C-change in GEES is totally committed to using JorumOPEN for the delivery of all its OER materials and has always considered it to be the primary interface for  our community to find and download C-change OER materials.

We therefore have high hopes for how JorumOPEN will work for the Geography, Earth & Environmental Sciences community, but feel that there are still some areas where we would like to see some improvements in the user interface and workflow, before we can unreservedly recommend it to our community.

After talking with JorumOPEN, they recommended that we post our experiences and thoughts to their forum on Community Bay.

We have done this and the thread can be found here:

http://community.jorum.ac.uk/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=98#p142

We would really appreciate any further thoughts that you had – posted on the thread there or if you prefer do go ahead and leave a comment here.

cheers

eib

This is a question that I had very early on,  that somehow got brushed a bit under the carpet.

All our partners have undertaken a fair amount of copyright clearance work and now have a list of permissions, licenses, letters, emails etc covering hopefully all the material within their resources.

Although we did endeavour to try and standardise this metadata across the partners, in reality each partner had a different set of resources, that gave rise to a different approach and now have a different set of materials that make up their due-diligence files.

So, is there any chance of finding or establishing a ‘standard’ way of storing them?

Stephen Whitfield at Keele has suggested we keep the files (or electronic version of them) within their repository with the materials.  I like this idea…..but is this really the best place for it?  It isn’t really a teaching resource is it?

Any thoughts?

We are getting to a point where most of our partners have got a large amount of their OER resources ready and we have to make a decision on just how we ‘wrap’ our OER before uploading.

We have already decided not to use a common ‘design’ or ‘look’ to the resources across all the materials as our partners want to retain their institutes logos and corporate design on their own material.  There is also a very wide range of material, that will be delivered in wide range of ways including: JorumOPEN, Institute Repositories, YouTube & Flickr.

But all the same it would be good if we could agree across the partners on some basic metadata and wordings that could be used within all of the c-change OER materials.

Currently we are thinking that this should include:

Front Page:

• Title of Work
• Author and Institute
• Date of creation or last updated

Credits, Terms & Conditions:

• Details of CC license with link to Creative Commons Website
• Details of any other 3rd party licenses are within the work
• Acknowledgements to the programme, project and funders

Should it include a ‘Take Down Policy’?  We are discussing this, but are tending towards the view that only the repository can provide that and not the item itself.

Then there is the question of how this information is best kept with the item.  Certainly it can be put into a page and held within the resource, but I would really like to consider also putting this data into the file-tags so that it is also held within the file itself.

Any thoughts?

In our research on the clearance of  copyright on maps and map-data, we were advised to talk to Dr Mike Smith at Kingston who knows a lot more on the subject than I do!  See his bio-page at:  http://www.kingston.ac.uk/gge/staff/smith.htm

I explained how we might want to use some maps and our possible need to re-purpose some maps and map-data.

This was his answer:

*******************************************************************

Maps are a difficult area at the moment and doubly-so in the UK. The GRADE project that Edina completed reported upon many of these issues within the UK context http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/programmes/digitalrepositories2005/grade.aspx

its worth reading at least the executive summary. Some further thoughts for you:

-the GRADE report argues that (“paper”) maps are “drawings” and so copyright, but raw digital data (not including scans) are “data” so come under database right. Its an opinion that has not been challenged in court!

-different countries have different regulations. Ireland, Canada and the US, for example, are very open about distribution. Indeed federal data in the US is in the public domain

-not so in the UK. Please read some posts I have written on JISC licensing (distributed via EDINA) of OS data:

http://journalofmaps.com/about.php?helpfile=smartyOS.html

http://www.journalofmaps.com/cgi-bin/blosxom.cgi/GIS/os_he_license.html

-in short, you will almost certainly NOT be allowed to publish/distribute anything that in any remote way contains OS data *unless* the recipient has licensed OS data. This was the rationale behind setting up the GRADE repository (now Share-Geo) as it includes controls on access

-the BIG sticking point is the area of derived data. Anything that incorporates OS data in any form, no matter how minor, potentially is copyright to them, although their Research and Innovation department can clarify on a case by case basis. However the recommendation would be NOT to use OS data.

-all in all its not really good news. I would be wary about redrafting anything unless you can be positively sure copyright has been covered.

Feel free to get back in touch if you have any further queries.

*************************************************************

Well, I have to admit this is not a very rosy picture and we need to do some more thinking and I suspect a lot of talking to try and get to a point where we can use this material in our OER.

Thoughts – please – either here or on the Forum:

The C-Change Co-ordinator – Ed Bremner visited Keel University today to talk to Dr Zoe Robinson and Stephen Whitfield about the C-change project and provide some help and guidance on the copyright clearance process of their teaching resources.

Ed talked with Zoe and David whilst they reviewed some of the proposed  OER resources. Even a quick review quickly showed that the biggest challenge in copyright clearance terms is likely to be getting permissions for the many images, diagrams and graphs that are in the resources and normally belong to the publishers of the journal from which they came.  Ed also discussed with David the possibility of using a  ‘Rights Management Workflow Schema’ for recording all efforts made as part of the process. The basic schema proposed by Ed is available here but it is expected to make some changes to make it more useful.

Later they talked in wider terms about the C-Change project and the wider ramifications of the OER programme with  some of the other authors at Keele including:

Richard Waller – Physical Geography
Katie Szkornik – Physical Geography
Stefan Krause – Environmental Geoscience
Stuart Clarke – Sedimentology

It was also good to meet two other members of Keele staff with an interest in C-Change and OER:

Tim Denning – Learning Development Unit  -  Working on the MedDev OER project

Andy Brookes – Enterprise Business Manager – Research and Enterprise Services

The day was very useful and allowed all present to discuss the challenges that face the project.

Mike and Yolie ‘attended’ the first online Elluminate session, which introduced the evaluation and synthesis part of the OER programme and raised some interesting questions for future discussion. The E&S team will synthesize the discussion at a later date, but what follows is a brief summary of the discussion from our point of view, with appropriate links to other blogs/wikis/Powerpoints etc..

The link for accompanying Powerpoints, and a live recording of this Elluminate session can be found here: http://www.caledonianacademy.net/spaces/oer/index.php?n=Main.Presentations

The JISC OER ‘Synthesis and Evaluation Function’ aims to build a shared framework for the evaluation and synthesis of the OER piulot programme- so does what it says on the tin! There is a project wiki: http://www.caledonianacademy.net/spaces/oer/index.php?n=Main.HomePage, which will hold information for programme participants, and, hopefully, allow continuing dialouge with the S&E consultants. The three OER strands (individual, subject and institutional) have specific consultants working on each: the Subject Strand has Helen Beetham as contact, and Mike and I are already in discussion with her with a (very early) draft/notes on possible evaluation strategies (document to follow). The current draft evaluation and synthesis framework can be found here: http://www.caledonianacademy.net/spaces/oer/index.php?n=Main.GenericFramework.

The first Elluminate discussion session covered the following topics: marketing and branding; possible benefits and support for staff; pedagogy of OER; managing databases and metadata (this will be the topic for the next Elluminate session, on the second Tuesday of August, 2pm); reuse of OER and accompanying quality issues; general E&S queries. Due to the nature of Elluminate as a forum, the discussion was bitty and a little confused, but some interesting questions could be extracted, which may be worth highlighting here for further consideration by the team and partners.

Firstly, however, here is a brief intro into the E&S framework development:

How should we develop our evaluation strategy?

To allow our evaluation strategy to map to the generic E&S framework, we need to identify our project’s key outcomes, especially in relation to the following: findings, impact, benefits and lessons learned.

We need to begin to define ‘measures of openness’ (not quite sure what this means at this stage!).

The E&S team will try to help us identify appropriate factors, methods, timings and measures that will help us achieve the above: but this relies on us being proactive in seeking advice.

Once we have these methods/timings/measures agreed, it is up to us as a project to apply these through our evaluation processes.

The rationale for working in this way is that such a structure allows for the development of a common language for collation of data, challenges, solutions and outputs, encourages the sharing of questions/issues and allows the identification of key areas of interest and useful approaches for the future.

Problems/issues/questions might fit in to three categories:

1. those that can be answered by JISC/HEA Programme Managers (and tend to apply to all projects)- and an answer/solution is available.

2. those that can be answered by programme support (the OU team) and need expert advice from those already working on OER

3. those that are issues for evaluation- that is, questions that don’t have a clear answer, but the programme is investigating. Thies issues/questions can also be seperated in to:

• organisational and IPR
• social and cultural
• technical

Issues that were raised by Elluminate participants during discussion:

Marketing and Branding

• Our University’s reputation is at stake with this project, how do we approach marketing and branding? Reputational benefits may depend on identifying authorship.
• Do we need to look at business models?
• What is the difference between ‘branding’ and author/institutional acknowledgement?
• Should this just sit in the accompanying metadata?
• Is anyone thinking of using licensing that doesn’t mandate attribution?
• If an OER is branded, the branding should not impede re-use.
• Could we just use a UKOER logo (in addition to UKOER tag)? How about logo alongside originator (project partner logo?) details?
• Will a lack of branding/acknowledgement prevent reassurance of already reticent academic staff?
• Creative Commons licences wouldn’t mandate retention of UKOER logo

Benefits and support for staff

• Links investigating benefits for staff (individuals and institutions): http://ie-repository.jisc.ac.uk/265/ (Good Intentions Report); CETIS OER Briefing Paper
• Who are the stakeholders and how can we support them, and evaluate their experience? Academic, teaching staff, technical staff, learners
• Do we need to consider evaluation of end-user communities? Who are they/likely to be? What do they need?
• How do we investigate benefits of OER whilst, at the same time, encouraging engagement?
• What motivates enthusiasts? Ask E&S to investigate participants with OpenLearn at the OU- a very enthusiastic and aware group.
• Do we need to look at how discipline cultures work across institutions? How do different disciplines share research, for example? Might this have some effect on how a discipline engages with OER?
• Colleagues at Caledonian University can cite ‘reuse of resources they have authored’ in their application for promotion on the basis of learning and teaching.
• Is anyone doing a formal survey on academics’ preferences for release of material under creative commons?

Pedagogy

• Fragmentation of resources makes it difficult for the background pedagogy (good or bad) to be transmitted wholesale to the user
• do we even want to put such caveats (e.g. ‘must be used in this pedagogic context’) against material?
• Ope Spires thinks that should not wrap material up with unnecessary contextual material
• Making resources easier to use overcomes barriers
• For the purposes of this programme, cannot evaluate learning and teaching quality (above and beyond initial accredited material) in terms of reuse, but maybe we can explore changes in practice and perceptions around quality?
• If we are not looking at pedagogic value, then surely this brings the programme’s sustainability credibility in to question?
• the JISC Mosaic Report has a good overview of this issue

Managing Metadata and Databases

• Need advice on subject schemas vs. subject tags?
• Tracking: how do we track across both OpenJorum and other repositories?
• Can track visits using Google Analytics.
• Should not just track the ‘what’ but also the ‘why’
• Another suggestion is to use javascript to record downloads- you can add a click event handler to document links, and use this to track using e.g. google analytics. An example can be found here.
• p.s. from Yolie- I’m happy with metadata discussions, but can’t guarantee that I’ve necessarily got the right words or ‘ideas’ down with respect to e.g. tracking. Far too technical for me!

Reuse and Quality

• Evaluating reuse of OERs may well be out of scope of programme: programme is focussed on creation/repurposing and release of OERs rather than on their reuse
• However, reuse will influence quality of OER, and a couple of the institutional projects will be looking at reuse, so should keep an eye on these.
• However, we may well get hints at reuse, the hows and wherefores- so make sure manage to pick these up as and when they appear.
• Should ‘intention to reuse’ be seen as part of the release? Open release implies re-use and so is part of the change of mind-set
• The programme is starting on the road of ‘building an OER culture into course design and delivery’
• SC credibility for OER project is affected if the actual resources are not valuable for reuse. Is difficult to evaluate the potential for the OERs in context until someone else has tried to embedd them. How do we maximise component reuse?
• For Biosciences, each project partner is finding a ‘client’ as a user for their OER, to act as a critical friend, rather than simply rely on the repository and reactions/use of the latter.
• Is there a difference between quality in terms of original resource (accredited programmes, therefore quality assured) vs. quality within new context (reuse)? (we think yes to this)
• We have no control over context of reuse?

Other Queries

• Institutional programme blogs can be found at http://www.netvibves.com/hwilliamson#oer-institutional_projects
• If anyone is interested in the Oxford project on Audio Visual enterprise level infrastructure, you can find more information at http://steeple.oucs.ox.ac.uk
• Could projects use Elluminate with their partners? (programme leaders investigating licensing for this)
• In terms of evaluation framework, could we have a ‘phase 1′ and a ‘phase 2′, so that we can get the project and partners started (evaluting as we go), without necessarily knowing all the questions we want to ask overall?
• Projects must gather evidence throughout lifecycle, but mapping this to the framework may well take a couple of attempts. The E&S team will help with this.

As the project continues, we will pick out particular issues raised here (and at other meetings) and ask partners for their thoughts.