OER1047c Short Paper (part of Symposium OER1047)

Designing award winning resources – a different approach.

Mark Dransfield & Rachel Wicaksono, York St John University

Conference Theme: OER Design

Abstract: The production of good quality learning resources is generally considered to lie in the domain of specialist professional staff; those with design and development skills. This oral presentation will consider ways in which colleagues with non-technical skill sets, can produce high quality, standards compliant learning resources. Traditionally, academic staff approach learning technologists with a specific brief and rationale for the development of a learning object. The LT will then work to the brief to produce an effective resource. This is a sensible approach in many cases, however the knowledge regarding the intricacies of the development, the technologies used and so on, mean that small revisions or future amendments to the resource, can take longer than necessary, depending on workload or professional progression. In a small institution where resources are tight, this approach is not scalable. The presentation will outline an alternative, perhaps more scalable approach to the development of high quality learning resources, within a small institution. Namely, a collaborative and developmental approach to the creation of resources, where academic staff are empowered to create resources. The role of the learning technologist thus shifts from developer, to facilitator and advisor. Exemplification of this point will use the award winning Jorum Learning and Teaching Competition resource; English as a Lingua Franca. The presentation will also consider how the design of the learning object relates back to a sound pedagogical framework of enquiry based learning (EBL).The collaborative nature of the project, the involvement of students as researchers and the EBL framing which underpinned the development process, led to an output which might not have been achieved with a different approach.

Keywords: OER design, strategic approach