OE Global 2018

The International Council for Open and Distance Education, (ICDE, www.icde.org) and Open Education Consortium, (OEC, www.oeconsortium.org) both have a proud history in building up and promoting Open Education in all parts of the world.

Based on joint observations and analyses, ICDE and OEC will facilitate a sharp, engaging panel discussion on moving OER from the margin to mainstream – aiming for the tipping point. Panellists will include members of the ICDE Executive Committee and the OEC Board of Directors. We will interrogate the challenges and solutions to the large scale adoption and use of OER around the world.

The adoption and use of Open Educational Resources (OER) have been shown to increase student retention, support student learning, and reduce costs for students and educational institutions. An OECD report (2015) claims that OER is a catalyst for innovation. While the uptake of OER is increasing around the world, still a minority of faculties, educational institutions, stakeholders and governments aim for full incorporation of OER into mainstream education.

Significant initiatives have been started by ICDE and OEC members around the world but the situation in many countries is worrying.

The 2nd World Open Educational Resources (OER) Congress, 18-20 September, Ljubljana, Slovenia, organized by UNESCO called for action: “From Commitment to Action”. To that end, it adopted the “Ljubljana Action Plan”.

Six months after this important event, the question for all involved in the movement for open is: How can we take the best from OER, including its innovative potential and move OER mainstream?!

This question will be asked to pannelists and audience in an interactive way and each one will be invited to brainstorm and suggest a few critical measures to move OER mainstream.

This proposal responds to the track Policies & strategies for Open Education.

In February 2018, FOSTER Plus and TIB are going to organize a book sprint in order to author an Open Science training handbook collaboratively. For one week, we will bring together twelve experienced Open Science educators in Hanover to answer a number of questions: What works, what doesn’t? How can you make the most of limited resources? With their help, we are creating a handbook that equips future trainers with methods, instructions, exemplary training outlines and inspiration for their own trainings. The handbook will provide advocates across the globe with practical know-how to deliver Open Science principles to researchers, support staff, and research administrators. It will be a living resource that is online accessible under the terms of CC-BY 4.0 license. The Open Science community will be able to review, comment and add other contributions such as discipline-specific case studies or translations after the book sprint. This is how we ensure the relevance of the handbook for a broad audience.
In our ultimate goal to establish a robust, highly reusable resource on a certain topic in a short matter of time, we utilize two of the most prominent concepts and methods from the area of collaborative book writing: Book sprints and living books. Although the opportunities of both became apparent in the last few years, they still bear challenges, especially when applied to a loosely coupled, international audience of authors. We scrutinize our experiences all along the process, from book preparation, through facilitating the book sprint itself, up to reuse and enhancement of the book with different groups in different scenarios. Hereby, we hope to encourage and equip Open Education practitioners all over the world to make use of new open methods in the realm of collaborative book writing, like book sprints and maintaining open books, for their respective projects.

This contribution focuses on sharing the open research project “Professional Development through Collaborative Learning and an Open Education Resource (OER) textbook for Language Education” in Uzbekistan. This project is one of the 17 supported globally by the UNESCO programme Open Education for a better world through volunteer mentors.

The project team will share the need for this study and their current thinking regarding the co-creation process of the open textbook for the continuous professional development of language educators based on identified needs and priorities. The team will also discuss their collaborative working practices across three continents, illustrate their initial ideas around the collaborative development activities based on related contemporary research and literature. The team will also review an online pilot and suggest revisions for the next version which will be the first accredited online course in Uzbekistan.

This contribution will be of interest to delegates worldwide with an interest in the adoption of open textbook approaches for the professional development of language educators and educators in a range of disciplines.

This presentation addresses the theme "Innovation through opening traditional practices" to introduce and adapt Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) for better learning quality. It is organized by the two European projects MOOC Maker (www.mooc-maker.org) and MOOQ (www.mooc-quality.eu): Both initiatives are focusing on the quality of MOOCs and their improvement by addressing specific target groups and needs.
Leading question is: "How to make MOOCs better for specific target groups and developing countries?" The presentation will discuss how the future development and design of MOOCs can aim better at the needs and preferences of specific target groups, e.g. from rural areas or formal school education. In addition the presenters from Europe and Latin America will have a special focus on the opportunities how MOOCs be used in developing countries to improve formal and non-formal learning and education and to contribute to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) set by the United Nations.
Main goals are the sharing and exchange of experiences and their discussion with the whole audience: Therefore all participants are invited and encouraged to join and contribute to the debate.
This presentation is a first collaboration between the two European research projects MOOC Maker and MOOQ.
The panel combines experts and organizations from Latin America and Europe:
Rocael Hernández, Guatemala, Carlos Delgado Kloos, Spain, María del Mar Pérez Sanagustín, Chile, Christian M. Stracke, the Netherlands, and António Teixeira, Portugal.
Intended audience are all experts, practitioners and novices sharing interest in the improvement of MOOCs

This paper reports on a five-week pre-induction socialisation MOOC designed to facilitate successful transition into Higher Education for flexible learners. In this context a broad definition is adopted of flexible learners, which includes adult learners engaged in part-time and/or online/distance education. The MOOC targets prospective flexible learners during early parts of the study life-cycle, when they are considering entry into higher education, or have just made that decision and may benefit from advice about how to effectively prepare. The MOOC has at its core a number of the Open Educational Resources (OER) developed by the Student Success Toolbox project (studentsucess.ie) and combines these digital readiness OERs with other supporting materials, e.g. additional text and video content, discussion forums, and activities, in order to deliver a comprehensive pre-induction socialisation course. The additional materials support the key messages contained in the digital readiness OERs that are at the heart of the MOOC. The key areas of focus in the MOOC are to: present information that aids in the creation of realistic expectations about flexible learning in higher education, especially around the importance of time-management; facilitate prospective learners in reflecting on their readiness for study; reduce anxiety by presenting reassuring messages; offer opportunities for socialisation with other prospective learners; equip these prospective learners with advice and tools on how to effectively prepare for study. A small pilot of the MOOC indicates that a course such as this, that uses the open educational resources developed by the student success toolbox project, can have a positive impact on prospective flexible learners.

This Panel addresses the theme "Open Educational Practices/Open Pedagogy" to improve Open Education for better learning quality. It is organized by the UNESCO and ICDE Chairs in OER (www.oerchairs.net) and the United Nations' institution UNECO (www.unesco.org) in cooperation with all interested organizations such as Open Education Consortium (OEC), Creative Commons (CC), UNESCO IITE and ICORE.
Leading question is: "How can the OER community put the UNESCO OER Action Plan into practice?" The expert panel will discuss how innovative open pedagogies and open educational practices using OER can support and increase the implementations and practices of the Ljubljana 2017 OER Action Plan adopted by the UNESCO World OER Congress 2017.
Main goals are the sharing and exchange of experiences and their discussion among the experts on the panel as well as the whole panel audience: Therefore all panel participants are invited and encouraged to join and contribute to the debate.
The panel of 60 minutes combines short initial introductory statements by the invited panel experts with open questions from the moderator and the audience.
This panel is a first follow-up activity of the common panel "The Role of the OER community" by the UNESCO and ICDE Chairs at the World OER Congress 2017 in Ljubljana.
Invited experts and organizations are: Christian M. Stracke, ICDE Chair in OER, Open University of the Netherlands; Jane-Frances Agbu, ICDE Chair in OER, National Open University of Nigeria; Tel Amiel, UNESCO Chair in Open Education, University of Campinas, Brazil; Daniel Burgos, UNESCO Chair in eLearning, Universidad Internacional de La Rioja, Spain, and and Zeynep Varoglu, UNESCO Programme Specialist responsible for OER Action Plan, UNESCO.
Intended audience are all experts, practitioners and novices sharing interest in the improvement of Open Education by innovative open pedagogies and open educational practices using OER: Contributions by conference participants as well as by online participants commenting via twitter are most welcome and encouraged.

There is growing interest in the adoption of open educational resources (OER) and open educational practices (OEP) in a variety of contexts. Continuing professional development (CPD) among practitioners in the effective adoption of OER and OEP is critical in this scenario. Massive open online courses (MOOCs), which also grew as part of the open education movement, provide a feasible means for this purpose. MOOCs are considered a ‘disruptive innovation’ in making free and open learning opportunities accessible to large numbers. Yet, the design of an effective massive online course that is as robust as a great online course with smaller student numbers where good principles of teaching and learning are maintained, is very challenging. Most contemporary MOOCs tend to have a content-driven focus of knowledge transmission, deviating from its original focus of knowledge generation. With the intention of providing learning experiences to promote learner engagement with OER, rather than presenting content about OER, we designed four CPD MOOCs to support the integration of OER and adoption OEP by practitioners based on a scenario-based learning (SBL) approach. This paper presents the analysis and design phases of this process, discussing the challenges faced and innovative strategies adopted in our pursuit to answer the question, ‘“How best to design effective  MOOCs on OER and OEP for continuing professional development of practitioners?”

Link to the full paper published in Open Praxis: https://openpraxis.org/index.php/OpenPraxis/article/view/826

In my presentation I will describe effective teaching methods related to journalism and public relations studies. It is necessary to apply new teaching methods that would attract students attention, as well as systematic training lecturers on new teaching methods. The use of many free web applications, learning through play, using crosswords, quizzes for learning vocabulary makes learning enjoyable and effective. The article will present specific methods of working with students, which I use in courses, lectures. I will show the use of Open Sources and concrete results that can be achieved by remote working.
I will describe and present the benefits of teaching through free e-learning pathways as well as web-based applications, social media which significantly enhance classes and save time (without detriment to teaching effectiveness). I will show the concrete effects of the classes, and I will present methods of stress-free assessment and verification of knowledge. I will present in practice (effective of use) specific Open Sources such as: Google Cultural Institutes, Pixbay, Wikipedia. The presentation of the Open Resources will enrich the examples of their use in specific types of classes. The presentation will be supplemented by current literature on e-learning and innovative teaching methods (both English and Polish).

One of the main developments for financial professionals is the increasing demands to understand the present and to forecast the future. It is not only about reporting the past, but to advise companies about future developments. Targeting the available data is essential. The School of Accounting and Business Economics at Saxion University of Applied Sciences (UAS) is developing an open online course to teach students and to train professionals in analyzing and interpreting data for consultancy. Currently we have 3 cases ready, out of seven, based on real-life examples. All materials will be available under a CC BY-NC 4.0 license and are actively shared with other UAS and consultant companies in the Netherlands. Students at our own university earn credits for this course, financial professionals will earn Permanent Education Points. In addition, we want to create a learning community between students and professionals through online dialogue and discussions.

This paper assesses the potential for open educational resources (OER) in undergraduate aviation management degree programs in Australia. To date, traditional approaches to learning and teaching have dominated undergraduate aviation studies in Australia. This is not surprising given the technical and specialised focus required for pilot training. However, as undergraduate aviation degree programs have expanded to now include a growing focus on aviation management, the need and potential of OER is clear. The global aviation industry has a long history of cooperation and sharing when it comes to technical and safety matters; less so on economic and commercial issues. This latter reality has generated a business culture for many aviation companies, including airlines, of commercial protectionism and targeted strategic cooperation. This approach and mentality arguably extents to aviation focused higher education where competition for students, staff and exclusive industry and educational partnerships tend to work against a spirit and practice of wider sharing and openness. In Australia, the aviation higher education space is relatively small with only half a dozen universities offering degrees at the bachelor level. Within this context, the potential for OER is enormous. OER-enhanced learning and teaching in aviation would help to extend educational frontiers, and connect hitherto isolated and inward looking aviation programs. This paper explores existing OER developments and opportunities for undergraduate students in aviation management programs globally, and more specifically in Australia. It also discusses the potential to enhance learning and teaching in this space. Key recommendations are given covering greater cross-institutional collaboration and openness among aviation disciplines in Australia, at both institutional and educator levels.

The purpose of this study is to design an open course in the field of Turkish Education as a Foreign Language that can be used by everyone as an open course material with a plain and simple interface, through which participants can learn Turkish in their own pace and under their own control in a thematic and fun way with topics from real life.

With the learning environment developed as a part of this research, through completely distance education, a free learning environment is constituted for approximately 90,000 foreign students who have come to Turkey for educational purposes and for approximately 3.1 million refugees in Turkey who cannot afford to participate in a Turkish teaching program. With this service, the participation process of the social, cultural and economic life and employment of disadvantaged groups is aimed to be accelerated; and the quality of this participation increased by learning Turkish. Additionally, it is targeted at all people around the world who want to learn Turkish language and culture and benefit from the learning environments developed. The existence of instructions structured in English, Russian and Arabic is expected to expand the audience especially at lower levels.

The research was constituted as a design based research model. In the research, first, learning outcomes for A1 and A2 levels have been written based upon European Language Certificate Program Criteria. A spirally structured content arrangement has been made to serve to these outcomes, and e-learning materials have been designed and produced to transmit the content to the participants, which are e-courses, animated videao, dialogues, games and grammar video lessons all of which aim to improve students’ listening and reading comprehension, check their own learning and have fun.

Developing meaningful educational experiences and assessments in massive open online courses can be a significant challenge for course developers. In this paper, we discuss a variety of strategies that we have used in MOOC development in order to assure that we are giving our students meaningful, rigorous assessment activities. Some strategies discussed in this paper include short answer-style quizzes, drawing by drag-and-drop, self-assessed free-response questions, and the use of fill-in-the-blank derivations.

This papers focuses on the use of learning dashboards in higher education to foster self-regulated learning and open education. Students in higher education have to evolve to independent and lifelong learners. Actionable feedback during learning that evokes critical self-reflection, helps to set learning goals, and strengthens self-regulation will be supportive in the process. Therefore, this paper presents three case studies of learning analytics in higher education and the experiences in transferring them from one higher education institute than the other. The learning dashboard from the three case studies is based on two common underlying principles. First, they focus on the inherent scalability and transferability of the dashboard: both considering the underlying data and the technology involved. Second, the dashboard use as underlying theoretical principles Actionable Feedback and the Social Comparison Theory. The learning dashboards from the case studies are not considered as the contribution of this paper, as they have been presented elsewhere. This paper however describes the three learning dashboards using the general framework of Greller and Drachsler (2012) to enhance understanding and comparability. For each of the case study, the actual experiences of transferability obtained within a European collaboration project (STELA, 2017) are reported. The research work discusses how this collaboration impacted and transformed the institutes involved and beyond. The use of open education technology versus proprietary solutions is described, discussed, and translated in recommendations. As such the research work provides insight on how learning analytics resources could be transformed into open educational resources, freely usable in other higher education institutes.

In this study we sought to examine trust of MOOC learners in the platforms, institutions and instructors involved in the design and delivery of the MOOC. We sought to examine what influenced learners’ conceptualization of trust in MOOCs and how this might influence their future intentions towards the related MOOC providers. To this end we examined whether an increase in perceived source credibility of the MOOC increased trusting beliefs of the MOOC learner. Furthermore we examined whether increases in trusting beliefs of the MOOC learner would lead to an increase in their future trusting intentions. This second question has implications for whether a student persists in their learning or decides to commit to further study pathways such as paid certificates. In addition to testing these two hypotheses we sought to determine the most significant underlying drivers that learners reported as affecting their trust in MOOCs they undertook. Drawing on concepts of trust from the literature we adapted and developed a survey instrument and recruited MOOC learners to respond. Following analysis of 76 responses we found a positive correlation between source credibility and learner trust in MOOCs. Further there was also a positive correlation found between trust in MOOCs and learners professed future intentions. Finally we determined several component factors of MOOC trust drivers as reported by MOOC learners. Our work holds potential implications for MOOC platform developers,instructors, and designers in signposting areas where MOOC learners have positive and negative experiences of MOOCs, which can in turn influence their future relationship with the MOOC providers.

While open educational resources have expanded exponentially in the last decade, most educational resources are copyrighted works that are not openly licensed. Copyright limitations often allow the use of such resources in the classroom, in research, and in the creation of new OERs, but the degree to which use is possible varies greatly by country. Furthermore, proposed changes to copyright limitations will affect the degree to which these uses will remain legal.

We propose a panel to discuss how teaching, learning and research activities are supported by a two-track strategy of encouraging open licensing and open access policies, as well as limitations and exceptions to copyright law. It will introduce Open advocates to legal provisions that allow teachers and researchers to use copyrighted works without permission from rightholders, will show how poorly crafted legal provisions common in many countries make such uses illegal, and will discuss how the two communities of activists can jointly pursue common goals. Panelists will briefly present two studies illustrating how differently crafted copyright limitations yield different outcomes in the real world. Teresa Nobre’s survey of education exceptions in 15 European countries shows that teachers in some countries can make use of certain types of resources, while others cannot. Mike Palmedo’s study of publishing output and citations data shows that scholars in middle-income countries with more permissive research limitations tend to produce more papers, and more highly cited papers. Meredith Jacob will present examples of how teachers and OER authors have relied on fair use to include third party materials in the OER context. Most of the panel’s time, however, will be devoted to a structured conversation with the audience to find areas where Open and user rights advocates can cooperate to expand access to a broad set of educational materials, including books, papers, and videos.

• What is the connection between open, online, flexible and technology-enhanced (OOFAT) approaches to education and sustainable and innovative business models? This is one question posed by the OOFAT Models project (funded by ICDE and conducted by researchers from The Open University’s OER Hub and Forschungsinstitut für Bildungs- und Sozialökonomie (FIBS) in Germany). Our OOFAT concept models Content (consisting of subject knowledge, support and guidance and learning analytics, which together make up the entirety of the didactical process); Delivery (consisting of the qualities of place, pace and timing of delivery of the content, key events and processes); and Recognition and assessment (consisting of both assessment and credentialization, which are formal processes leading to recognition of learning achievements). Each of these dimensions are analysed in terms of flexibility (how digital technology is harnessed to reduce the need for physical presence) and openness (how the principle of openness is integrated (in various ways) into the core processes; from closed group to open network). The main purpose of the study is to develop models that demonstrate different practice in terms of how one or more elements of OOFAT are used to offer flexible learning in a sustainable model.  The presentation will include a brief description of method and dataset; a summary of results; highlight interesting exemplars which could be scaled up or adopted by other through innovation pathways; and provide a typology of open business practices and business model exemplars.

For a long time, continuing education has been dominated by a regime of intellectual property. Most learning materials have been restrictively licenced as they were seen as the (social) capital for trainers, coaches and other adult educators.

This situation led to a strong barrier for the adoption of Open Educational Resources (OER) in adult education contexts. Even though, OER offer immense potential for continuing education and even for self-employed trainers. Therefore, it is the main target of the project “OER Content-Expert” to explain basic principles and advantages of OER for this specific audience.

Funded by the German Ministry of Education and Research, it is part of the program line to develop and implement trainings to sensitize multiplicators for OER in various educational settings. In particular, it is aimed at freelancer who have no or little prior knowledge about OER. Using a blended learning scenario, learners are introduced to the idea and possibilities of OER:
Kick-off: This is for a first introduction to OER in a 3h workshop taking place at one of 20 cities in Germany.
First Online-Phase: A MOOC, lasting 8 weeks with a workload of approximately 3h/week.
Workshop: After learning the basics of OER, participants will work on an individual OER project at a workshop (2 days).
Second Online-Phase: This is intended as a preparation for the examination and for the finalisation of the individual OER-project.
Examination: A presentation of the individual OER-project is given in an online setting. An expert jury will provide feedback. The formal evaluation will, if the participant is successful, result in a certification.


At the moment (October 2017), nearly 400 participants are enrolled in the MOOC and 61 have received a certificate.

Slides: http://bit.ly/oeglobal18oerexp

We are a consortium of Tanzanian and Irish organizations who, over a 5-year period, have been laying the groundwork for establishing an e-Learning platform in Tanzania. The platform will contribute to scaling up health workers’ access to CPD courses, and provide opportunities for national and international virtual mentoring and coaching. Courses will be designed to support inter-professional communication and collaboration, with a clear focus on applying new knowledge and skills in the workplace.

Why we believe we will succeed:
• Digital transformation has already started and will expand through achievement of Target 9C of the SDGs .
• An e-Learning Platform is arguably the most cost-effective and sustainable option for scaling up CPD opportunities for health workers in Tanzania.
• The e-Learning platform initiative is built on a foundation of collaboration and we are commited to strengthening our reach and increasing impact through a locally-owned solution which is open to partnering with other organizations who can use the platform infrastructure for courses based on approved knowledge products.
• We know how to develop low-cost and localized Courses/MOOCs which are relevant to health workers’ needs.
• Digital literacy and learning literacy skills building programmes will be provided to ensure health workers know how to participate effectively in a mobile learning environment as self-directed learners.
• As CPD becomes compulsory, the e-Learning platform will be set up to assist health workers comply with their obligations.

Harnessing technological advances offers transformative solutions to persisting challenges. Mobile learning provides an equitable, affordable, and sustainable way to meet professionals’ CPD needs – allowing them to acquire new knowledge and skills, and to connect with their professional community for supportive feedback and group problem-solving, regardless of their geographical location or gender.

It has been 10 years since the first MOOC was prepared by George Siemens and Stephen Downes on connectivism and connected knowledge at the University of Manitoba. From 25 participants only to hundreds of thousands of students in 2011, MOOCs became a hype in technology-enhanced learning context. Nevertheless, the phenomenon of MOOCs has become widely experienced with low completion rates. As a result, It becomes necessary to improve the learning experience of MOOC users using different types of interventions. One of the suggested actions is gamifying learners experience and captivating the MOOC learning environment. In this presentation, we discuss the added value of employing gamification, the context that can fit in MOOC environment, as well as list the most popular gamification elements that enhance student engagement and motivation.