OER1047e Short Paper (part of Symposium OER1047)

Emergence of a sharing community in health care education

Wharrad, HJ; Windle, R & Riley, F (University of Nottingham) Clarke, E (University of Coventry), Parkes, M (York St John University)

Abstract: SONET[1] has been producing open educational resources (OER) for health care education since 2001 and is a partner in two influential Higher Education bodies: UCEL[2] and RLO-CETL[3]. We have now released over 100 Reusable Learning Objects (RLOs) as OER under a Creative Commons licence and these are being used extensively at Nottingham and reuse worldwide. Whilst free and easily accessible content facilitates reuse, in educational terms curriculum relevance, authenticity and quality are key determinants of reuse achieved through collaborative development processes, particularly during the design and content creation phase[4]. Students, lecturers, media developers, clinicians, NHS users and carers, and NHS trainers have all contributed knowledge and ideas at the collaborative, interdisciplinary workshops that initiate each OER development project[5]. The workshops foster a sense of ownership of process and outputs, leading to the use of the OER and a growing community of use as networks are extended via a range of dissemination routes. Many similar open educational communities are creating OER in healthcare including the health CETLs CIPEL and ALPS, founding members of the Sharing Learning Objects in Healthcare Special Interest Group (SLOHSIG). The SIG was conceived at the Sharing Learning Objects in Healthcare conference held at the University of Nottingham in March 2009, attended by 70 delegates nationwide with an interest in Learning Objects, e-learning repositories and their application to healthcare education. A focal point of the conference was a dedicated learning object repository, to which delegates could upload learning objects prior to the conference, and which subsequently provided a focus for discussions around the issues of sharing resources. It became clear during the conference that many delegates had materials that were being used within their institution that they were willing to share but were unsure how to make available as OER, and indeed whether the materials were suitable for sharing. SLOHSIG aims to promote such sharing and reuse of OER, and to facilitate collaboration amongst colleagues and institutions engaged in OER development and repositories, both within and outwith the UK. A key objective is to ‘unlock’ educational content by running workshops to show the benefits of sharing OER and how to overcome the perceived and real barriers to sharing. The focus of our presentation will be on the benefits of working as a group, motivational aspects and how we plan to work with Jorum as a Jorum Community.

Keywords: Communities, healthcare, RLOs, repositories

References:

1. www.nottingham.ac.uk/nursing/sonet
2. www.ucel.ac.uk
3. www.rlo-cetl.ac.uk
4. Windle, R & Wharrad, HJ (2010) Reusable Learning Objects in Health Care Education Interprofessional E-Learning and Collaborative Work: Practices and Technologies. Editors: Bromage,A., Clouder, L., & Gordon, F., Thistlethwaite, J. Publisher: IGI-Global (in press)