The OER Knowledge Cloud makes use of cookies. By continuing, you consent to this use. More information.
Some issues affecting the sustainability of open learning courses
Aczel, James · Cross, Simon · Meiszner, Andreas · Hardy, Pascale · McAndrew, Patrick · Clow, Doug

PublishedJune 2011
ConferenceEDEN 2011 Annual Conference: Learning and Sustainability: The New Ecosystem of Innovation and Knowledge

ABSTRACT
While there has been much excitement in recent years about the potential of Web 2.0 principles, open educational resources (OER) and cross-border educational programmes to catalyse enhanced pedagogies, the world economic downturn has focused attention on the sustainability of open learning initiatives. Can making content more widely editable, reusing learning resources and sharing responsibility for course delivery result in higher production speeds, better materials, and lower costs?
The openED 2.0 project is trialling a hybrid organizational framework of open inter-institutional course production and global open course delivery that seeks to explore these issues. Seven European organisations have collaboratively generated a Free/Open online business studies course, based on existing and freely available materials, and with professional and academic strands. The course has been run once so far; further rounds over the next 18 months will make the materials more widely editable and will explore charging for facilitation, assessment and certification.
Questions to be addressed in this research include: How do materials generated by such open initiatives develop over time, and what are the drivers? What learning takes place, and what are the drivers? What issues arise associated with cross-cultural and multilingual settings? How are differences between formal and informal education exhibited? What are the factors affecting speed of production, effectiveness and sustainability?
This paper presents preliminary results in relation to three aspects of the openED course relevant to achieving more sustainable learning opportunities: (1) international and inter-institutional curriculum design; (2) designing learning for international online participation; and (3) reuse of OER within an open online course.

Keywords free learning · independent learning · open services · open distance learning · open learning · OpenED

Languageeng
URLhttp://oro.open.ac.uk/29100/
Export optionsBibTex · EndNote · Tagged XML · Google Scholar


Viewed by 106 distinct readers




CLOUD COMMUNITY REVIEWS

The evaluations below represent the judgements of our readers and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the Cloud editors.

Click a star to be the first to rate this document


POST A COMMENT
SIMILAR RECORDS

An open future for higher education
McAndrew, Patrick; Scanlon, Eileen; Clow, Doug
Key Takeaways As the world becomes more open, universities have the opportunity to embrace openness in how they carry out their operations, teaching, and research. Open educational resources can provide the catalyst ...
Match: mcandrew, patrick; clow, doug

Freeing up access to learning: The role for open educational resources
Mendonca, Murilo Matos; McAndrew, Patrick; Santos, Andreia; Baldazzi, Anna; et al.
The internet revolution of the last few years has had an impact on how we all live our lives. So it is not surprising that this is also a time of change in attitudes towards how we learn. Free access to information ...
Match: mcandrew, patrick

Massive open online courses and economic sustainability
Liyanagunawardena, Tharindu R.; Lundqvist, Karsten O.; Williams, Shirley Ann
Millions of users around the world have registered on Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) offered by hundreds of universities (and other organizations) worldwide. Creating and offering these courses costs thousands of ...
Match: sustainability

Collective Intelligence for OER Sustainability
Buckingham Shum, Simon; De Liddo, Anna
To thrive, the Open Educational Resource (OER) movement, or a given initiative, must make sense of a complex, changing environment. Since "sustainability" is a desirable systemic capacity that our community should ...
Match: sustainability

OER on the Asian mega universities: 
Developments, motives, openness, and sustainability
Farisi, Mohammad Imam
The OER movement originated and integrated into ODE developments. Mega Universities (MUs) are among the most important of ODE providers worldwide should be to be the primary organizations for providing access to OER. So ...
Match: sustainability

A preliminary exploration of the relationships between student-created OER, sustainability, and students success
Wiley, David; Webb, Ashley; Weston, Sarah; Tonks, DeLaina
This article explores the relationship between open educational resources (OER) created by students for use by other students, the long-term sustainability of the movement toward OER, and the success of students who use ...
Match: sustainability

Open Educational Resources: New possibilities for change and sustainability
Friesen, Norm
In an attempt to understand the potential of OER for change and sustainability, this paper presents the results of an informal survey of active and inactive collections of online educational resources, emphasizing data ...
Match: sustainability

User-generated content’s impact on the sustainability of Open Educational Resources
Ganapathi, Janani
Sustainability is a fundamental requirement to ensure long-term viability of open educational resource (OER) initiatives. To afford technology upgrades and author costs, most of the existing initiatives are heavily ...
Match: sustainability

Advancing sustainability of Open Educational Resources
Koohang, Alex; Harman, Keith
This paper discusses the concept of Open Educational Resources (OERs). The discussion then shift to OER sustainability, a fundamental element essential for the success of OER. Special attention is given to the following ...
Match: sustainability

The evolution of sustainability models for Open Educational Resources: insights from the literature and experts
Tlili, Ahmed; Nascimbeni, Fabio; Burgos, Daniel; Zhang, Xiangling; et al.
The adoption of Open Educational Resources (OER) can, on the one hand, increase access and quality in higher education, but on the other hand it is raising concerns among universities and researchers about its economic ...
Match: sustainability