This session critically evaluates attempts that have been made to support communication and collaboration through ‘mapping’ OER focussing on The Open Learning Network (OLnet) Evidence Hub which used the concept of ‘Contested Collective Intelligence’ and The UNESCO OER Mapping Project which set out some quite specific protocols for metadata. There will be a demonstration of the new Evidence Hub being developed as part of the OER Research Hub (OERRH) project. This hub is designed to overcome some of the issues that manifested themselves in these earlier projects, a range of different data sources, the importance of data visualization, and account for how different types of evidence might be flexibly accommodated. There will be an opportunity for delegates to discuss the idea of ‘mapping’ the OER evidence base and what the OER community might want from such services.

1. Dr. Robert Farrow, The Open University
Open Educational Resources: Impact, Evidence & Narrative
#oerrhub / #RSConline13

2. Evidence of OER Impact
Background
Rationale
Design
Implementation
Data Visualization
Future Iteration
Call for Evidence / Feedback

3. Background

4. About me
• Philosopher & Educational Technologist
• Based at the Institute of Educational Technology (IET) Open University UK
• Research Associate (OER Research Hub)
• http://flavors.me/philosopher1978
• Twitter @philosopher1978
About The Open University
• Europe’s largest distance learning university
• Access: foremost provider to mature, disabled and working students
• A world leader in technology-enhanced pedagogy
• Head of the FutureLearn MOOC consortium

5. About the Project
• Funded by William & Flora Hewlett Foundation for two years
• Two professors lead four researchers among a team of ten
• Tasked with building the most comprehensive picture of OER impact
• Organised by eleven research hypotheses
• Working across different educational sectors
• Collaboration model
• Global reach but with a USA focus
• http://oerresearchhub.org

6. Collaboration Model

7. Collaboration Model

9. Rationale: why evidence of
OER impact?

10. Filtering data according to sector,
hypothesis & polarity
Framework for comparing disparate
evidence types
Collaborative research, analysis &
dissemination
Openness in action: openly licensed
research instruments, data
Effective evidence-
based decision-
making and advocacy

11. Keyword Hypothesis
Performance OER improve student performance/satisfaction
Openness People use OER differently from other online materials
Access OER widen participation in education
Retention OER can help at-risk learners to finish their studies
Reflection OER use leads educators to reflect on their practice
Finance OER adoption brings financial benefits for students/institutions
Indicators Informal learners use a variety of indicators when selecting OER
Support Informal learners develop their own forms of study support
Transition OER support informal learners in moving to formal study
Policy OER use encourages institutions to change their policies
Assessment Informal assessments motivate learners using OER
Research Hypotheses

12. Methodological Challenges
Incommensurability Granularity

13. Previous Initiatives

14. UNESCO Mapping Project (2012)
http://unescochair.athabascau.ca/oer-mapping-exercise
• Mapping to raise awareness of OER
• Tracking complexity, identifying major players & actions
• Community building, communication and advocacy
• Localised data with centralised quality control
OLnet Evidence Hub (2011-2012)
http://ci.olnet.org/
• Explore and debate key challenges for OER movement
• Collective intelligence: raise questions, propose solutions
• Sharing relevant web resources

15. OLnet Evidence Hub Data Model

16. Designing a new evidence model

17. DesignFiltering /
navigation
Diverse,
fragmentary
evidence
Encouraging
contribution
Metadata
specification
Mapping
locations
UI /
Accessibility
Polarity
(+ve/-ve)
K.I.S.S.

18. Information Architecture

19. •Text
Title
•Text / HTML
•Supports embedding of multimedia contentCopy
•Association of evidence with hypothesis
Hypothesis
•Evidence is either +ve/-ve in relation to a hypothesis
Polarity
•Geotagging / GPS
Location
•School (K12) / College / Higher Education / Informal
Sector
•Academic citation
•Hyperlink / URLCitation

20. Evidence FLOW
Case
Study
Anecdotes
Case
Study
Institute
Metrics
Survey
Data
YouTube
Interview
Academic
Papers

21. Implementation

22. http://oerresearchhub.org/2013/10/04/building-an-evidence-hub-plugin-for-wordpress/
Technical Development
•Popular OS platform
•Easy to customize
•Over 27,000
existing plugins
Wordpress
•CSV importer
•Location plugin
•JSON
Customization
•Project code
available on GitHub
•Easy to link, share
and engage
Openness

23. tinyurl.com/oerimpact

24. Sample Entries

25. Flexible
Granular
Support comments, sharing
Citations field

28. Visualizing the Data

29. Sankey Diagrams track the flow of evidence

30. Global Evidence Map

31. See summaries by country with click-through to evidence

32. Detailed map view

33. Explore Projects

34. Filter evidence (College evidence in USA)

35. Summaries of evidence gathered for each hypothesis

36. Future Iteration

37. Explore Survey
Data
Policy Map
Machine
curation
API Integration:
SurveyMonkey,
Google, etc.
Data
Visualizations
Human curation
bookmarklet
Data mashups
using open data
Exporting data
sets under
open license
Argumentation
analysis

38. Call for Evidence / Feedback

39. We want your feedback!
… and your data!
tinyurl.com/opened13

40. Thanks for listening!
oerresearchhub.org
rob.farrow@open.ac.uk
@philosopher1978