Slides from OER15 presentation - Cardiff, April 2015

1. Mainstreaming OER: policies,
strategies or initiatives?
Giles Pepler, Sero Consulting
OER15
Caerdydd, Cymru
14 April 2015

2. Outline of presentation
• The POERUP project
• POERUP research
• The road to Open-ness
• Barriers to mainstreaming OER
• Policy interventions
• Initiatives
• Concluding remarks
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3. Context and rationale for POERUP (early 2011)
• Over ten years of the OER movement
• OER repositories in many countries, yet…
• Lack of uptake by teachers and learners
• Foreseen lack of funding (in EU)
• Shift from development to community building and
articulation of OER practice
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4. POERUP outputs
• Inventory of more than 500 OER initiatives worldwide (120
notable)
• 33 country reports – most updated in 2014
• 7 case studies including Wikiwijs, ALISON (Ireland), OER U
(global) and FutureLearn (UK mostly)
• 3 EU-level policy documents for universities, VET and schools
• 8 policy documents for UK (x3), Ireland, France, Netherlands,
Poland – and Canada
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5. Focus of POERUP
• We take a broad definition of OER
• The main objective: stimulating the uptake of OER through
policy, building on previous initiatives (such as OPAL, Olnet
and SCORE) and linked to ODS, IIEP, IPTS, eMundus and non-
EU initiatives
• Researching the policy pyramid …..
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6. The policy pyramid
6
2012
UNESCO
declaration
EU policies
(Rethinking
Education & Opening
Up Education)
national policies; sub-national
policies (home nations; Länder;
communidades autónomas;
provinces; states)
Institutional, faculty and course policies

7. Mapping OER policies and other policy sightings ...
• Policies (as against initiatives) detected in 9 European
countries – limited policies in others
• And in at least 9 countries outside Europe
• Lots of policies in USA and China
• At least 3 (non-European) countries with proposed policies
• https://mapsengine.google.com/map/edit?mid=z-
3iKlfDOx58.k9cGxYzGNaJw
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8. POERUP research – and beyond
• Many countries seem to be doing little OER
– But a lot under the radar (eg Open Access, teacher
repositories, schools ICT initiatives)
– And some formerly inactive countries rushing ahead
• Even fewer have policies about or even directly relevant to
OER
• Plenty of HE institutional policies, but France (and Wales and
Slovenia?) the only EU countries with national policies
• No national policies (yet) for schools (Poland?) or VET
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9. Open-ness – a journey along a road
The precise stopping points on the road are subject to debate but they might look
something like the following:
• Online resources available at a fee
• Online resources available by enrolling at an institution (with relevant
prerequisites)
• Online resources available to broad categories of users (students, teachers,
citizens of a Member State)
• Online courses or resources which require registration to access but anyone can
register – this is typically where MOOCs are found
• Online resources free to access (thus Open Access in the sense of journals)
• Online educational resources free to access but with restrictions on re-use
• OER stricto sensu with ability of users to adapt and re-use
• Higher levels of OER such as with open formats editable with open source tools
• OER in the language of most relevance to the specific user.
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10. Mainstreaming OER: barriers to address
• Copyright and IPR
• Knowledge and training – including teacher training at all levels
• Contextual factors - economic, social and language issues
• Certification and accreditation, including APL (Accreditation of Prior
Learning) and the ability to accredit knowledge and competences
developed through online study and informal learning
• Funding mechanisms – at system and institutional levels
• Sustainable business models
• Most OER is in HE – the schools, FE and lifelong learning sectors have
been slower to follow
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11. (POERUP) Policy interventions?
• interventions that link OER to open access, to research and
to standards.
• interventions that foster the phenomena (including access,
cost and quality; but also others such as development and
informed citizenry) that OER is said to facilitate (even if so
far without sufficient evidence).
• interventions that serve to reduce or dismantle the barriers
to creation of innovative institutions and innovative practice
(including OER, MOOCs and open educational practices).
• See policy papers at
http://poerup.referata.com/wiki/Policies
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12. 12

13. 13
Mainstreaming
OER?
Policies?
Government?
Sector?
Institution?
Strategies?
Initiatives?

14. Some evidence from this conference
• Debbie Baff - Embedding OER & OEP across the HE Sector in Wales; Hannah Pudner -
Connecting learners and communities in Wales to OER; Paul Bacsich - Policy development
to support OER in Wales; Lorna Campbell - Common Ground; Pete Cannell - Opening
Educational Practices in Scotland; Jöran Muuß- Merholz - Is Germany taking the fast track
to OER? Anna Stokowska - Use of OER in Polish schools
• Leigh-Anne Perryman - OEP and attitudes to openness across India
• Alek Tarkowski - Landscape of OER Projects and Policies for primary and secondary
education in Europe; Mark Power - Opening up in the FE and Skills Sector; Alastair Clark -
Working with Community Educators to find the OEP 'light bulb' moments
• Chrissi Nerantzi - Nothing stops us now or mainstreamed open educational practices
• Terry McAndrew - Creating OER and embedding Open Practice - identifying challenges and
achievements for change
• Dominik Lukes - Modes and models of production of OERs: The missing link to wider
adoption
• Dominic Orr - What educational policy needs OER and what policy support does OER need?
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15. The value of initiatives
• Spain and the UK are good examples of the impact of
initiatives ...
• Many in Spain – e.g. INTEF and Agrega are just two of the
most prominent
• In the UK, the Jisc/HEA OER programme spawned a number
of initiatives which continue to flourish beyond the cessation
of grant funding – e.g. The North West England Consortium
• Initiatives can often be found ‘under the radar’
• Community building is important
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16. Concluding thoughts
• Policies can create frameworks and climate
• Strategies can deliver policies - need for clear
implementation strategies to deliver policies. Back strategies
with ongoing training and support for grassroots. Have
defined but flexible milestones
• High level initiatives can interact with both to promote
mainstreaming of OER. Institutional and grassroots
initiatives can help change the culture – the development of
OER communities at grassroots level is important
• Don’t bite off more than you can chew!
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17. Thank you for listening
Giles Pepler
Sero Consulting, for the POERUP team
http://www.poerup.info
http://poerup.referata.com/wiki/Main_Page
Email giles.pepler@sero.co.uk