The C-change website now has a form allowing you to feed back your thoughts on our OER.

This is available from the menu above – from the ‘Have you used an OER” tab or directly at:

http://c-changeproject.org.uk/?page_id=382

The input that you give us will be fed directly back to the C-change team and will help us plan and implement further developments of OER materials for GEES.

To find our material simply go to:

http://open.jorum.ac.uk/ and search for GEESOER.

or click here

We have now finalised the last versions of our Partner Advice Documents:

1. c-change_supporting_info_3a – Final (98Kb) – originally – C-change Back-Page Guidance
2. c-change_deposit_jorumOPEN_4 – Final (48Kb) – originally the C-change JorumOPEN deposit Guidelines

Development will continue of these guidelines, however they have now been made far more generic and aimed at all the wider GEES community.  The newer versions are still available on the documents page at:  http://c-changeproject.org.uk/?page_id=3

The C-change project is also working with the other STEM OER projects on some more generic guidelines for producing OER for the sciences.

The GEES Subject Centre is delighted to announce that:
‘C-Change in GEES – Open Education Resources (OERs) for climate change and sustainability – practicalities & pedagogy’ is to be held on Thursday the 29th of April 2010 at the Macdonald Hotel Manchester from 9.30am to 4pm.

This event will mark the launch of the C-Change in GEES project and has two main aims:

1. To disseminate the resources and learning outcomes from the GEES Subject Centre project ‘C-change in GEES: Open licensing of climate change and sustainability resources in the Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences.
2. To promote the ‘Pedagogy of Climate Change’ book, published by the GEES Subject Centre and edited by Simon Haslett, Derek France and Sharon Gedye. Due to be launched at the event.

This event provides an excellent opportunity to both learn more about the production and use of OER materials for the GEES and also to further explore the pedagogy’s of climate change, identify the areas for development in our knowledge and understanding and look forward to what can be achieved in the future.

For further details of the event please visit:
http://gees.ac.uk/events/2010/geesoer/geesoer.htm

for any more information please do get back to anyone in the C-change team.

Attended the HEA Scottish Practitioners’ Forum. During discussion on current and upcoming issues, that of ESD and citizenship (and graduate attributes for the 21st C) were high on the agenda.

The C-change project was introduced, and participants were particularly interested in the ‘process’ part of the project, i.e. the investigation of copyright etc.. Colleagues from English, Law and Psychology in particular were aware of the potential pitfalls, and very pleased that these were being properly tested and investigated, rather than just ‘assuming that things would be ok’ until proved otherwise. Good feedback for our approach.

The Law colleague mentioned SCRIPT – a law and technology research project at the University of Edinburgh specialising in intellectual property and law as a possible contact for expertise. http://www.law.ed.ac.uk/ahrc/

Last Thursday saw me attend the above conference in Edinburgh. The conference programme summarized the event as follows:

“We are now halfway through the United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable
Development. The Decade aims to promote education as a basis for a more sustainable society and to integrate sustainable development into education at all levels and all areas of life. The Scottish Parliament passed the Climate Change Act in June. This will require wide-ranging and significant responses from further and higher education if we are to meet the Government’s targets for a low carbon future.

This conference will consider the contribution that Scotland’s colleges and universities are making to the targets in the Climate Change Act and the United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable Development.”

The afternoon session had two hour ‘workshop’ sessions, one of which looked at the issues of integrating ESD into the curriculum. Two Subject Centres, GEES and Psychology, presented on their work on ESD. As a major part of our work in this area, I introduced the C-change project, in particular the CoP on the pedagogy of climate change and sustainability. I invited participants to visit the website and get involved with the CoP.

At the end of last month I presented a poster on C-change (designed by Ed and Sharon) at the annual meeting of the Geological Society of America in Portland, Oregon. The poster was presented along with 19 others in the session on “From Virtual Globes to Geoblogs: Digital Innovations in Geoscience Research, Education, and Outreach”. There were 379 posters available for view in the exhibit hall within 26 different sessions, so delegates had a lot of things to see! From 4pm – 6pm (when presenters are required to be at their posters) 10 people stopped to look at the C-Change poster and a total of 14 handouts were taken. The poster was usefully positioned next to the queue for free beer and I followed a few people along the line in order to hear their opinions on the project.

Everyone I spoke too was very interested in the project and felt that the materials could be useful. The fact that the materials were from the UK did not matter. About half of those I spoke to had used the MIT Open Courseware materials and one person mentioned that there wasn’t much there on energy, so the C-Change resources would prove useful.

Although this was a geology conference, several people noted that they taught introductory level environmental science / studies and that the materials would be very useful for that. Other suggestions for use included K-12 teacher professional development and public understanding (e.g. through promotion of the materials in museums).