JOURNAL OF INTERACTIVE Cannell, P et al 2016 Opening Educational Practices in Scotland (OEPS). MEDIA IN EDUCATION Journal of Interactive Media in Education, 2016(1): 12, pp. 1–6, DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5334/jime.412 ARTICLE Opening Educational Practices in Scotland (OEPS) Pete Cannell*, Anna Page* and Ronald Macintyre* OEPS is a cross-sector project led by the Open University in Scotland (OUiS) and funded by the Scottish Funding Council. The project began in late spring 2014 and runs until the end of July 2017. It has its ori- gins in OER projects carried out by the OUiS over the preceding four years. In most cases these involved close partnership between the university and other organisations that would not normally be involved in the creation of educational materials. OEPS aims to build on these approaches, and on other valuable experience from across the Scottish sector, to increase the use of open licensed resources in Scotland, develop better understanding of good open educational practice and support widening participation and transitions. The project is multi-stranded, involving a wide range of partners in development work. Inte- gral to the project methodology is a process of embedded research and evaluation aimed at understanding and evidencing good practice. In this paper we share the progress of the project to date and highlight some of the questions and issues that are emerging. Keywords: OER; OEP; widening participation; transitions; partnership Introduction wide layer of people and resulted in contributions from The potential for OER to transform higher education (HE) twenty-three individuals. The declaration remains open has been widely remarked (e.g. Welsh Government, 2014). for comments and contributions. Around this time a Other authors (e.g. D’Antoni, 2013) have explored the con- number of important initiatives were informing discus- tribution that OER can make to widening participation in sion on OER and OEP and were in turn stimulated by HE, recasting the traditional boundaries between universi- the discussion that was engendered. These include the ties and the rest of society. However, the evidence suggests SQA’s commitment to support the development of open that this promised transformation is yet to happen. So, badges3, developments that led to the introduction of an for example, a recent OECD report (Falconer et al., 2013) institutional OER policy at Glasgow Caledonian University found limited impact on lifelong learning across Europe. and innovative work at Dundee University engaging final The data on MOOC demographics is well known; currently year students in the production of OER4. At the same time most of those studying on massive open online courses some Scottish Health Boards were starting to use open are already in possession of higher education qualifica- badges to recognise professional development and some tions (Edinburgh University, 2013; Lane, 2013). third sector and union learning organisers were beginning Scottish higher education has a distinctive ethos of edu- to develop an interest in the use of OER. cation as a public good and a strong focus on cross-sector The OEPS project has its origins in a number of Scottish partnership and inter-institutional collaboration (Bryce OER initiatives carried out by the OUiS in this context. et al., 2013). In June 2013 a meeting of the Open Scotland While they drew directly on the capabilities of the OU Network initiated the process, which led to the develop- UK, these projects were shaped and influenced by the ment of the Scottish Open Education Declaration1. While open education developments in the Scottish sector; by there was interest and engagement in OER in Scotland, the opportunities offered through the Open University’s this was often related to UK wide or international organi- OpenLearn website and by a strategic orientation on wid- sations and initiatives. The Open Scotland network drew ening participation. The first such OER initiative involved together individuals from the university, college and the creation of Gaelic in Modern Scotland (Cannell, 2013) school sectors across Scotland and from agencies such as in conjunction with cultural organisations and Gaelic JISC and the Scottish Qualifications Agency (SQA). The dec- scholars. Subsequent initiatives continued to utilise the laration was based on the UNESCO Paris OER declaration2 knowledge and experience of partners. Typically they and developed through an open process that engaged a involved people and organisations with which the uni- versity had built up long-term relationships (Cannell, 2013; Macintyre, 2013) aimed at widening participation * The Open University in Scotland and OEPS, GB in higher education. These OER initiatives formed part of Corresponding author: Pete Cannell ([email protected]) a broader strategic approach to widening participation Art. 12, page 2 of 6 Cannell et al: Opening Educational Practices in Scotland (OEPS) through partnerships and supporting routes from infor- was a complex landscape. Outside the university and col- mal to formal learning. lege sectors we found considerable interest in open edu- To varying degrees the development of new online con- cation, driven by awareness of the availability of resources, tent in each of these early projects involved a process of by concerns around costs and sometimes by concerns co-creation, combining the knowledge and lived experi- about the effectiveness of existing practices and an under- ence of students and professionals with academic knowl- standing that the digital world permeates the lived expe- edge and skills in learning design (Macintyre, 2013). The rience of learners and potential learners. In the formal/ projects were limited in scope, and originated as prag- accredited sectors discussion of open education tended to matic responses to specific and contextual partnership be influenced by the impact of MOOCS and to be confined objectives. However, they provided insights into how the to particular groups of staff within institutions. In particu- transformative promise of OER might be realised. They lar we found very little contact or engagement between reached significant numbers (not MOOC scale but typi- the widening participation and open education commu- cally in the range one to ten thousand) of non-traditional nities in these institutions. Given the remit of the project participants. This evidence of effective use and develop- this has presented OEPS with a challenge. In the rest of ing practice, together with the HE sector’s collabora- the paper we discuss some of the ways in which we have tive approach to the development of the Scottish Open tackled the challenge. Education, contributed to the Scottish Funding Council’s (SFC) decision to fund the OEPS project. OEPS methodology Typically work with a partner begins with relatively Developing Opening Educational Practice informal discussions. These often focus on assessing the OEPS aims to build on the experience of the OUiS OER partner’s level of engagement with open education and projects, and on other innovative practice in Scotland and clarifying the nature of possible shared activity. In these internationally, to enable large-scale use of OER to support discussions we ask participants to reflect on why they transitions from informal to formal learning, between dif- want to engage with OER, what it enables for them and ferent phases of the learner journey and between educa- crucially, what it enables for their learners. We find our tion and employment. It is worth noting that informal focus on what OER does in the world a useful way to learning is a contested concept (Malcom et al., 2003). In develop a shared understanding and maintain a focus developing OEPS it has been helpful to think of informal on educational practice and the use of free and open as a range of modes of engagement with learning situ- resources. Taken together these conversations are invalu- ated outside the domain of educational institutions; such able in helping to scope a broad picture of the interest learning is typically non-accredited and may be individual and engagement with OER and OEP across Scotland. As or social – for example, group learning in the workplace. part of the project’s remit to research and evidence the The project remit crosses boundaries between the world scope and direction of development of OEP in Scotland of educational technology, the open education movement the project team has adopted a systematic approach to and widening participation and lifelong learning. collecting evidence and a strong emphasis on developing The project has two principle aims5: reflective accounts of practice. Working with partners is critical to the project method- • To facilitate best practice in open education in ology. Wherever possible project activity is collaborative. Scotland through the development of a peer support The OEPS team’s role is to facilitate activity and also to network, an online hub and awareness raising monitor, evaluate and reflect. Sometimes partners are activities. interested in what ‘open’ means in their context and we • To enhance the Scottish tertiary education sector’s have developed workshop designs that allow facilitated capacity and reputation in developing publicly exploration of this topic6,7. In other instances partners are available online materials supported by high quality able to share examples of good practice, which we can pedagogy and learning technology. work up and share with the sector. Some are interested in the potential of using already existing OER to support To develop a programme of work that covers the breadth their work. In this case we work with them to understand of the project remit and the focus on widening participa- how processes that involve finding, choosing and curating tion required the project team to be proactive in identi- existing resources can be combined with appropriate edu- fying interest among individuals and organisations that cational practice. Finally, a small number of partners are might not normally identify as part of the OER movement. interested in developing new OER to meet specific, and In this process OEPS has established active relationships currently unmet, needs and new practices to support the with nearly fifty organisations. These include universities, effective use of this OER. Typically we begin by delivering colleges, trade unions, third sector and non-departmental one or more Learning Design workshops to support the public bodies with regional or national reach and a small initial stages of development. Macintyre (2015a) describes number of employers (Cannell, 2014; 2015). In the first the structure of these workshops, which aim to encour- few months it was particularly important to engage in dia- age reflection on experience, and reflection for action. logue and listen very closely to what these organisations Typically these OER developments involve co-creation understood about open education and how it relates to between the OEPS team and the partner although as part their engagement with lifelong learning. What we found of our focus on participatory approaches and mindful of Cannell et al: Opening Educational Practices in Scotland (OEPS) Art. 12, page 3 of 6 the sustaining changes to educational practice we aim to OER and through these social networks support uncertain shift the locus of responsibility towards the partner. Across learners. We will start piloting these approaches in a vari- all of these areas of activity three specific themes emerge. ety of workplaces in the next few months. However, it is our sense that this shift in focus from content and indi- Barriers to engagement viduals using content to a more social space might help The first theme concerns the promise of OER to bring high deliver on the promise of open education to broaden the quality learning material to new audiences. The academic socio-economic base of those accessing HE level learning. literature associated with widening participation includes These elements of developing practice resonate with feed- a rich discussion of the barriers to engagement with edu- back from partners in a range of other contexts. cation that impact on non-traditional students (for exam- An important output of the OEPS project activity is a ple McGivney, 1999; 2000). Authors concerned with the new hub for open educational practice which can be role of open education in widening participation have accessed at www.oeps.ac.uk. The aim of this site is to sup- also noted the importance of these factors (Lane, 2008). port the development of good open educational practice. Arguably, however, this practice and theoretically based It builds on the established academic literature and on knowledge has not informed discussions around OEP to the practice based insights of the OEPS project partners. the extent that it should and in practice we have detected At a generic level the site provides support and guidance very little transfer of knowledge between the open educa- of good practice and on the creation, use and affordances tion and widening participation communities. OEPS work- of OER. It also includes a course on OEP and a commu- shops with union and third sector partners, interested in nity blog. The site is designed with an open and flexible using open education in their context, have elicited valu- architecture that allows it to grow over time through able insights into how widening participation barriers are contributions from users. In particular the site draws on articulated in a digital world. For some potential students advice and insights from OEPS partners in relation to the basic skills that allow digital participation are a nec- barriers to engagement with OER and practices that can essary prerequisite; many more are confident users of overcome these barriers. Users are encouraged to set up mobile devices, however, these skills are not understood new communities of practice on the hub. Early examples as relevant to the world of learning and often require fur- of communities share context based guidance on effective ther development to achieve the kinds of digital literacy practice; provide links to useful resources that can form skills required for study. At the same time the affective, appropriate entry points for study and models for encour- cultural and situational barriers noted in the widening aging social interaction and peer support in the use of participation literature and issues of self-perception and these resources. The aim is to share existing good prac- identity remain critical and interact with issues of digital tice and, through the community engagement with the literacy. Moreover in an online environment potential blog and the forum, to encourage the development and users are bewildered by the huge choice available and sharing of ideas, case studies and examples to develop and find established repositories intimidating. These complex eventually embed new practice. Essentially the structure is and interrelated factors are recognised by union and third built around supporting the evolution of communities of sector partners and there is a strong demand from them practice. The SUL network of ULRs is one such community. for the creation of support routes into OER resources that include the curation of suitable starting materials and Reversioning and remixing clearly marked pathways. In our early scoping of OER developments in the Scottish sector we found that overwhelmingly across all types of Social practices institution and organisations concerns were centred on The second emergent theme concerns open educa- accessing and using OER in effective ways rather than on tion as a set of social practices. Much of what we have the potential for remixing and reversioning content. The learnt about barriers to engaging with OER has derived OER partnership developments carried forward by the from engagement with partners. As have many of the OUiS were a rare exception to this. So, for example, Car- insights into ways in which barriers may be overcome. A ing Counts: a self-reflection and planning course for carers particularly rich source of experience has emerged from derived from an earlier course developed in a different working with Scottish Union Learning (SUL), the learn- context. Part of what OEPS has offered to partners from ing arm of the Scottish Trades Union Congress. SUL sup- the outset is support in creating, remixing and reversion- ports Union Learning Representatives (ULRs), located in ing material on OpenLearnWorks (OLW)8. OLW is a sister workplaces across Scotland, who have a remit to assist site to OpenLearn. However, while OpenLearn is the site their colleagues and workmates in accessing education where the Open University hosts its own material OLW is a opportunities. The OEPS partnership with SUL builds on Moodle based community site that can be used by anyone a model for OER engagement developed in Wales (Pudner, and will host the exemplar resources that OEPS is develop- 2015) and aims to develop the skills of ULRs so they can ing in a small set of third sector and university partner- act as open learning champions in their workplace. In ships. Despite the initial lack of interest in going beyond 2015 the project held a series of interactive workshops discussion of use and effective practice, as partnerships across all the regions of Scotland and involving nearly have matured we are beginning to see a shift of interest 100 ULRs ( Macintyre, 2015b). Through this process it has in the freedoms that open affords. This has resulted in a been possible to generate ideas about how to socialise number of small pilots that are looking at ways of remix- Art. 12, page 4 of 6 Cannell et al: Opening Educational Practices in Scotland (OEPS) ing content in the OLW environment. In the second half other institutions. This underlines the strong cultural bar- of the project OEPS will be upgrading the functionality of riers that inhibit wider use of OER. In a wide-ranging set of OLW to support these developments. studies of Asian universities Dhanajaran and Abeywardena The transition from a focus on use to an interest in (2013) found that only a small minority of staff take the remixing seems to stem from the process of engagement opportunity to reuse, revise, remix and redistribute OER. and discussion that characterises OEPS partnerships. This The evidence from the meetings, workshops and seminars observation resonates with the idea of a ladder of OER that we have held so far is that a similar situation prevails engagement developed by Joanna Wild (2012), which in Scotland. OEPS is carrying out separate but linked sur- has been recently developed further by Allison Littlejohn veys across the Scottish university and college sectors to (2015). explore these findings more rigorously. Early data from the surveys suggests that the key priority in expanding the Discussion level of use of OER is the development of greater under- The project is working with universities and colleges. A standing of the open education agenda. Arguably there small number of institutions in Scotland are developing is currently a disjunction between the formal education policy on the use of OER (UCISA, 2014); a larger number sector and organisations outside the academy. In the lat- have been influenced by the high public and media pro- ter there is a real demand for engagement with OER that file of MOOCS. Among these a small number of Scottish is currently not being met. This is partly because most institutions are now part of FutureLearn and Edinburgh informal learning providers do not have a platform where University also publishes MOOCS on Coursera. However, they can host OER or experiment, develop and deliver free the evidence that OEPS has collected in dialogue with open online content. Indeed, aside from a few exceptions university partners suggests that there is little likelihood most formal learning providers in Scotland also lack these of the majority pursuing this approach. The Open Scot- spaces. However, the issue is not simply about technical land network provides an active focus for educational capacity, it is also about culture, pedagogy and models of technologists and has produced the Scottish Open Edu- engagement (Cannell, 2016). cation Declaration9. The declaration provides a helpful The OERs produced in partnership by the OUiS, which framework for an important part of the OEPS objectives formed the impetus for OEPS, have matured and developed that aim at encouraging the development of institutional since the project began. As we explore what openness ena- policy with respect to open education and to create links bles they continue to provide positive evidence for the role between educational technology experts vital to enabling that open education has to play in broadening opportuni- openness and colleagues who have interests in widening ties for non-traditional learners. Effective practice requires participation or learning and teaching more generally. a redrawing of boundaries so that practitioners and aca- With the exception of some very small-scale initiatives demics can work together in a process of co-creation and under the aegis of JISC and some work at Borders College participatory design. Whether partners are interested in there has not been significant activity in Scotland involv- developing new material, or find that existing OER may be ing Open Badges until recently. The Borders College exam- relevant for their purposes, they are often concerned that ple is interesting in that there is now a well-established material should be bespoke. Conventionally ‘bespokeness’ system for badging staff CPD that is mostly delivered is considered to be an attribute of the content of the OER, in face-to-face mode. Borders is also using badges with some of our evidence suggests that a greater concentra- employers for whom the college provides CPD. One strand tion on the practices associated with use may be a more of the OUiS OER development, now linked to OEPS, has effective approach. Designing in a participative way with been a rich source of experience in the iterative reversion- partners ensures that content production and its use are ing of OER in response to external demand. In addition it appropriately contextualised. And crucially the content has generated a set of five open badges, centred around and its use are embedded in the partner’s established The Reflection Toolkit10 and Caring Counts11, two OERs social networks. Co-creation can relate to new content but aimed at supporting educational and employment transi- much more importantly it is an important component of tions. The project is monitoring the take up of these new OEP. We have argued elsewhere (Cannell and Macintyre, badged courses and gathering feedback on the impact of 2014) that it may be helpful to consider extending the badges on learner motivation. Early reports from partners definition of Open Educational Practices (OEP) to embrace suggest that the idea of recognition through badges is the social and networks within which learners and the popular among non-traditional learners. In the SUL exam- organisations that they are linked to are situated. ple discussed earlier we asked the ULRs to undertake a badged course that develops skills in working with the Competing Interests OpenLearn site to help learners identify specific relevant The authors declare that they have no competing interests. topics on the site which support their learning needs. On completion a number of the ULRs commented on how the Notes structured nature of a final assessment had encouraged 1 http://declaration.openscot.net. them to reflect and had reinforced their learning. 2 http://www.unesco.org/new/fileadmin/MULTIMEDIA/ In the early stages of the project we found almost no HQ/CI/CI/pdf/Events/Paris%20OER%20Declaration_ interest from university and college partners in remixing 01.pdf. or reversioning OER courses that had been produced by 3 http://www.sqa.org.uk/sqa/67688.html. Cannell et al: Opening Educational Practices in Scotland (OEPS) Art. 12, page 5 of 6 4 http://www.oeps.ac.uk/create-your-own/setting- Falconer, I, McGill, L, Littlejohn, A and Boursinou, E standard-students-co-creators-oer-dundee-university. 2013 Overview and Analysis of Practices with Open 5 For the project objectives got to www.oepscotland.org. 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Available from: http://www.era.lib.ed.ac.uk/ SCORE%20Fellowship%20Final%20Report%20-%20 handle/1842/6683 [Accessed 28 June 2013]. web%20version.pdf [Accessed 9 November 2015]. Art. 12, page 6 of 6 Cannell et al: Opening Educational Practices in Scotland (OEPS) How to cite this article: Cannell, P, Page, A and Macintyre, R 2016 Opening Educational Practices in Scotland (OEPS). Journal of Interactive Media in Education, 2016(1): 12, pp. 1–6, DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5334/jime.412 Submitted: 20 November 2015 Accepted: 30 March 2016 Published: 17 May 2016 Copyright: © 2016 The Author(s). This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC-BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. See http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. 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