, collaborate on practice and scholarship, and shape how I support/advise my learners. There are a number of benefits for being open, as either an academic or professional in higher ed; however, I am not naive to some of the problems, issues, and challenges with openness within the field.

With openness also comes tension for individuals and organizations. Sometimes your philosophy of being “open” and connected may not always align with your discipline, department, or institution. Being a digital, open educator might not be the cultural norm. Also, you might not be sure of the implications (positive or negative) might be for being open with teaching, scholarship, or practice. Researchers might be concerned with sharing findings before the publication is complete. Practitioners may be concerned with someone else stealing their idea/project and seeing it misused or misrepresented by another peer. In networked spaces, other concerns arise as our public intellectual selves are often entwined with our digital lives:

To come to terms with some of tension between the affordances and challenges of being open, this month’s Higher Ed Digital Identity (#HEdigID) Chat on Friday, March 9th is organized to discuss this TOPIC: “Openness in Higher Education”

What does it mean to be “open” as a professional in higher education? There is an increasing expectation to share and publicize our research, practice, and work beyond the bubble of academe. “The result: We are all of us dipping our toes into the role of the public intellectual. And there are dangers lurking in those virtual waters — dangers that we all need to keep in mind when we respond to our Facebook friends and Twitter followers.” Perhaps, I have let some of the plot lines of Black Mirror creep into my thoughts on being open and public in academia. I cannot deny that openness has offered me support and introduced me to a thoughtful community I value both personally and professionally. As you can see, I’m still working this one out. So, why not have a bit of a chat about this very topic?

How does being an open educator, open scholar, and/or open practitioner in higher education impact your work? What does it mean to be a public, open intellectual online today?

Here are some of the QUESTIONS I will be tweeting out over the course of the Friday (March 9th) ALL-DAY #HEdigID Twitter chat:

  1. Share how you are “open” with your work in higher ed. How do you share open knowledge, research, teaching, learning or practices?
  2. What are some of the benefits for being an open educator, scholar, and/or practitioner in higher education?
  3. Do you think open scholarship or open practice WILL/CAN shift how we WORK in higher education? How does being OPEN influence how we research, advise, teach, and support learners in #highered?
  4. What issues do academics and practitioners face, when being “open” in higher education? What challenges emerge when your teaching, research, or practice is OPEN?
  5. How do you think openness will or could shape tenure, promotion, and career advancement in higher ed? (e.g. Open Education Resources, Open Access, Open Data, etc.)
  6. For those higher ed professionals who are just getting started with being OPEN, what RESOURCES are available? Please list and share (e.g. articles, websites, blogs, etc.).
  7. How does being “open” influence graduate preparation (masters, doctoral, etc.) or early career professionals in your field or discipline? This might be related to digital scholarship and open practices on the social web (e.g. blogs, Twitter, etc.)
  8. Final Thought (FT): What aspects of “OPEN” would you like to learn more about or have more training with to improve your open practice in higher ed?

What questions or assumptions do you have about openness, in terms of your own digital identity and work practice in higher ed? Feel free to answer any of these questions, as these will roll out my Thursday, March 8 evening until the afternoon of March 9, 2018. This SLOW style Twitter chat is designed to allow more higher ed colleagues and friends to join in the conversation to account for different geographic regions, multiple time zones, busy schedules, and more

Join us on Friday, March 9, 2018 to discuss these questions and more! You can participate by:

  • Tweeting a response using this hashtag on Twitter: #HEdigID

  • Draft a longer response in the open OPEN Google Doc: http://bit.ly/hedigid2

  • Take any (or all) of these questions to create your OWN response via a blog post, video/audio reflection, or doodle. 🙂

Finally, I’m always keen for suggestions. What QUESTIONS/PROMPTS would you like to ask during this next chat? Please share in the Google doc above or comments below. Tweet you all soon!
Updated 03.12.18:

#HEdigID Chat Transcript, No. 2: Openness in Higher Ed (03.09.18)

Open Education, OpenAccess

Open Access Beyond #OAWeek: Reading Round-Up

Laura Pasquini

Last week (October 19-25, 2015) was International Open Access Week (#OAweek) with the overarching goal for accessible scholarship, research, and educational content.

oalogo

Did you know about #OAweek? How did you mark or celebrate being open? In my efforts to play catch up and support open access, open educational resources (OER), open data, and openness for collaboration, here’s a rundown post about the latest happenings around OPENnness.

The Welcome Trust celebrated 10 years of Open Access and to mark #OAweek the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), marked the week of open access by highlighting Collaboration in the Open:

“Open access is the practice of making research available online, for free, ideally under licenses that permit widespread dissemination. This year’s theme for Open Access Week is ‘open for collaboration’ …both in academia and beyond—enables a kind of collaboration that can scale very quickly.

When research is closed, no one can access it unless they (or, more often, the institutions where they work or study) can afford expensive journal subscriptions or online libraries. When research is open, anyone can access it, study it, and use it, regardless of their budget or institutional affiliation.

Open access also opens the door to a type of collaboration that wouldn’t exist otherwise. Authors that publish their research in an open access journal—or deposit it in an open access repository after publication—invite others to use it and transform it in ways that they might not have even imagined. The work can become part of a larger project, expanding the body of public knowledge even more.”

If you have not read Martin Weller‘s book, The Battle for the Open, this might be a good time to download your OPEN COPY to understand the growing issues and obstacles we face in the world of openness and higher education. [Here’s a previous plug and my take on the book.]

Screen Shot 2015-10-27 at 3.48.09 PM

To honor #OAweek (belated) I present you an OPEN round-up of reads I’ve wrangled from this past month (and perhaps beyond) about open access (publishing, learning, resources, data, repositories, etc). I’m sure I’ve missed a few things, so please share other articles, resources, and updates about the open in the comments. Cheers!

Making Open Access work: Clustering analysis of academic discourse suggests OA is still grappling with controversy.

Stephen Pinfield discusses this article: “to provide an overview of one of the most important and controversial areas of scholarly communication: Open Access publishing and dissemination of research outputs. It identifies and discusses recent trends and future challenges for various stakeholders in delivering Open Access (OA) to the scholarly literature.”

Check out the Free online #webinar on The Impact of Open Education @Edtechie via @Ignatia Webs

This free webinar, which is being promoted by the ALT Open Education Special Interest Group, will explore findings of the OER Research Hub, which has been investigating the impact of open educational resources. btw, the OER Research Hub is a source of wonderful, innovative OER-work, really worth exploring!

Opening Up Open Access: Moving beyond business models and towards cooperative, scholar-organized, open networks. via @kfitz

“This issue of credit usually gets discussed in the U.S. in terms of the things that “count” for promotion and tenure, but recent developments in Europe and the U.K. make the question of counting all the more literal, as the continued financial support of entire departments can hinge on a quantified assessment of those departments’ productivity, and the nature of “productivity” is all too narrowly defined.“

SPARC Launches Open Access Evaluation Tool 

“the launch of the Open Access Spectrum (OAS) Evaluation Tool, which provides a concrete, quantifiable mechanism to independently analyze publications’ policies.

The OAS Evaluation Tool generates an “Openness” score that is straightforward, easy to understand, and free. The program provides critical information to authors, libraries, research funders, government agencies, and other interested parties. It can be used to help determine compliance with funder policies, institutional mandates, and researchers’ individual values. It also offers a unique opportunity for publishers to independently validate their journals’ degree of openness and compliance with funder and campus policies.”

HowOpenIsIt? Guide from PLOS

The “HowOpenIsIt?®” Open Access Spectrum (OAS) guide standardizes Open Access terminology in an easily understandable, comprehensive resource created by PLOS, the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC) and the Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association (OASPA). The guide defines core components of Open Access derived from the articulation of basic tenets in the 2002 Budapest Open Access Initiative (BOAI).

Academics have found a way to access insanely expensive research papers—for free 

When content is not accessible and open, the scholars revert to the hashtag #icanhazpdf: “many people are becoming increasingly frustrated with a business model—where work is produced by academics, edited by their peers, and often funded by the taxpayer—is hidden behind a paywall.“

Exploring the publishing model of the Open Library of Humanities: A view from Latin America

 Francisco Osorio provides a brief overview of what sets this journal project apart from the rest and how the new funding model offers an economic, social and technological platform for the humanities and social sciences to transition to open access. At the heart of the matter is the forms of communication in humanities and social sciences as distinctive from the natural sciences.

Open access papers ‘more likely to be cited on Twitter’ 

Much to no one’s surprise: “open access journals and articles have a ‘big advantage’ when it comes to being shared on Twitter compared with those behind a paywall.”

What does Academia_edu’s success mean for Open Access? The data-driven world of search engines and social networking.

[Academia.edu is] “the ‘largest social-publishing network for scientists’, and ‘larger than all its competitors put together’ – clearly raises a number of questions for the open access movement. After all, compared to the general sluggishness (and at times overt resistance) with which the call to make research available on an open access basis has been met.”

The Future of figshare (for open data sharing)

“figshare has strived to engender a strong sustainability model that would allow us to continue to improve our free offering. With our continued successes, alongside file sizes and research outputs increasing year on year, we’re going to be removing our premium accounts leaving only one tier of account“

OECD report on students, computers and learning: making the connection [REPORT]

Are there computers in the classroom? Does it matter? Students, Computers and Learning: Making the Connection examines how students’ access to and use of information and communication technology (ICT) devices has evolved in recent years, and explores how education systems and schools are integrating ICT into students’ learning experiences.

Open Education Resources in Canada via the IRRODL

Canada’s important areas of expertise in open educational resources (OER) are beginning to be built upon or replicated more broadly in all education and training sectors. This paper provides an overview of the state of the art in OER initiatives and open higher education in general in Canada, providing insights into what is happening nationally and provincially. There are growing examples of OER initiatives from several Canadian institutions offering free courses to Canadians and international learners.

Is it time for Canada to implement a unified open strategy for higher education? asks @clintlalonde

From Clint’s UBC/SFU Open Access week forum talk on this question [I concur with your response, Clint.]: “yes, having a unified national strategy on all things open is likely a good idea for the simple fact that it gets all the various strands of open – open access, open education, open source software, open pedagogy, open data –  in the same room. And any reason to bring people together to talk about their commonalities is a good thing.”

Openly Licensed Educational Resources: Providing Equitable Access to Education for All Learners via the US Federal Government

Open education advances key national priorities, including supporting shared economic prosperity, strengthening civil society, and investing in human development. Over the next year, the U.S. Government will continue efforts to expand and accelerate the use and availability of openly licensed educational materials worldwide. In addition, we will begin to model the transition to openly licensed educational materials at scale in U.S. K-12 schools.  We look forward to engaging with the national and global community to identify opportunities for open licensing to accelerate educational equity for all learners regardless of their financial situations or geographic locations.

Community Call from ALT: Open Education Technology and Practice

ALT is piloting a monthly ‘Community Call’ where we speak to ALT Members about their work. For our first call we speak with Lorna Campbell who is an advocate for open education, technology and practice.

Institute for Open Leadership Applications via Creative Commons – Due October 30, 2015

Earlier this year, Creative Commons and the Open Policy Network hosted the first Institute for Open Leadership (IOL). The IOL is a training and support program to empower new leaders interested in crafting and implementing an open licensing policy within their discipline. We had adiverse cohort of 14 fellows who came together for a week in January, 2015 in San Francisco. The fellows worked with mentors and each other to hone their open policy project ideas. Since then they’ve working within their institutions and fields to implement their open policy plan.

The impact of open textbook adoption on the learning outcomes of higher ed students

In some educational settings, the cost of textbooks approaches or even exceeds the cost of tuition. Given limited resources, it is important to better understand the impacts of free open educational resources (OER) on student outcomes. Utilizing digital resources such as OER can substantially reduce costs for students. The purpose of this study was to analyze whether the adoption of no-cost open digital textbooks significantly predicted students’ completion of courses, class achievement, and enrollment intensity during and after semesters in which OER were used.

A Librarian’s Guide to OER in the Maker Space

Because of their capacity to stimulate creativity, OER are the perfect complement to the maker space movement. The maker movement shares a philosophy with the open source movement by fostering creativity, collaboration, and personalization in schools. The integration of OER into well-planned, well-designed maker spaces brings together physical and virtual interests and activities and expands learning opportunities.   Maker spaces are especially well suited for OER because they demonstrate inquiry-based learning and allow students some autonomy to direct their learning.

The Real Threat of OER via David Wiley (@opencontent)

Publishers continue to believe that “free” is the main threat posed to their business models by OER. Perhaps that is because pricing is a threat they understand and know how to counteract. However, the core idea of openness – to generously grant others the broad range of permissions that enables them to innovate in any manner they can imagine – that is the real threat OER pose to commercial publishers. While the prices for commercial materials may eventually approach affordability, publishers are structurally unable to grant faculty the broad set of copyright permissions necessary to truly empower them. Their business models forbid it.

 The arXiv cannot replace traditional publishing without addressing the standards of research assessment [in open repositories]. via @JanvadeHe

So why has the arXiv become so important for researchers in these particular fields? Why is it that it is now more or less standard that any active researcher in these areas will deposit a close to final version of their publications in the archive? Part of it can be explained by the increasing prominence of Open Access and related developments in academic publishing. But that can only explain a small part of the success of the arXiv. The main reason of its success, in my opinion, is a specific feature of these research areas: the very long lead time between submission and publication in a journal of papers in those fields, and hence the historic prominence of “preprints” and “reports.”

The benefits of Open Access Repositories – Q & A with Professor Sonia Livingstone shares her thoughts on the LSE’s institutional repository, LSE Research Online (LSERO)

oa-week-sonia-pablo

Honest and reliable Open Access Journals in Open and Distance Education from Rob Farrow at the @OER_Hub

Learning Community, Rhizo15

Thinking About Communities for Learning {#Rhizo15 Week 5 – Catch Up}

Laura Pasquini

Q: What a #Rhizo15 post? But Laura, I thought the course was over? Is this not true?

A: The #Rhizo15 is never over with a community like this one. #truth

Week 5 poked and prodded at the notion of community for learning, with questions like:

  • How do we make sure there is always room for new and contrarian voices?
  • Do we need to create a them to have a we?
  • How do we cultivate a community learning ecosystem so that it continues to grow outward rather than inward?
  • What does that mean for learning?
  • Must rhizomatic learning be an invasive species?

In my efforts to set up my 10-week Summer courses (why I dropped off the #rhizo15 path as an “active participant” both blogging, tweeting & on the Facebook group), I thought more about how communities can enhance learning, both the informal and formal sides. As I read the #rhizo15 week 5 blog posts and thought a the questions above – it made me consider access and agency to learning – my own and others. Whether it has been a course, certificate, professional meeting or a training seminar — the best experience in learning has been the people and their contributions. The opportunities to dialog and share experiences have lent to stickier and more meaningful learning — for myself and others. There is great knowledge With regards to facilitation and instruction, I would agree with Lisa’s sentiments from week #4 where the fearless #rhizo15 leader, Dave has “chosen words, for every one of his prompts, that are very open to interpretation.” Others interpreted this prompt with metaphors and ideas, including cultivating a garden of learning/teaching, thinking about spontaneous growth, and considering lines of flight for the #rhizo15 course/community.

I agree with these sentiments for my informal learning practices. In a number of my personal learning networks and communities of practice, there are always issues of cultivating a broader network and experience for those involved with learning. It is critical to avoid the online echo chamber when surrounded by like-minded people. This notion of echos in the network vary for #rhizo15 learning community. Some believe this community provides learning support and outlets to challenge the norm, while other community interactions or experiences might be determined by an algorithm. It is important to find ways to challenge and engage the learning community to reflect upon their practice and consider contrary points of view. Sometimes it is a good idea to step back to assess the conversation and learning in the community. I think it’s healthy to have a critical eye when reviewing the participation, discussion, and contribution in the learning community. How can we evaluate and reflect this practice more in our own learning networks?

echochamber123

The Echo Chamber [Revisited] by @gapingvoid

In my efforts to set up my 10-week Summer courses (one of the reasons why I dropped off the #rhizo15 path as an “active participant” both blogging, tweeting & on the Facebook group for a while), I thought more about how communities can enhance learning, both the informal and formal sides. In reflecting on my own formal learning/teaching, I have always valued individual contributions and experiences shared by others. Whether it has been a course, certificate, professional meeting or a training seminar — the best experience in learning has been from the people. We typically have been prompted to respond, answer, or be involved in some sort of interaction — however the learning happens more when the group of learners actively participate, chat, and share. This got me thinking about how to develop a learning community in a formal course curriculum and consider ways to personalize the learning experience.

Forcing or facilitating openness? You decide.

I like the idea of openness guided by the instructor. I enjoy finding meaning and ways to interpret the discussions; however I knew that most of my learners need directions and clear targets. This prompt encouraged ways to facilitate “openness” in my own teaching/training to revitalize a sense of exploration for my learners/participants. I want to facilitate a space that is structured “enough”; however it  does make room for all voices and galvanizes my learners to contribute to include their different perspectives and experiences. How are you encouraging these type of “open” learning experiences in your courses? How are they being interpreted/received by your students?

This past Monday kicked off the Summer sessions at UNT, and I was excited to welcome my learners in #LTEC3010 (Personal Development) and #LTEC4000 (Introduction to Training and Development). Both courses guide career and professional development either as individuals or within an organization [both course syllabi are posted here, if interested]. Interestingly enough, these two different courses have a lot of similarity in understanding organizational learning and individual performance in the workplace. There is enough “structure” for our online undergraduate courses; however I have made room for research, questions, creativity, and contributions from the learners. To be intentional about community learning, there are a number of activities (e.g. discussions, research projects, etc.) and examples to encourage self-directed learning offered in each class. As per usual, I hope to model the impacts online communities of practice and professional mentoring can have on individual academic/career development, while also introducing how informal and online learning networks can support new modes for training and development.

We shall see how these learning communities develop and grow… more to share soon (I hope).