Hello! Erik Christiansen Librarian ~ Psychology & Student Wellness ▪ ▪ echristiansen@mtroyal.ca erikchristiansen.net/portfolio Openly Obsessed Open Educational Resources Policy in Western Canada & Conceptualizing Openness in Higher Education Definition of OER “digitized materials offered freely and openly for educators, students and self-learners to use and reuse for teaching, learning and research” (OECD, 2007) Background Why did I become so obsessed with open educational resources? (McNutt & Christiansen, 2016) 1 Open Enough? Eight Factors to Consider When Transitioning from Closed to Open Courses and Resources: A Conceptual Framework Research Question What are the primary factors that educators need to consider when transitioning to OER? If each of these factors could be placed on a conceptual scale from “most closed” to “most open”, what would be the implications? Goal To help educators understand the choices and consequences when moving to OER Conflated definitions of openness (Christiansen & McNally, 2017) Eight Factors to Consider When Transitioning to OER (Christiansen & McNally, 2017) Conceptualizing openness: Choose Elements OER Factors Most Closed Mixed Most Open Copyright/Open Licensing Frameworks Copyright/all rights reserved Less Open CC License Terms (NC/ND and arguably SA) CC-BY License/ Public Domain Accessibility Formatting Not formatted for accessibility Some accessibility formatting (e.g. closed captioning) Fully accessibility (e.g. compliance w/ US HHS 508 Compliant) Language Single Language (usually English) Bi-lingual or includes guides/steps for translation Multi-Lingual or includes guides/steps for translation and is bilingual Support Costs Paid resources Licensed library resources Openly Licensed Resources Assessment No assessment available Self-assessment, but not meaningful (questions only) Meaningful self assessment (questions and answers) Digital Distribution Closed/availalbe only to insiders (e.g. via LMS) Open but low discoverability (e.g. institutional repository) Open and high discoverability (e.g. YouTube or broadly avaialble repository (e.g. Merlot, BCcampus) File Format PDF or other non-editable format Editable format but proprietary software (e.g. Word) Fully open format (e.g. html) Cultural Considerations No consideration for outside cultural users/includes culturally specific materials/content Some considerations for outside cultural users Generally devoid of culturally specific material Some Insights ▪ Lack of consensus in literature surrounding meaning of “openness” in education ▪ Copyright most important factor ▪ File formats factor for videos is vague ▪ “Most open” scenario can have pedagogical downsides ▪ Maximizing openness not always possible or necessary 2 A Mixed Bag Open Educational Resources Policy Directions in Western Canada Research Question What are the overarching OER policy directions, at the university and provincial government level, in Western Canada? Do the four Western Provinces have substantially different OER priorities? Goal Provide a more comprehensive understanding of where we’re putting our efforts What are these policy documents you speak of? ● Ministry/universit y Strategic plans ● Institutional policies ● Funding initiatives ● Provincial OER initiative websites ● Budget letters... Tedious coding of documents Documents represent thousands of pages Reviewing specific mentions to OER and open education Examining text at sentence and paragraph level (Christiansen, 2017) Qualitative Policy Analysis 1st Cycle Coding -- Provisional Coding -- Descriptive Coding 2nd Cycle Coding -- Pattern Coding Themes 150 Policy documents coded 417 Individual text snippets 18 Code Categories Nine Major Themes ▪ Societal benefit ▪ Benefit to learning ▪ Development, training, and support ▪ Quality control ▪ Reputation and promotion ▪ Collaboration and leadership ▪ Copyright and intellectual property ▪ Cost savings ▪ Technology, usability, and accessibility Analysis (in progress) References Christiansen, E. (2016, November 24). Everything is sharable: Why open educational resources are critical to lifelong learning and the sharing economy. Workshop given at the Code4Lib Alberta Conference, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB. Christiansen, E. (2017, April 29). Open, get ready! Public and academic libraries’ support for open education in Canada. Paper presented at the Alberta Library Conference, Jasper, AB. Christiansen, E. (2017, July 8). My process for qualitative web research [Blog post]. Retrieved from https://erikchristiansen.net/2017/07/08/my-process-for-qualitative-web-research/ Christiansen, E., McNally, M. (2017, October 12). Open enough? Choices and consequences when transitioning from closed to open resources and courses. Poster session presented at the International Society for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, 2017 Conference, Calgary, AB. McNutt, K., & Christiansen, E. (2016, November 9). Alberta OER toolkits: Goals and objectives. Presented at the OER in and Across Disciplines Conference, Mount Royal University. Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). (2007). Giving Knowledge for Free: The Emergence of Open Educational Resources. http://www.oecd.org/edu/ceri/givingknowledgeforfreetheemergenceofopeneducationalresources.htm Credits Special thanks to all the people who made and released these awesome resources for free: ▪ Presentation template by SlidesCarnival ▪ Photographs by Unsplash For an editable version of this document, please contact Erik Christiansen using the link below. Website: https://erikchristiansen.net/contact/