Embedding Open Education Resources & Open Educational Practice across the HE Sector in Wales

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Tue, Apr 14 2015, 2:00pm – 4:00pm

Authors: Debbie Baff

Room: Studio 1 Second Floor Main Building

Theme: Open Education Practice (OEP) and Policy

Type: Short Paper

Description

This paper details the experience of a pan Wales project to embed open educational resources (OER’s) and open educational practice (OEP) across the Welsh Higher Education Sector.

To enable the project to meet the aspirations of the declaration of intent and recommendations of the Online Digital Learning Working group, the project team worked in collaboration with JISC and the HEA to build on previously successful projects.

The project has developed a website/portal to showcase the best OER’s in Wales, and aims to strengthen OEP within every part of university life through promoting the creation, use and re-purposing of OER’s.

The project has also developed a short massive open online course (sMOOC) working in partnership with all Welsh Universities and involving existing students as co-creators of the course. The sMOOC has been piloted on a bilingual basis with Welsh and English Speaking existing students. The paper will provide a brief snapshot of the outcomes of the pilot sMOOC together with useful learner profile analytics and recommendations for future developments.

Another key output of the project is the establishment of the OER Wales Cymru Champions Network and the paper outlines how a series of workshops and events have helped to create a network of practitioners offering a diverse range of roles, background and experience. The paper discusses the impact of the network across the HE Sector in Wales and beyond and the importance of a sustainable approach.

Finally the paper outlines how barriers to collaboration were overcome and the importance of maintaining effective communication channels. It concludes by outlining the key aspects of this collaborative approach with a focus on knowledge exchange and highlights the successes of the project and benefits to Higher Education.

References

Higher Education Wales The Wales Open Education Declaration of Intent (2013) Available at http://www.hew.ac.uk/wales-signs-declaration-of-intent-to-lead-the-way-on-the-use-of-online-education-resources/ (Accessed 7 April 2014)

Welsh Government (Online Digital Learning Working Group) Open & online: Wales, higher education and emerging modes of learning (2014) Available at:http://wales.gov.uk/docs/dcells/publications/140402-online-digital-learning-working-group-en.pdf (Accessed 7 April 2014)

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