#abs119
Abstract available from https://www.medev.ac.uk/oer13/119/view/
The consensus (on Twitter anyway) was that the opening keynote of #oer13 was pretty good. NUS president Toni Pearce spoke engagingly about the student perspective of University education in general and OER in particular and Chris Pegler introduced her session by acknowledging so…but emphasising that the educator’s view is (or should be?) different.
We were also warned that “there will be groupwork” and Chris evoked sharing and the open landscape asking “who are we open with?”, identifying that open behaviour tends to become ever more restrictive in concentric circles away from the creator:
Who are we ‘open’ with?
Then came the group work where we were asked to “Talk to 1-2 other people nearby. Identify some resources which you would be happy to share at one of the very local levels. Think about whether you are also happy to allow remix at these levels”.
As a non-pedagog I did necessarily feel qualified to contribute to the conversation on the same terms as my group (although I am committed to sharing sometimes half baked ideas of my own). There was some discussion of “value” – would this resource (complete or not) be of value? – also of context, just releasing stuff – unfinished – into the wild is of limited use unless the community can continue the “conversation” – this my own sense of blogging from a technical/infrastructural perspective – like the conversation in this room, open dissemination allows us to “converse” and formulate our own perspectives.
Trust is key (not to mention time and motivation), not only in one’s community to accept your contribution to the conversation in the appropriate spirit but also faith in oneself. Confidence that comes with practice.
More group discussion (good pedagogy!)…What would it take to share more widely and what are the barriers? What are your concerns? Some tweets from the session include:
Why are academics reluctant to share? Fear of reduced-quality items linked to their names, careers? Turns to #OpenAccess… #oer13 #abs119
— Salient Research (@SalientResearch) March 26, 2013
#oer13 #abs119 “Do you share even work in progress?” -Yes, especially that, such as unfinished bids.
— Alejandro Armellini (@alejandroa) March 26, 2013
#oer13 #abs119 “Work in progress” does not mean “stalled”!
— Alejandro Armellini (@alejandroa) March 26, 2013
Chris brought the session to a close by emphasising that immature outputs can offer valuable insight that may be lost in more polished material; in addition there is a potential dissemination bias if we over select our outputs. By way of example Chris cited candid mid project meetings of the ukoer programme. The final reports of those same projects did not capture the vibrancy of mid project meetings when live projects were exploring their still developing outputs.
Final question: Trust or Time? Both?
At the end of the session, answering a question, Chris conceded that the “100%” of her title was a little mischevious. Rhetorical. Impossible (and not necessarily desirable) but ultimately, open is as open does and if we are continually aspiring to “showcase” resources we are missing a huge and valuable learning experience.
OER13: Evidence, Experience, Expectations 