Scotland's Colleges and Jorum are collaborating on an initiative to bring about a significant advance in the use of Open Educational Resources in support of learning and teaching in the college sector in Scotland. This initiative has formed at a time of major organisational change in the college sector in Scotland and is well placed to address some of the pressures this change brings and to help support the sector going forward. This initiative is also timely following the recent approval of the UNESCO declaration on OER. Making use of the functionality offered by the open source DSpace repository and integration tools, this project will launch a new open resource-sharing service for the Scottish FE sector in Autumn 2012. This pecha kucha looks at the drivers which have led to this development and the positive impact it will have nationally in Scotland.

1. Bringing the benefits of OER to Scotland’s colleges
Allan Forsyth, Ben Ryan, Jackie Graham
allan@afocus.eu, benjamin.ryan@manchester.ac.uk, jackie.graham@scotcol.ac.uk
RF3: Pecha Kucha - National Infrastructures
Wednesday, 11 July 2012: 11:00am - 12:30pm
Lecture Theatre 1 (LT1), Appleton Tower
Edinburgh University

2. Scotland’s Colleges exists to support, represent and
promote the Scottish college sector.
Based in Stirling in the heart of Scotland, Scotland's Colleges is the trading
name of the Scottish Further Education Unit (SFEU) and the Association of
Scotland's Colleges (ASC).
Image © Graham Grinner Lewis flickr CC BY 2.0

3. The Scottish Further Education Sector
41 colleges
306,000 students
19,500 staff
1 in 16 of the working-age population is
attending a further education course at a
college in Scotland.
One qualifications authority:
Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA)
Coherent and Common Curriculum

4. Regionalisation and funding cuts
Funding has been cut by 25% in last 3 years.
Colleges to merge to form 13 regional colleges.
Image © State Library of South Australia
http://www.flickr.com/photos/state_library_south_australia/392
5493168/in/set-72157624685026840/ CC BY 2.0

5. Jorum is the UK service funded by JISC to facilitate the collection and sharing of
OER in the UK

6. Drivers - demand
More sweets
please
What we need  What we got 
Images © Ian Britton www.freefoto.com CC BY-NC-ND 3.0

7. Drivers - value
+ =
Hitching a ride
Images © Ian Britton www.freefoto.com CC BY-NC-ND 3.0

8. Open Educational Resources
We are on the cusp of a global revolution in teaching and learning. Educators
worldwide are developing a vast pool of educational resources on the Internet, open
and free for all to use...
Cape Town Open Education Declaration:
Unlocking the promise of open educational resources

10. A bit of configuration
Getting under the hood
Now we’re flying high
Making the right connections
Images © Ian Britton www.freefoto.com
CC BY-NC-ND 3.0

11. Functionality
- Search for resources across Scottish repository and Jorum
- Curriculum-specific searching
- Integration with VLEs (Moodle, Blackboard planned)
- Authentication through Shibboleth, OpenAthens etc
- Branded for Scottish FE sector
Image © cdwaldi on flickr CC BY-NC 2.0

12. Value
Costs of this shared service
are less than 50% of the
previous repository.
Can demonstrate value to
the sector.
Image © Glitteratii on Photozou CC BY-NC-ND 2.1

13. Pitfalls
Service level agreements and
contracts take longer than you
expect - but it’s important to get
it right!
Image © Gary Peeples U.S Fish and Wildlife Service Public Domain Image

14. Content
Migrating content from existing Scotland’s Colleges repository.
Including content not previously openly licensed. Adding new content.
Providing access to other collections – NHS, Jorum and BBC.
Image Old and new buildings © Erik Harmon Public Domain Image

15. Engagement
Engagement Group
- process not a project
- ownership not confined to one
organisation - belongs to the sector
which will always be there
- developed organically - those who
are keen to participate and contribute
Image © elcapitan79 flickr CC BY-SA 2.0

16. What have we learned from engagement?
E-learning Practitioners
convinced of benefits of
OER.
Teaching Staff and
Senior Management
moving in the right
direction but there are
still doubters.
Image © Roger Kidd geograph CC BY-SA 2.0

17. What have we learned about collaboration?
Common Aims:
- OER
- Open Source
- DSpace
Image © Bighappyfunhouse CC BY-NC-ND 2.5
- Remit for FE
- Hard up!

18. What will it look like?

19. Changing culture
Bottom up - working with teaching
staff, CPD, workshops.
Top down - convincing senior
management.
Environment - Repository functionality.
Image © Keith Edkins geograph CC BY-SA 2.0
Image © Dancing Star starstv.com.au
(Licensed for NC reuse with modification)

20. Next steps
Launch Autumn 2012
Rollout of engagement strategy
Ongoing merging/regionalisation