PBL#3 by Milica Rancic

Topic 2: Open Learning – sharing and openness

milica_rancic — 2022-04-06 20:52:50 UTC

PBL#3 focused on two questions:

Q1. Which factors hinder/facilitate open education (OE)?

milica_rancic — 2022-04-06 20:56:05 UTC

Q2. What are the positive and negative impacts of OE on different stakeholders? What are the challenges and benefits from the perspective of:

milica_rancic — 2022-04-06 20:57:12 UTC

Q1: Locally (on the level of institutions & countries)

milica_rancic — 2022-04-06 21:04:53 UTC

Hinders OE:

Lack of policies and strategy, Stacey (2013).
Lack of resources, Stacey (2013).
Lack of open education culture (OEC),
OEC (2017), Weinberger (2018).
Lack of knowledge about OE, OER, Daniel (2011), OED, OEP etc.
Lack of collaboration between stakeholders to agree on the recognition of certifications.

Facilitates OE:

Development of effective and easy-to-use ROER. Perifanou, et al (2022).

Q1: Globally

milica_rancic — 2022-04-06 21:09:44 UTC

Hinders OE:

Lack of policies and strategy
Stacey (2013), Carlyle (2011)
Lack of standardised global curricula and credit systems
Lack of understanding and recognition of non-formal and informal education by the institutions offering formal education and by the job market

Facilitates OE:

ESD points -> free and open education -> sustainable education levels globally

Q2: Students

milica_rancic — 2022-04-06 21:12:37 UTC

Benefits:

Equity and inclusion in practice
Free - Cost-saving
Flexible studies (open access, flexible start, flexible pace, location-free)
Creating their own degrees (mix & match degrees)
Obtaining relevant skills before employment (MOOCs)

Challenges:

(MOOC-related problem) high dropout rates and irregular participation by students: the peer assignation would be difficult, and irresponsible feedback in the assessment could cause trouble (Núñez et al. 2021)
Require students to have access to technology (e.g. Internet, smart phone …)

Q2: Teachers

milica_rancic — 2022-04-06 21:25:24 UTC

Benefits:

Development of OEP (new practices and novel research field of pedagogy)
Professional development
- pedagogical - develop new educational practices
- be students themselves (LLL - Life-long learning)

Challenges:

Acquiring knowledge, and skills to practice OE:
- Understanding open licences – Not everyone is familiar with Creative Commons open licences and what they permit.
- Adaptation of OER requires new skills – To adapt and re-purpose OER, teachers require practice in revising and remixing resources, in addition to basic ICT skills.
Lack of content in their specific area or outdated content.

Q2: Institutions

milica_rancic — 2022-04-06 21:33:38 UTC

Benefits:

More open and free education leads to a more sustainable educational level in the world
Development of new research fields in psychology (Psychology of sharing), Weinberger (2018), Bauman (2022)
Operators/universities offering open MOOC courses (Non-profit, financial support)
Professional development of administrative staff servicing Open Education Degrees (OED) programmes

Challenges:

High % of dropouts from MOOCs
MOOCs payments and data security
Can existing administrative support at HEIs service OEDs and flexibility they entail?
Unknown consequences on the work environment of teachers - new challenges for HR.

Challenges & Benefits:

Development of fully Open Education Degrees (OED)

Q2: Job market

milica_rancic — 2022-04-06 21:40:07 UTC

Benefits:

LLL (Life-long learning) enriches the job market, makes it more competitive, fills the gaps
More collaboration between government, higher education and private education institutions and industries to make OE a reality moving forward

Challenges:

Recognition of competencies attained through non-formal and informal education
Recognition from different governments on the certifications of bite sized courses

Challenges & Benefits:

Rethinking organisational structure and practices of HEis (remote work, teams spread across continents, distance leadership etc)

Iran

milica_rancic — 2022-04-06 21:54:50 UTC

Hinders OE

Lack of research on the benefits of OE at individual, organizational, and societal levels.
Lack of policies supporting the strategic implementation of OE.
Lack of financial support of such endeavors.
Limited possibility of collaboration with international educational institutions due to sanctions levied on the government.

Sweden

milica_rancic — 2022-04-06 22:02:08 UTC

KAU, Sweden:
-Incentive-related issues: Course creation is not incentivized (probably it is common in lots of universities around the world) and is not given enough time and resources. Many teachers have (are allocated) relatively little time for preparing their materials due to competing priorities. Transforming to OE from a traditional online course is very much time-consuming.
-Mindset-related issues: Some people are uncomfortable with using other people's work and prefer to make their own resources and protect them instead of sharing them.

MDU, Sweden:

Hinders OE:

Lack of knowledge on the level of the whole MDU about OE, OES, OEP and their benefits.
Lack of OEC (exists locally on the level of courses, divisions).
Lack of technical support (recording & editing video material, user-accessibility adaptation of OER).
Global validation structure/system.

Facilitates OE:

Canvas is used as LMS - good; great support from the center for pedagogical development (Lärum)
LLL (life-long learning) investment (internal application for funding of development of LLL material, courses)
MOOCs
Some programmes have entry requirements that can be achieved in alternative ways (not through formal education, but e.g. through previous work experience)

Finland

milica_rancic — 2022-04-06 22:05:12 UTC

Hinders OE:

Validation processes - how to validate something that is done at another institution or gained from outside an institution?
All formal courses are not open to all learners

Facilitates OE:

Government support (Ministry of Education and Culture project funding)
New Ecosystem of Learning, Digvisio
Common learning plattform
Library of Open Educational Resources

Singapore

milica_rancic — 2022-04-06 22:08:24 UTC

Facilitates OE:

For Singapore schools, the Ministry of Education Student Learning Space (SLS) is a key resource for open education but only among government schools. The SLS provides a library of curriculum-aligned, Ministry-curated resources, for all grade levels and subjects. These resources are created by teams of teachers seconded to the MOE full-time to do this.
Some universities in Singapore especially NUS & NTU are open to MOOCs. Students can earn credits from attending online courses from reputable overseas universities.

Hinders OE:

Lack of a standard agreement on the implementation, recognition etc.

Poland

milica_rancic — 2022-04-06 22:10:44 UTC

Hinders OE:

Lack of a strong unified program supported by the state to create open education (some initiatives to create OER, like open libraries and educational repositories, are undertaken by individual universities and nongovernmental organizations)
Lack of incentives for companies and individuals to create open resources (at the school/university level as well as the state level), e.g. the state and public universities could require that all resources produced with public financing be published on open licenses.
Lack of a sharing mindset - many publishing companies, researchers, teachers, etc. oppose creating open digital schools, open courses and textbooks as they fear losing income (there is a prevailing sense of competition on all levels).

Facilitates OE:

There is EU support - it is required to use free licences for most resources created with the support of EU funding.
There are plans and attempts at building state infrastructure that could support the development of open education, schools get equipment to run digital/virtual projects.

Switzerland

milica_rancic — 2022-04-06 22:18:16 UTC

Hinders OE:

Missing cultural change/discussion (Multiple languages, the culture of sharing materials etc.)
Closed learning environments
Lack of knowledge (copyrights and licencing materials)

Facilities OE:

Same grading system and recognition of credits from other institutions
Validation of knowledge
National shared policies OER SCHWEIZ
Nationally shared learning environment (swissmoocservices.ch)
Internal and external cantonal policies ( example ZHAW OER Policy)
Internal and external cantonal policies (example ZHAW OER Training and advice)
Internal and external cantonal policies (example ZHAW OER Community)
Internal and external cantonal policies/financial support (example ZHAW digital)

References and inspiration material

milica_rancic — 2022-04-06 22:27:30 UTC

References:

Daniel J., & Uvalić-Trumbić, S. (2011). UNESCO-COL guidelines for open educational resources (OER) in higher education. Retrieved from: http://oerworkshop.weebly.com/guidelines-for-oer-in-higher-education.html
Stacey, P. (2013). Government support for open educational resources: Policy, funding, and strategies. International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, 14(2), 67-80
Perifanou, M., & Economides, A. A. (2022). Measuring quality, popularity, demand and usage of Repositories of Open Educational Resources (ROER): a study on Thirteen popular ROER. Open Learning: The Journal of Open, Distance and e-Learning, 1-16.
OEC (2017). September Open Perspective: What is Open Culture?, Year of Open 2017, Open Education Consortium (OEC), accessed 1 April 2022, <https://www.yearofopen.org/september-open-perspective-what-is-open-culture/>
OECD (2010). Recognition of Non-formal and Informal Learning, report Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), accessed 1 April 2022: https://www.oecd.org/education/skills-beyond-school/recognitionofnon-formalandinformallearning-home.htm
Weinberger, A. (2018). Why do people share things online?, accessed 5 April 2022: https://precisionbrandsny.com/blog/why-do-people-share-things-online/
Bauman, J. (2022). Social Media Sharing: The Psychology of Why We Share, accessed 5 April 2022: https://everyonesocial.com/blog/the-psychology-of-how-and-why-we-share/
J. L. Martín Núñez, E. Tovar Caro and J. R. Hilera González, "From Higher Education to Open Education: Challenges in the Transformation of an Online Traditional Course," in IEEE Transactions on Education, vol. 60, no. 2, pp. 134-142, May 2017, doi: 10.1109/TE.2016.2607693.

Inspiration (OEDs, flexible - mix&match programmes):

Finnish example of open degree can be mentioned here (digivisio) Link
Mälaradlen University (MDU), Sweden, example of BSc in business administration (Link in Swedish)
University of Stirling, Scotland UK (semi-flexible) Link
The Open University, UK (celebrated 50 years) Link
Thompson Rivers University (TRU) Link
Z degrees Link
https://www.moe.gov.sg/education-in-sg/student-learning-space
https://www.ntu.edu.sg/admissions/matriculation/mooc