Notes for my presentation at the OER 15 Conference, 14th April 2015.

1. Overview
of
presenta/on:
1. Brief
characterisa/on
of
what
is
meant
by
a
research
university,
also
called
research-­‐intensive
university
2. Context
of
the
project
3. How
we
carried
out
the
research
4. Consider
the
findings
through
lens
of
Oxford’s
situa/on
as
a
research
university
5. Close
with
a
few
reflec/ons
and
thoughts
going
forward.
1

2. First,
a
few
words
about
what’s
claimed
to
be
dis/nc/ve
about
so-­‐called
research
universi/es…
Chirikov
(2013)
lists
three
key
features
of
research-­‐intensive
universi/es:
• a
‘high
concentra/on
of
talent’
among
academic
staff
and
students;
• ‘abundant
resources’
which
are
prerequisites
to
innova/ve
research
and
the
consequent
genera/on
of
new
knowledge;
and
• governance
structures
that
allow
considerable
academic
autonomy,
which
fosters
a
‘culture
of
excellence’,
among
other
things.
In
terms
of
the
educa/on
that
they
offer,
these
universi/es
are
characterised
by:
• teaching
that
is
research-­‐informed;
• pedagogies
that
aim
to
inspire
students
to
be
‘curious,
driven,
responsible
and
capable
of
academic
thinking’
in
their
capacity
as
‘ci/zens
and
leaders
of
tomorrow’
(Mapstone
et
al)
and
• a
role
as
‘ambassadors
for
educa/onal
outreach
and
innova/on’.
(Mapstone
et
al)
2

3. The
original
purpose
of
the
project
was
to
inves/gate
the
extent
to
which
teaching
staff
at
Oxford
were
using/reusing
the
online
resources
produced
within
the
University
and
made
available
primarily
for
educa/onal
outreach
purposes.
3

4. These
resources
include
several
thousand
podcasts
available
also
through
iTunes
U,
and
also
digi/sed
texts,
images,
short
academic
essays,
simula/ons,
anima/ons,
lesson
plans
and
blog
posts.
A
substan/al
propor/on
–
but
not
all
–
are
released
as
OER;
the
rest
have
more
restric/ve
(all
rights
reserved)
copyright,
but
are
otherwise
freely
available.
4

5. But
when
we
evaluated
one
of
our
OER
collec/ons
with
teaching
staff
just
before
the
project
started,
the
data
suggested
that
only
a
very
small
number
of
Oxford
academics
were
using
OER
in
their
teaching
or
even
had
any
awareness
of
the
copyright
implica/ons
of
using
third-­‐party
resources.
So,
we
changed
the
focus
of
our
research
to
explore
the
rela/onship
between
open
educa*onal
prac*ce
and
the
academic
culture
of
Oxford.
We
aimed
to
illuminate
the
factors
that
might
be
conducive
(or
otherwise)
to
greater
uptake
of
OER
in
teaching
and
learning
in
the
University.
5

6. So
these
were
our
broad
research
ques/ons…
In
full…
1.
To
what
extent
do
Oxford
academic
staff
recognise,
in
their
research
and
teaching,
values
and
prac/ces
that
are
associated
with
openness?
2.
To
what
extent
is
their
current
teaching
prac/ce
shaped
by
their
discipline,
open
prac/ces
in
research
and
Oxford’s
organisa/onal
structure
and
culture?
3.
From
the
perspec/ve
of
different
stakeholders
in
the
University,
what
cons/tutes
op/mal
engagement
with
open
educa/onal
prac/ce
at
Oxford?
6

7. The
research
was
designed
as
a
qualita/ve,
exploratory
study.
We
conducted
14
semi-­‐structured
interviews
with
members
of
teaching
staff
at
the
University
in
summer
and
autumn
2013.
These
included
departmental
lecturers
and
tutorial
fellows
who
were
teaching
undergraduates
or
postgraduates
on
Master’s
programmes
and
were
known
to
have
been
involved
in
‘open’
ac/vi/es
in
the
University.
These
ac/vi/es
included
• contribu/ng
OER
to
Oxford’s
collec/ons
• prac/sing
open
science;
• par/cipa/on
in
in
our
Jisc-­‐funded
OER
Impact
Study
of
2011;
We
couldn’t
get
enough
interviewees
who
had
been
involved
in
open
ac/vi/es,
so
we
also
interviewed
teaching
staff
who
had
been
recognised
for
excellence
in
their
teaching
by
the
students’
union.
We
also
interviewed
representa/ves
of
three
other
stakeholder
groups:
• an
educa/onal
developer
involved
in
the
training
of
early-­‐career
lecturers
and
in
CPD;
• a
librarian
who
had
been
involved
in
the
development
of
one
of
Oxford’s
collec/ons
of
OER;
• a
learning
technologist
experienced
in
the
technical
aspects
of
producing
online
resources
and
helping
teaching
staff
7

8. The
interview
schedules
for
the
academics
were
based
on
a
conceptual
framework
of
open
educa/onal
prac/ces
which
we
had
constructed
from
an
extensive
literature
survey.
There
are
a
number
of
defini/ons
of
OEP,
but
this
one
by
Ehlers
is
one
of
the
most
succinct.
These
were
the
areas
on
which
the
interviews
focused.
• Obviously,
in
talking
about
sharing
and
reusing
resources,
we
had
to
include
non-­‐
OER.
• I’ll
come
back
to
the
open
pedagogic
models
in
the
next
slide.
• Learning
in
an
open
world
is
about
students’
learning,
so
we
just
asked
a
single
ques/on:
what
kinds
of
learning
outcome
would
be
served
if
students
were
to
create
an
open
educa/onal
resource
as
the
output
from
a
regular
learning
ac/vity.
• Open
educa/onal
knowledge
relates
to
teachers’
professional
knowledge
about
teaching
and
learning.
We
asked
interviewees
about
the
extent
to
which
• looking
at
other
people’s
materials
can
them
to
improve
their
own
teaching
prac/ce,
and
• sharing
ideas
about
teaching
can
help
them
to
develop
their
own
prac/ce.
• We
included
openness
in
research
because
at
the
/me
the
University
was
running
an
awareness-­‐raising
programme
about
the
Research
Councils’
UK
mandate
on
open
access
publishing,
and
we
wanted
to
see
whether
there
was
any
cross-­‐over
between
openness
in
research
and
openness
in
teaching.
As
it
turned
out,
there
wasn’t
any
evidence.
8

9. So,
focusing
on
open
pedagogic
models…
We
synthesised
this
set
of
statements
from
the
literature
and
asked
our
interviewees
who
were
teaching
staff
to
comment
on
how
each
statement
relates
to
a) their
own
view
of
the
teacher-­‐student
rela/onship
and
the
nature
of
learning
and
b) how
it
relates
to
undergraduate
teaching
and
learning
at
Oxford.
Taken
together,
these
statements
aren’t
meant
to
form
a
holis/c
repertoire
of
prac/ces
currently
observable
in
the
field.
They
were
constructed
from
disparate
sources:
specula/ve
‘thought-­‐pieces’
as
well
as
findings
from
empirical
research,
some
of
which
may
be
methodologically
conten/ous.
But
as
well
as
providing
a
framework
for
our
discussions
with
interviewees,
these
statements
gave
us
an
opportunity
to
interrogate
some
of
the
claims
of
the
open
educa/on
movement
from
the
evidence
of
exis/ng
prac/ce.
9

10. So,
going
back
to
the
slide
where
we
defined
the
characteris/cs
of
research
universi/es,
I’ll
now
interpret
the
findings
of
our
research
through
the
lens
of
three
of
them:
• Governance
• research-­‐informed
teaching
And
• educa/onal
outreach
And
because
this
presenta/on
is
sub/tled
‘prospects
and
challenges’
I’ll
take
them
in
order
of
the
ease
with
which
they
can
be
tackled:
outreach,
teaching
and
then
governance.
10

11. Research
universi/es
take
their
outreach
mission
very
seriously,
in
part
from
a
sense
that
their
academic
work
should
result
in
closer
connec/ons
with
the
world
outside,
but
also
to
counteract
an
eli/st
image.
Releasing
OER
and
MOOCs
enables
these
universi/es
to
spread
online
learning
to
a
wider
global
audience.
This
is
reflected
in
Oxford’s
Strategic
Plan
for
2013–18
(University
of
Oxford,
nd),
which
specifically
refers
to
‘[developing]
our
globally
available
teaching
resources
and
collec/ons
for
our
own
community,
for
our
distance-­‐taught
students
across
the
world,
and
for
learners
everywhere.’
I
think
the
use
of
the
term
‘globally
available
..
resources’
in
place
of
‘open
…
resources’
(which
one
might
expect),
is
significant,
and
I’ll
come
back
to
it
later.
11

12. All
interviewees
believed
that
knowledge
should
be
open
and
shared
for
the
public
good,
and
that
sharing
of
knowledge
should
lie
at
the
heart
of
the
academic
process.
However,
they
also
felt
that
this
is
an
ideal.
Although
openness
may
be
the
preferred
or
an
ul/mate
way
of
prac/ce,
there
was
some
cau/on
about
how
it
can
operate
within
a
compe//ve
academic
world
and,
indeed,
within
a
capitalist
system.
In
addi/on
to
releasing
OER
for
Oxford’s
collec/ons,
we
found
evidence
that
individual
departments
had
put
learning
resources
on
publicly
accessible
websites.
Par/cipants
gave
a
number
of
reasons
for
sharing
their
educa/onal
resources,
including:
• altruism;
• s/mula/ng
debate
in
the
wider
community;
We
also
found
evidence
of
knowledge
self-­‐efficacy,
which
Van
Acker
and
colleagues
have
iden/fied
as
a
key
predictor
for
sharing.
This
is
the
belief
that
one’s
educa/onal
materials
can
have
added
value
for
others.
The
barriers
to
sharing
iden/fied
by
interviewees
included
the
lack
of
reward
for
good
teaching,
as
opposed
to
research.
One
could
argue
from
the
literature
that
the
obstacles
to
sharing
are
greater
in
research
universi/es,
because
of
the
tensions
between
research
and
teaching
that
almost
always
result
in
the
favouring
of
the
former
over
the
laoer.
Viewed
in
this
light,
the
release
as
OER
of
podcasts
from
research
seminars
can
be
seen
as
a
quick
and
easy
way
to
further
the
ins/tu/onal
priority
for
global
outreach.
A
problem
is
that
many
of
the
podcast-­‐OERs
released
in
this
way
are
in
fact
talks
given
at
esoteric
research
seminars
and
therefore
could
be
of
limited
educa/onal
value
even
to
undergraduates
at
Oxford,
quite
apart
from
informal
learners
in
far-­‐flung
corners
of
the
world.
Some
interviewees
felt
that
teaching
at
Oxford
is
personalised
to
one’s
students,
and
so
may
not
be
readily
shareable
with
the
wider
community.
12

13. Following
on
from
the
previous
point
about
teaching
at
Oxford
being
personalised
to
one’s
students…
One
of
the
problems
we’ve
had
in
the
project
has
been
to
make
the
data
more
relevant
to
other
universi/es
as
well,
so
that
the
discussion
can
be
opened
up
beyond
Oxford.
However,
a
stumbling
block
is
the
tutorial
model
of
individual
and
small-­‐group
teaching
and
learning
in
the
University
which
it
shares
with
very
few
other
ins/tu/ons.
The
broad
dynamic
is
that
the
tutor
sets
the
student
an
essay
or,
in
maths
and
the
sciences,
a
set
of
problems
to
write
or
solve
over
the
course
of
the
week,
as
well
as
a
reading
list.
At
the
next
tutorial,
tutor
and
student
discuss
the
work
–
or,
as
one
interviewee
put
it:
‘The
tutorial
is
about
guiding
[the
student]
through
the
knowledge
that
they
have
spent
the
preceding
week
aoemp/ng
to
tease
apart
for
themselves’
and
maybe
dismantling
the
student’s
way
of
thinking
so
that
‘the
student
leaves
the
tutorial
with
a
different
perspec/ve
on
the
essay
which
they
brought
to
it.’
So,
it
seemed
that
the
most
appropriate
way
to
tackle
the
problem
was
to
‘think
big’
–
aper
all,
students
learn
in
other
ways
at
Oxford
too
–
and
to
locate
these
ways
of
learning
within
the
broader
framework
of
research-­‐informed
teaching
–
that
is,
teaching
by
academics
who
are
ac/ve
in
research
themselves.
13

14. The
prac/ce
of
research-­‐informed
teaching
has
been
characterised
in
a
number
of
ways.
Spronken-­‐Smith
and
colleagues
list
four
approaches
to
curriculum
design
intended
to
involve
undergraduates
in
research,
drawing
from
earlier
work
by
Healey
&
Jenkins.
• Research-­‐led:
the
curriculum
is
structured
around
content
drawn
directly
from
research,
open
the
lecturer’s
own;
• Research-­‐oriented:
the
curriculum
emphasises
teaching
the
processes
of
knowledge
construc/on
in
the
subject;
for
example,
how
to
think
like
a
historian,
chemist
etc.;
• Research-­‐based:
students
carry
out
inquiry-­‐based
learning
or
other
ac/vi/es
involving
research.
This
might
also
involve
learning
research
skills
and
methods;
• Research-­‐tutored:
learning
is
focused
on
students
wri/ng
and
discussing
papers
or
essays,
as
in
the
Oxford
tutorial
model.
14

15. The
interview
data
suggest
that
it
is
common
prac/ce
in
Oxford
to
reuse
materials
created
by
others.
But
we
uncovered
liole
evidence
of
people
ac/vely
seeking
out
OER.
Indeed,
the
majority
of
interviewees
were
unable
to
iden/fy
the
characteris/c
that
dis/nguishes
OER
from
other
freely
available
online
resources:
ie
the
Crea/ve
Commons
(or
similar)
licence.
The
data
also
indicate
a
fairly
low
awareness
among
academics
of
the
existence
of
Oxford’s
OER
collec/ons.
In
addi/on
to
commonly
cited
barriers
such
as
quality
and
ease
of
discovery,
interviewees
iden/fied
Oxford-­‐specific
constraints
on
the
reuse
of
resources:
• Oxford
courses
are
generally
at
a
higher
level
than
at
other
universi/es,
which
can
restrict
the
pedagogic
relevance
of
resources;
and
• the
personal
nature
of
teaching
in
the
Oxford
tutorial
system
of
teaching;
there
is
not
much
scope
for
reusing
resources
since
the
focus
is
on
students’
work.
So,
while
the
fact
of
reuse
is
a
prospect
for
mainstreaming
OEP
in
the
University,
the
consciousness-­‐raising
effort
needed
to
get
academics
to
engage
is
a
challenge
–
par/cularly
given
the
lack
of
conversa/ons
about
teaching
and
learning
that
go
on,
according
to
interviewees.
15

16. But
using
the
framework
on
the
previous
slide,
and
looking
at
the
data
we
gathered
on
academics’
readiness
to
engage
with
third-­‐party
resources,
we
can
envisage
poten/al
roles
for
OER
in
research-­‐informed
teaching.
For
example:
Research-­‐led:
• students
read
open
access
journal
ar/cles
and
openly
licensed
project
reports.
Research-­‐oriented:
• students
gain
insights
into
the
research
process
through
‘work
in
progress’
shared
by
digital
scholars
through
social
media,
including
blogs;
• students
are
given
opportuni/es
to
work
with
the
open
source
tools
used
for
research
in
the
domain
(eg
NetLogo
for
modelling).
Research-­‐based:
• students
have
access
to
OER
collec/ons
containing
digi/sed
texts
and
digital
surrogates
of
artefacts;
• students
are
recommended
to
take
openly
licensed
courses
(including
MOOCs)
for
learning
research
skills;
• students
receive
coaching
in
open
science
methodologies.
Research-­‐tutored:
• students
are
recommended
to
take
openly
licensed
courses
(including
MOOCs)
on
academic
wri/ng
and
related
skills;
• students
produce
blog
posts
as
alterna/ves
to
conven/onal
essays,
thereby
extending
the
possibili/es
for
discussion
beyond
the
tutorial
in
terms
of
/me
and
place.
These
methods
could
actually
help
to
bring
research-­‐informed
teaching
more
into
line
with
emergent
open
prac/ces
in
research.
Moreover,
their
use
could
help
students
to
understand
that
knowledge
is
‘something
shared,
not
something
owned’
(to
quote
an
interviewee).
16

17. Our
final
–
and
most
challenging
–
lens
is
the
issue
of
governance,
which
in
research
universi/es
can
allow
a
high
degree
of
academic
autonomy.
But
to
implement
pedagogic
innova/on
and
promote
global
outreach
on
a
whole-­‐
ins/tu/on
level,
rather
than
relying
on
grass-­‐roots
ini/a/ves
by
individuals
and
groups,
depends
on
a
recogni/on
of
their
importance
at
a
strategic
level.
In
this
respect,
releasing
OER
as
a
part
of
an
ins/tu/onal
belief
in
the
importance
of
outreach
seems
to
be
less
problema/c
than
deploying
open
resources
and
open
approaches
to
pedagogy,
which
could
be
seen
to
impinge
on
academic
autonomy.
17

18. Autonomy
in
governance
at
Oxford
is
enshrined
in
the
principle
of
subsidiarity:
‘deciding
what
to
research
is
a
maoer
for
individuals
and,
where
relevant,
research
groups.
It
becomes
a
maoer
for
departments
and
facul/es,
divisions
and
the
University
as
a
whole
only
when
support
is
required,
most
obviously
through
the
alloca/on
of
resources’
(University
of
Oxford,
2005).
Implemen/ng
the
mandate
of
the
Research
Councils
UK
on
open
access
publishing
in
2013
is
a
clear
example
of
where
a
decision
is
a
maoer
at
the
highest
level.
But
some
of
our
interviewees
felt
that
the
principle
of
subsidiarity
doesn’t
always
work
to
the
benefit
either
of
teaching
staff
or
of
University-­‐led
innova/ons.
• Some
felt
that
devolved
responsibili/es
and
expecta/ons
can
leave
teaching
staff
feeling
unsupported,
while
• devolving
decisions
down
to
individual
academics
may
cause
resistance
to
ini/a/ves
from
higher
levels.
But
they
thought
that
being
‘open’
as
an
ins/tu/on
is
in
keeping
• with
the
core
philosophy
of
knowledge
as
a
public
good,
• with
Oxford’s
global
responsibility
as
a
world-­‐leading
university
that
holds
an
extensive
archive
of
resources,
and
• with
its
status
as
a
charitable
ins/tu/on.
So,
Oxford’s
devolved
structure
and
the
principle
of
subsidiarity
could
militate
against
the
implementa/on
of
ins/tu/onally
defined
guidelines
on
open
prac/ces
in
teaching
and
learning.
18

19. To
sum
up,
what
are
the
prospects
and
challenges
in
bringing
open
educa/onal
prac/ces
into
the
mainstream
at
a
research
university:
that
is,
to
make
OEP
an
idea,
astude,
or
ac/vity
that
is
regarded
as
normal
or
conven/onal?
Sharing
OER
for
outreach
remains
the
greatest
prospect,
as
it
fits
in
with
an
exis/ng
longstanding
core
value.
However,
I’d
like
to
go
back
to
the
University’s
strategic
plan,
which
refers
to
‘globally
available
resources’,
not
OER.
On
the
one
hand,
this
could
be
seen
to
reflect
the
‘commonsense’
no/on
of
openness.
On
the
other
hand,
while
this
more
cau/ous
approach
might
be
inimical
to
openness
‘purists’,
it
can
be
seen
as
enabling.
That
is,
it
may
give
confidence
to
academics
who
may
espouse
the
view
of
knowledge
as
a
common
good
but
be
reluctant
(ini/ally
at
least)
to
make
their
material
available
for
others
to
modify,
and
for
whom
even
the
University’s
default
open
licence,
CC
BY-­‐NC-­‐
SA,
may
be
a
step
too
far.
But
I
think
it
is
not
enough
for
a
university
to
be
a
producer
of
OER
and
not
a
consumer.
A
number
of
authors
have
cri/qued
OER
inita/ves
for
the
power
rela/ons
that
underlie
them.
Here’s
dos
Santos
(2008):
‘most
OER
ini/a/ves
so
far
…
s/ll
pursue
it
in
a
posi/on
of
dominance:
it
is
the
provider
offering
the
content
to
the
user;
it
is
the
most
knowledgeable
ins/tu/on
offering
guidelines
to
the
novice
ones’
And
I’m
also
not
sure
that
releasing
OER
as
a
marke/ng
exercise,
as
some
so,
can
be
counted
as
an
open
prac/ce,
so
there
may
even
be
some
‘open
washing’
going
on.
So
I
think
that
producer
ins/tu/ons
have
responsibility,
morally
as
well
as
philosophically
and
pragma/cally,
to
engage
in
open
educa/onal
prac/ce
in
a
more
reciprocal
manner.
And
that
doesn’t
just
mean
reusing
their
home-­‐produced
OER
in
their
students’
learning,
it
means
recognising
the
value
of
OER
‘not
invented
here’
and
ac/ng
accordingly.
19

20. In
terms
of
pedagogy
–
research-­‐informed
teaching
–
the
seeds
of
open
prac/ce
are
already
present
in
the
reuse
of
third-­‐party
resources
and
resonances
between
the
open
pedagogic
model
that
I
described
earlier
and
current
approaches
to
teaching
and
learning.
To
take
this
further
entails
a
two-­‐pronged
approach:
• Pragma/cally,
promo/ng
among
staff
and
students
an
understanding
of
licensing
and
what
cons/tutes
the
legi/mate
use
of
3rd-­‐party
resources.
• Pedagogically,
promo/ng
the
use
of
OER
in
accordance
with
the
University’s
objec/ve
to
develop
students
as
‘ci/zens
of
tomorrow’
in
an
open
world,
and/or
to
prepare
them
for
academic
prac/ce
in
an
open
world.
Governance
underpins
the
other
two
but
with
the
principle
of
academic
autonomy
it’s
also
the
most
challenging
–
more
so
with
introducing
OER
into
teaching
and
learning
than
with
releasing
them
for
educa/onal
outreach.
Going
back
to
the
concept
of
subsidiarity
and
devolved
decision-­‐making
at
Oxford
and
our
example
of
open
access
publishing,
the
key
issue
is:
whether,
and
how,
the
deployment
of
OER
as
a
means
to
enhance
the
forms
and
further
the
objec/ves
of
research-­‐informed
teaching
prac/sed
at
the
University
should
become
a
maoer
for
decision-­‐making
and
support
at
the
highest
level.
20

21. Thank
you.
21

22. 22