OER10 CONFERENCE THEMES
The three themes of the conference are:
Open educational content:
The primary focus in the OER movement has been on open educational content. Papers are invited in this strand on the issues of the structuring, storage, retrieval and reuse of open educational content. Should open content be structured or formatted explicitly as learning objects? If so, what does this mean? How do we design and implement repositories to best store and make available educational content? Case studies about the use of existing repositories can provide evidence on successes and limitations. How do we describe this open educational content so that it is easily retrievable? Is traditional metadata appropriate and effective, or should we use more Web 2 'folksonomy' techniques? Finally, what are the issues in adapting and connecting open educational resources? What are the legal constraints (IPR), cultural issues ("not invented here"), technical barriers (accessibility)? How 'reusable' is open educational content?
OER designs
OER is not just about reusable content; it is also crucially about designs. There is considerable interest in this topic worldwide. The main challenges include; how do we represent and communicate 'designs for learning'? How important are specifications such as IMS LD - are they crucial or obstacles to creativity? What tools are available for developing open, shareable designs? At what level do these designs operate - from 'courses' down to single objective learning objects? How effective are these tools in real, widespread use? How do we assess and assure 'quality' in learning designs? How do we design effectively for different platforms, i.e. web, mobile etc. We welcome papers that address one or more of these challenges. Both conceptual papers and papers providing evidence and critical reflection on real use are welcome.
Open educational communities
OER is not just about content and design; it also depends on the engagement of open educational communities. What are the particular challenges and benefits of such communities - and how do we foster their development? The strong support for social networking in Web 2.0 seems to provide huge opportunities for developing such communities. But can we simply carry over informal social networking practices into professional communities? How do we balance the conflicting demands of quality and inclusivity? What is the role of learners in these communities? Open educational communities can act as powerful agents for change; individuals involved in these communities find many opportunities for professional and personal development. But how can the benefits be 'sold'? How should the costs be carried? The conference welcomes papers on these challenging issues.
"The primary focus in the OER movement has been on open educational content. Papers are invited in this strand on the issues of the structuring, storage, retrieval and reuse of open educational content."