OER 16 - Edinburgh

Connecting Resources and Users - requirements for a federated cross-sectorial infrastructure for OER

Richard HeinenUniversity Duisburg-Essen – Learning LabIngo BleesDIPF – German Eduserver

Requirements for a federated cross-sectorial infrastructure for OER

- Feasibility study for OER-Infrastructures

- Data acquisition: interviews and workshops

- Evaluation of OER from different educational sectors

- Model for an OER-Infrastructure and its coordinated development

Objective of the Feasibility Study

„The study has the objective of identifying…

• sector-specific and cross-sectoral• need, acceptance, technical and organisational requirements• concerning a central infrastructure - for Open Educational

Resources (OER)• or one linking distributed inventories as alternative and• specifying the necessary system components, i.e. a repository or

a referatory or a combination of both.”

Political background: 2015 Report of the working group on OER of

Study Design. Mixed Methods

• Literature synopsis

• Good practice analysis (in other countries e.g. http://www.wikiwijsleermiddelenplein.nl/, Klascement, NDLA)

• Guided interviews (50 Interviews)

• Sector specific expert workshops (60 participants)

• Collaborative review of first draft of report (16 experts from all four educational sectors)

Players

Public Authority

• School• Universities• Further Education Institutions• Library Centres• Education Servers• […]

Commercial

• Publishers• Media Producers• Content Providers• Chambers• […]

Communities, Initiatives

• Networks• Cooperations• Individual Actors

Social Partner

• Foundations• Church • Associations• Unions• […]

Types of Stakeholders

• Legal transparency and certainty• More efficient usage of existing material, e.g. from scientific

sources and cultural institutions • Timeliness• Individualization, differentiation within classes• Cooperation of teachers (sharing culture)• Participation in education (lifelong learning)

Potentials of OER are confirmed

• Significance of OER• Current state of OER provision• Need for support• Expected added value of OER

Differences in the Educational Sectors

School: • Significance high, German discourse on OER began in school sector• Many initiatives and tracks for practical use of OER materials and also for

platform usage.

Significance of OER

Higher Education:• Significance is acknowledged and rising• Growing digitisation of learning raises the need for digital educational media

Vocational Training and Adult Education:• OER has become a topic in these sectors‘ discourse• In practice minor significance but increasing in Adult Education

Current State of OER Provision

School: • Various highly developed platforms, that make content available and offer

options for content producers to store, edit and download OER materials

Higher Education:• In single initiatives or pilot projects are first trials like networks, online

courses, self learning units.• Open approach already established in the field of Open Access

Vocational Training und Adult Education:• Sparse material: there is freely available material e.g. for language learning

and also material created with public funding but which is yet no real OER

Need for SupportSchool: • Advancement of communication and exchange between stakeholders i.e.

public services, publishers, teachers and the OER‐Community is needed in order to support legal certainty in OER use, quality assurance and the expansion of a suitable collection of digital educational media.

Higher Education:• The already existing materials would have to be enhanced for becoming

OER and be supplied into a networked OER infrastructure.• Need for legal certainty in creating and using OER• Cooperation of higher education institutions needs encouraging political

cues

Vocational Training and Adult Education:• Need for know-how, content and capable platforms for storing and

discovering• Networking between institutions und single initiatives

Expected Added Value of OER

School: • Short term: there are already numerous initiatives and platforms that can be

supported and advanced by a powerful and sustainable infrastructure for aggregation and distribution of OER.

Higher Education:• Middle term: material must be produced and be made available• Quality enhancement of teaching by increasing the stock of digital learning

units• Improved visibility and attainment of new audiences

Vocational Training und Adult Education:• Long term: material must be created, platforms must be built• Incentive schemes and supportive measures for more acceptance of digital

learning• If requirements are met a high added value can be expected.

Main Result

• A central repository would not be functional and not be accepted in communities.

• To overcome the fragmented landscape of existing repositories and to realize cross-sectoral synergies…

• …a network of reference systems seems to be a promising approach…

• MDES (in German: MDAS)

Rep

Rep

Rep

School

Higher Ed

VT/ AE

Rep

Rep

Rep

Rep

Rep

Rep Rep

Repositories collecting and providing resources

Rep

Rep

Rep

School

Higher Ed

VT/ AE

Rep

Rep

Rep

Rep

Rep

Rep Rep

Ref

Ref Ref

Ref Ref Repositories collecting and providing resources

Referatories collecting metadata

Rep

Rep

Rep

School

Higher Ed

VT/ AE

Rep

Rep

Rep

Rep

Rep

Rep Rep

Ref

Ref Ref

Ref Ref

Exchange is missing between referatories and cross sectors

Rep

Rep

Rep

School

Higher Ed

VT/ AE

Rep

Rep

Rep

Rep

Rep

Rep Rep

Ref

Ref Ref

Ref Ref

Metadata-Exchange-Service can collect and translate metadata

MDES

Rep

Rep

Rep

School

Higher Ed

VT/ AE

Rep

Rep

Rep

Rep

Rep

Rep Rep

Ref

Ref Ref

Ref Ref Cross sectoral referatories can be established

Repositories can us extended metadata

MDES

Ref

RefRef

Ref. 1User generated

Ref. 2 automatically aggregated

Ref. 3 Editorial Staff

Ref. 4 filtered

MDES

Referatories Repositories

coordination

Coordination of stakeholder, documentation of standards and APIs

advisory board

coordination

Stakeholder from all educational sectorsDiscussions about standards and APIs

round table

advisory board

coordination

Integration of OER-Community

Recommandations – Summary

Federated network of reference systems

Coordination of stakeholder

Increased visibility and findability of OERIncreased quality assurance by transparent metadata

creation by different users

Informational open Ecosystem

References

Heinen, Richard; Kerres, Michael; Scharnberg, Gianna; Blees, Ingo; Rittberger, MarcA federated reference structure for open informational ecosystems, Journal of Interactive Media in Education, in print , 2016.

Blees, Ingo; Hirschmann, Doris; Kühnlenz, Axel; Rittberger, Marc; Schulte, Jolika; Heinen, Richard; Kerres, Michael; Scharnberg, GiannaMachbarkeitsstudie zum Aufbau und Betrieb von OER-Infrastrukturen in der Bildung, Frankfurt, 2016.

Kerres, Michael; Heinen, RichardOpen Educational Resources and Informational Ecosystems: «Edutags» as a connector for open learning. MedienPädagogik, Zeitschrift für Theorie und Praxis der Medienbildung - Themenheft: Educational Media Ecologies , 24 , S. 154-173, 2014.

Kerres, Michael; Heinen, RichardOpen Informational Ecosystems: The Missing Link for Sharing Educational Resources, The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, 16 (1), S. 24-29, 2015.

Heinen, Richard; Blees, Ingo; Kerres, Michael; Rittberger, MarcOpen educational resources and social bookmarking: Connecting Users and Editors (Konferenzbeitrag)Stracke, Christian; Ehlers, Ulf-Daniel; Creelman, Alastair; Shamarina-Heidenreich, Tatiana (Hrsg.): Changing the Trajectory - Quality for Opening up Education - Proceedings of the International EIF / LINQ Conference 2014, S. 33-40, Logos Verlag, Berlin, 2014.

Kerres, Michael; Heinen, RichardOpen Informational Ecosystems: The Missing Link for Sharing Educational Resources, The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, 16 (1), S. 24-29, 2015.

http://bit.ly/OER16-ET Der Vortrag von Ingo Blees und Richard Heinen ist lizensiert unter einer Creative Commons Namensnennung 4.0 International Lizenz.