OER 1064 Symposium
Symposium Short Papers (5):
Open Educational Resources. The “Health-E option?"
Chair: Richard Windle, University of Nottingham
Conference Themes: Open Educational Content, Open Educational Communities
Intended audience: Tutors, developers, repository managers, students, project managers, researchers
Background & rationale: Health Science Education is an area of the curriculum in which open educational resource (OER) initiatives have massive potential, but also where it poses particular concerns. The potential arises from the range and breadth of related courses, the numbers of students and institutions involved and the emphasis on student-centred, life-long learning. The concerns around OER in health relate to the quality of the materials available and the contextual differences between vocational groups of learners. Reusable Learning Objects (RLOs) are the most widely used form of OER currently being used in health care education. These initiatives already demonstrate some of the potential outlined above, and also provide important lessons about addressing the challenges faced.
Main idea(s) to be explored: This symposium will review the use of RLOs in health science education and use the materials presented as a springboard for discussing contemporary OER initiatives more generally.
The first paper (Beyond the “usual e-learning enthusiasts”: Making the development of open educational resources, open) looks at development methodologies that are enabling many different stakeholder groups to share their knowledge and expertise through OER initiatives.
The second paper (Caring and sharing. Evaluation of reuse of open education resources in health) discusses how issues of evaluation and quality of materials have been addressed.
The third paper (Tales from the white-board: Case-studies in open educational resource development and usage) provides “real-world” cases studies of the use of RLOs and other open educational resources including podcasts.
The fourth paper (Pedagogical characteristics of open educational resources) discusses a tool that has been developed to allow pedagogical assessment of open educational resources
The fifth paper (Face the OER storm with confidence. Use an umbrella). Discusses a tool that has been developed to allow tutors to assemble and ascribe context to open educational resources.
How will discussion be facilitated? Delegates will be invited to discuss the range of issues raised by these papers, to share their views and provide their own insights. The over-arching objective to be addressed through this discussion will be; “How can the experiences, lessons learned and knowledge gained through RLO development, usage and sharing be applied to contemporary OER initiatives?” Discussion outcomes will be collated using available media – eg interactive white board.
Keywords: Reusable Learning Objects, Reuse, Pedagogy, Communities, Stakeholder involvement, Evaluation, Quality assurance, Case-studies, Tools
References:
Alexander, C. (1977). A pattern language: towns, buildings, construction. New York: Oxford University Press.
Boyle, T et al (2006). An Agile method for developing learning objects. 23rd annual ASCILITE http://www.ascilite.org.au/conferences/sydney06/proceeding/pdf_papers/p64.pdf (accessed 3.11.09)
Engeström, Y. (1999). Activity theory and individual and social transformation. In Y.Engeström, R. Miettinen & R-L Punamäki (Eds.), Perspectives on activity theory (pp. 19-38). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
IMS Global Learning Consortium. (2003), IMS Learning Design information model version 1.0 final specification.[on-line], Available at http://www.imsglobal.org/learningdesign/1dv1p0/imsld_infov1p0.html (accessed 3.11.09)
LOAM tool. Available at: http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/nmp/sonet/projects/loam/ (accessed 3.11.09)
Lymn J., Bath-Hextall, F. and Wharrad, H.J. (2008) Pharmacology education for nurse prescribing students – a lesson in reusable learning objects. BMC Nursing 7(1), 2.
SONET http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/nmp/sonet/rlos (accessed 3.11.09)