The JISC Online Conference, Innovating e-Learning 2009 ran from 24th -27th November and attracted 450 delegates numbers from 12 countries. The conference theme was ‘Thriving, not just surviving’ to reflect the challenges facing colleges and universities in the 21st century. Elluminate recordings of the keynote sessions are now available and include presentations from Charlie Leadbeater, one of the most influential creative people in the world and adviser to companies, cities and governments, Nigel Paine, Helen Beetham, Rhona Sharpe (Oxford Brookes University) and Peter Bradwell (Demos).

Excellent conference presentations and podcasts are also now available covering digital literacies and learners experiences; mobile learning; use of virtual worlds for learning and teaching; supporting and retaining learners through the use of technology; open educational resources; engaging employers and professional bodies in curriculum design and the design of technology-rich physical learning spaces. ‘Wonderful informed and passionate debates plus great keynotes all recorded for playback in your own time.’ Nigel Paine

Innovating e-Learning 2010 will be running from 23rd – 26th November 2010. More information on the themes for this year’s event will follow later in the year. #jiscel10

Universities are facing ‘a perfect storm’ of rising demand and strained resources, but Bradwell saw a solution in embracing what technology can offer. An explosion of free online resources and social media means that universities are no longer have sole rights over the generation of ideas, knowledge and innovation, he asserted, but technology should still be seen as an asset rather than a threat.

Technology helps learning by supporting collaboration, making information more readily obtainable and bringing people together. Technology can make research more freely available and enable more flexible and equitable access to learning. Universities, however, need to learn how to exploit this potential – the future lies in open, collaborative ways of working enhanced by technology rather than in the walled gardens of the past, Bradwell concluded.

The concept of ‘edgelessness’ appeared again in the sessions on virtual worlds. Virtual worlds researcher, John Kirriemuir, and session facilitator, David White, (Oxford University) explored the fine line between play and purposeful learning found in educational uses of virtual worlds and in games playing, but where were the familiar protocols and boundaries of traditional face-to-face teaching? Similar issues emerged in Alan Staley’s presentation of Shareville – a 3-D replica of a town created to support experiential and multidisciplinary learning at Birmingham City University:
‘We need to ask when should students play, when should they do it for real, and when should we try to replicate reality.’ Alan Staley
Virtual worlds, successfully harnessed, made irresistible viewing. Delegates were enthralled by Kathy Trinder’s demonstration in Elluminate of uses of Second Life at Glasgow Caledonian University. Kathy argued that the speed of change should not cause a rush to judgement about how new platforms should be used:

‘Perhaps we should consider how we can avoid repeating what we already do in the physical world, and, instead of building 500-seat virtual lecture theatres, embrace pedagogies beyond our traditional models.’ Kathy Trinder

Elsewhere in the conference the real world was more in evidence but the winds of change were still blowing. Mike Neary (University of Lincoln) explored the relationship between pedagogic principles and the learning landscape, while Mark Stubbs (Manchester Metropolitan University) and Peter Bird presented findings from the Supporting Responsive Curricula Project. The project is funded under the JISC Institutional Approaches to Curriculum Design programme and seeks innovative ways of engaging employers and professional bodies in curriculum design.

A closing keynote by Nigel Paine, former Head of People Development at the BBC, on 27th November concludes the fourth Innovating e-Learning conference with thoughts around the shift he sees taking place from learning on courses to learning in communities. Quote from Nigel on the conference: ‘Wonderful informed and passionate debates plus great keynotes all recorded for playback in your own time.’

Sessions at Innovating e-Learning 2009 remain open for reading and research by delegates until 1st January 2010. As in previous years, conference presentations and resources, including keynotes, will be made available within the next few weeks on the JISC website [www.jisc.ac.uk/ elpconference09] for general viewing.

Follow the conference on Twitter: #jiscel09

The opening keynote by Charlie Leadbeater, leading thinker on innovation and strategy, was delivered live via Elluminate to 145 delegates none of whom had left their desks or homes. His message was a thought-provoking conundrum. Where do you place resources to achieve innovation – on improving or reforming mainstream formal education, or on supporting supplementary or alternative approaches, for example via the family or the community ?

Using a quadrant to explore the tension between formal and informal learning, Leadbeater expressed the belief that radical innovation is likely to come from the margins rather than the mainstream and that what we should be seeking are approaches that ‘pull’ rather than ‘push’ change. Perhaps we should stop asking how to improve the system, he said, and start asking how we can better support learning.

‘If you start by asking how can technology be used to improve current approaches you’ll end up with incremental innovation. If you start from outside you will see different possibilities. Then the question is how to enable that kind of innovation to happen and to go to scale. Too often this kind of approach is marginalised or completely informal (kids learning through games and YouTube.)’ Charlie Leadbeater

Delegates were invited over and over to present their views via the text and polling facilities in the software: ‘it is rare to see that level of interaction between a presenter and his audience’, said one participant, as Charlie paused to absorb the audience’s views before building them into his presentation.

Boundaries of place were also overcome with delegates joining from places as diverse as New Zealand and Dubai. Later, Brian Lamb joined for a discussion of OER live in Elluminate from the University of British Columbia. Mythical views about learners (especially those ‘digital natives’) were hotly debated in the Theme 1 keynote session led by Helen Beetham and Rhona Sharpe (JISC Learner Experiences of e-Learning theme); 120 delegates took part in this highly regarded session which continued asynchronously to debate the key capabilities of a 21st century graduate and the unexpected results of researching into learners’ expectations of technology use in higher education.

‘… there is no evidence that learners are demanding more cutting-edge technology for learning: in fact they are often more conservative than their tutors.’ Rhona Sharpe.

Helen Beetham challenged the consumer model of learning that is gaining acceptance, arguing that:

‘A consumer model sees learners’ needs and expectations as one and the same thing. Find out what learners want – or employers, in another version – and deliver it. But we know learning isn’t like that. If we see learning in the highest sense as self-reflection, self-realisation, self-transformation, we see that needs may be met by challenging expectations, and that both will change if deep learning is taking place.’

Elsewhere, delegates could were invited to undertake some learning themselves by trying out Elluminate, Second Life, digital video making, pedagogy planning and assessment tools in a new area aptly named the ‘Have-a-Go’ area. An enjoyable mix of showcase and activity, the Have-a-Go area featured the work of some of the JISC services and project teams from the JISC e-Learning programme.

Perhaps ‘Have-a-Go’ is the catchphrase for this conference. With much a reduced carbon footprint too.
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Some key quotes from Twitter
The mobile phone is only form of technology that really cuts across rich and poor. If you want to invest in education, invest in this! Re Leadbeater
Phone on divert, out of office on, meeting in progress sign on door, coffee in hand, all ready for #jiscel09 1st keynote
I didn’t realise it would be this exhausting

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From the blog
I am sure that there are quite a few people out there who are feeling slightly overwhelmed by the huge quantity of quality discussion which is happening here at the conference.

I am now looking at Theme 1 with 93 new messages…

Okay deep breath….

I am not going to be able to go through them all….

You don’t need to. James Clay

As part of the pre-conference buzz, Martin Weller has produced a short video interviewing his ‘future self’. You can view Martin’s video at http://nogoodreason.typepad.co.uk/no_good_reason/2009/10/an-interview-with-the-future.html, but be warned, you may straight away want to make your own!

This year’s programme also includes keynotes by Charles Leadbeater (leading authority on innovation and strategy and former adviser to the government), Nigel Paine (freelance writer, organisational coach, broadcaster and former Head of People Development at the BBC), Helen Beetham and Rhona Sharpe (JISC Learner Experiences of e-Learning programme) and Peter Bradwell from the think tank, Demos.

To take part in these and other sessions at Innovating e-Learning 2009, register now at http://www.jisc.ac.uk/elpconference09. The conference has two themes and takes place online between 24-27 November. You decide when, where and how often you take part. The conference opens for reading and preparation on 17th November, and with a delegate fee of £50 and no need to travel, this is excellent value as well as great fun.

PS. Follow the pre-conference buzz on Twitter using the tag, #jiscel09. Keep in touch with what’s going on during the conference with James Clay (Gloucestershire College). There is an excellent Have-a-Go area as well this year, where you can try out new tools and technologies with the support of representatives from the RSCs and other JISC services and projects. Sounds good? Be quick to book your place and we’ll see you there!

Of the three parallel morning sessions, I attended the Internationalisation session and these are my notes for this – if you are interested in continuing (or joining) the discussion, Patrick McAndrew from the OU has set up a cloudworks page for this here: http://cloudworks.ac.uk/index.php/cloud/view/2534

Introduction
The session began with a short introduction to the topic by John Robertson from CETIS (covering for Lorna Campbell from CETIS who was unable to make the day due to illness). John started by getting a show of hands from the audience to gauge how many felt that making resources openly available was a good thing – which resulted in an overwhelming response of ‘yes’ they did think it was.

John then went on to ask whether the OER Programme was another example of British imperialism – and provided a number of thought provoking quotes (all in the presentation which can be downloaded from the link provided in the first paragraph of this blog). This is one example:

“What does encouraging ‘openness’ mean to a culture that is already open?”
Jared Stein, Utah Valley State College

US perspectives
This was followed by David Kernohan, who talked briefly about his recent visit to the US and meetings with those currently involved with openly releasing content and which were particularly pertinent to the issue of internationalisation.

He spoke about the work of Michigan State University (MSU). MSU is a former farm college which was set up with an agricultural remit. They are currently engaged in releasing some of their content openly – including materials about farming practices and horse management. They were aware that these resources were of particular interest to students and farmers in a number of developing countries. However, they found that their materials were not being used as often as expected and were concerned about this, as the release of their content was principally done for “public good”. Therefore they decided to do some research into why their resources were not being used in the volumes that they expected. They found that the cultural context in which they were packaged (i.e. how they were put together and presented) often meant that they were designed with a particular cultural background/understanding which was needed to understand them and this in turn made them difficult to use in a country that did not hold similar cultural views or knowledge. MSU have since been successful in gaining funding from the Gates Foundation to create these open educational resources alongside academics and potential users (students and farmers in Africa) to improve their (re)usability. They also have a parallel project in the food sciences which is working with end users in India, Malaysia and Egypt.

It is interesting to note that the MSU Project Manager for this work is not sure that this is sustainable (involving end users) even when using technology so that some meetings can be held remotely, as even this is expensive.

David also added that a range of MIT resources have (voluntarily) been translated into a wide number of other languages, including Chinese, and that it is not just the US and the UK releasing open content – the OpenCourseWare Consortium has 80 countries signed up.

All of which, David pointed out, highlights just how global the potential user base of Open Educational Resources can be.

Are Open Educational Resources Cultural Colonisation?
Patrick McAndrew from the OU started with answering his own question (are open educational resources cultural colonisation?) with “No” he didn’t think that they were, but that it was important to understand the risks associated with this.

He began with discussing an example of how easy it is to (unintentionally) culturally load materials by showing a presentation that he put together to promote the OpenLearn project. It begins with an image of Shakespeare, accompanied by classical music and goes on to include images of Queen Victoria and Darwin.

However, what he has found is that it is still possible to use culturally loaded material by using it to compare with, and discuss, local (e.g. African) cultures.

Patrick considered the motivations around making OER’s available, including:

• University culture (sharing/open/collaborative)
• Building institutional reputation and markets
• Institutional commitment to social justice and widening participation
• Improving student recruitment

The OU have found that (opposed to their implementation view) that OER is not necessarily about the media or content – when working with an overseas institution they found that it was more focussed on the research agenda.

Patrick then went on to talk about the wider ‘cultural mix’ of open educational resources. He showed the OpenCourseWare Consortium membership list as a pie chart, which clearly demonstrated that the UK is only a very small segment of this – with Spain, Japan and ‘affiliate’ members having the largest slices of this ‘pie’.

In terms of the OU’s OpenLearn, Patrick described how it has had 8m visitors from all over the world since its launch and described some of the impacts that this has had – especially in terms of getting content back from users:

• Content augmented by users
• Collaborations on content that have occurred as a result of it being openly available
• Translated versions of their content
• Entire courses developed by others have been deposited which have been created by gluing together content from a range of open sources including OpenLearn, MIT and elsewhere.

Following these three presentations, the discussion was then opened up to the audience – below is a summary of the questions and answers that took place:

Q1. When we say things are free for re-use for education but not for commercial uses – isn’t this commercial use anyway when universities use it with their students?

A. Patrick (OU): How we (the OU) dealt with this was by explaining what we meant. Just about every use of our content is acceptable. Commercial companies can use it - although they cannot sell the material as it is. It is important to prevent people thinking they can’t do things that they can.

Most people don’t read the licence. Most people think that content on the internet is free to use anyway. It’s also worth remembering that copyright is meaningless in some cultures. We should be in this game to get our material out there to be used by people with the imagination to use it.

Creative Commons have released a report about the use of ‘non-commercial’ which might be useful for you.

Q2. Patrick, you mentioned Africa in your presentation – what are your experiences?

A. Patrick (OU): Actually it is mainly about finding about ways to operate with one another and partnership. Don’t invent new barriers for yourself. Overall we have had very positive feedback and interest, but it is a difficult area to work with – especially around infrastructure issues.

Q3. How do you deal with the issue of jurisdictions of CC – there are even regional distinctions between England and Scotland, let alone further afield?

A. Patrick (OU): You grant rights to people based on where you are. It doesn’t matter where the user comes from.

Q4. I want the panel to note/make clear that even when rights to re-purpose content are granted, it doesn’t always mean that this is possible. For example, PDFs are not re-purposeable so although you ‘may’ re-purpose content the technical barriers mean you cannot.
It is difficult to even agree within the UK how materials can be used, so doing this for an international audience is going to be even harder. Is there a collection of use-cases for OERs, or a model that can be used?

A. Patrick (OU): The OU is looking at learning design and patterns to see how people are meaning materials to be used. We are also starting to look at how these are being used. Agree that it is important to communicate options for how content is used.

A: David K (JISC): In terms of use cases, there is currently a project (iChem3D ) which is part of the JISC Learning & Teaching Innovation Grant Programme that is investigating this issue and looking at how users are making use of their materials then repurposing their content around the use cases they are building up.

It’s also worth having a look at the final reports of the RePRODUCE programme projects who repurposed existing materials to create new modules.

Q5. How did Creative Commons save the OU £100,000 in licence fees?

A. Patrick (OU): Openlearn budgeted £100k for legal advice, but ended up using CC instead - thus the savings.

Q6. Does an open resource have to be completely culturally repurposeable? How is this achieved?

A. Heather W (JISC): The RePRODUCE programme found that content served up in smaller chunks was easier to re-use and repurpose – this could also make re-purposing easier for other cultures

A. Patrick (OU): Big chunks and little chunks of content can both work well for repurposing. It is the in-between chunks that are the difficulty. Need to give users the permission to strip out the assets so that if they want to use bits, then they can.

Q7. Why are we writing licences at all? What is the point?

A. Patrick (OU): Using a licence such as Creative Commons gives a clear message to the user about what they can do with it – without the need to find and check with the original author.

A. Heather W (JISC): Support Patricks point – one of the biggest challenges for the RePRODUCE projects was that for much of the material they located it was very often difficult to find out what they were allowed to do with it and who the original author was. Content that is clearly licensed makes the whole process much easier.

A. David Morris (OCEP, Coventry): Licences do more than just say that the content is open/free to use. They also enable the authors to have recognition for their work.

The symposium was chaired by Oleg Liber (Director of CETIS) and the symposium began with the pro’s and con’s of OER being outlined by a prestigious (and ficticious) panel:

Polly Pegler - Academic & an enthusiast for open educational resources
Prof. Ogden Wisden - Sceptical Academic
Will Pileham-Highe - Pro-Vice Chancellor
Joe Zawinul - civil servant representing the minister of BISCUIT (Business Colleges Universities and International Trade)
Quentinna Yan - Chinese secondary school teacher

Each member of the panel stated their take on OERs (well summarised here on the OERs Matter cloudworks page), then the debate was opened up to the audience.

The panel’s position statements proved to be a good starting point for the audience debate which followed. The audience debate further highlighted some of the difficult and thorny issues around OER, whilst (I felt) still retaining a sense of the future potential that OERs can offer.

The discussion began by considering the approaches to adoption of OER and it was suggested that it was a mistake to talk about the adoption of OER in ‘top-down’ approach terms (which many of the panel had done in their opening statements). It was argued that there was a real need to factor in a more ‘bottom-up’ approach and to understand the barriers associated with this, not limited to but including, unrealistic expectations on the amount of metadata that needs to be attached to an OER in order for it to be ready for release.

There was also a plea for more positive (carrot) arguments rather than negative (stick) arguments for the adoption for OER. Negative (e.g. saving money) ‘top-down’ approaches are unlikely to create motivated and enthusiastic adopters of OER - so more needs to be done on this.

Issues around the quality of content was also raised. It was agreed that this needs to be clearly articulated (without being imperialist), but also raises issues of trust - something that it was felt needed more exploration.

Picking up on this, another member of the audience added that the issue of reputation could do much to encourage the adoption of OER in a positive way. Currently there is no real percieved benefit to the individual to make content open - unlike the publishing model. If OERs had some kind of recogised peer-review type model then this is likely to increase the level of material that is made available in this way.

Another participant suggested at looking at what already works in terms of rating resources - e.g. amazon, the rating systems used by digg etc. This then raised the interesting question on who should rate the resources: academics or students? It was felt that they would be likely to rate quite differently, which would raise all kinds of issues (that time did not permit to be discussed further during the symposium).

The important role that repuposing plays in the advantages and benefits of OERs was also raised - it was pointed out that an open licence doesn’t just mean ‘free’ content, it can also mean content that can be used/repurposed and generally ‘messed about’.

However, deciding on the best granularity for a particular resource was considered to be one of the more difficult tasks as the context of a resource is likely to have big impact on its usability, depending on the end user of that resource. Resources for the independent/lifelong learner need to be strongly contextualised and accompanied with supporting material. If it is to be used as part of wider course, then items with much less context would be fine (and probably would be preferred).

Looking to the future, the debate also considered the changing nature of educational paradigms, in particular the impact of globalised education and how OERs can help support this. It was argued that there was a need to think more strategically, that even with the inherent difficulties of adopting OER that education as a whole could lose out if it did not grasp the opportunities provided.

So lots to take away from this session - not least the extent to which the current OER Programme pilots will go towards investigating more fully a large part of the issues raised during the debates.

“OER Matters - maybe been more negative talk than positive in this session - but more openness remains inevitable!”
(tweet from Patrick McAndrew made during the session)

Managing Curriculum Change
A new publication, Managing Curriculum Change, introduces two major JISC programmes of research commencing in 2008 that investigate how the use of technology can help make curriculum design processes more agile and responsive and the experience of learning more engaging, inclusive and rewarding. ‘Managing Curriculum Change’ gives an overview of the aims of the Institutional Approaches to Curriculum Design and Transforming Curriculum Delivery programmes alongside a vision for the enhancement of the curriculum design and delivery lifecycle through technology. The publication introduces the projects involved in the programmes and illustrates through a combination of text and graphics what might be achieved at different stages in the curriculum lifecycle, with a focus on who needs to be involved to enable institutional aspirations to become a reality.

The JISC Curriculum Design and Delivery programmes are supported by web based resources in the Design Studio . The Design Studio is a dynamic toolkit which draws together a range of resources around technology-enhanced curriculum design and delivery, including those that result from the work of the Curriculum Design and Delivery programmes and resources from previous JISC and Higher Education Academy programmes and other relevant sources.

The publication is available from http://www.jisc.ac.uk/publications/documents/managingcurriculumchange.aspx

Responding to Learners
This resource pack synthesises the outcomes from the Learner Experiences of e-Learning theme of the JISC e-Learning Programme which funded a total of ten projects from 2005 to 2009, and had the sustained involvement of over 200 learners and more than 3000 survey respondents to explore learners’ perceptions of and participation in technology-enhanced learning in a digital age. The content of Responding to Learners includes a series of five guides and a set of key messages postcards containing quotes from learners. The postcards summarise the key findings from this JISC-funded research and can form the basis for staff development activities. The series of guides offer recommendations on how institutions can better respond to learners’ expectations and uses of technology and offers practical guidance on how to embed the learners’ voice more effectively into institutional processes and practice.

The pack is available from http://www.jisc.ac.uk/publications/documents/respondingtolearners.aspx

Learning Literacies in a Digital Age
A new briefing paper summarises the recent JISC e-Learning Programme report, Thriving in the 21st century: Learning Literacies for the Digital Age, which explores examples of learning literacies provision in UK further and higher education. The Learning Literacies for a Digital Age (LLiDA) project reviewed the evidence of change in the nature of work, knowledge, social life and citizenship, communications media and other technologies, in the context of learning, and also explored the current responses to these changes from the further and higher education sectors. The project has collected substantial original data (available online) concerning current practice in literacies provision in UK further and higher education, including 15 institutional audits and over 40 examples of forward-thinking practice. Based on this, and on the body of existing research evidence, LLiDA offers a set of recommendations for institutions to consider as they examine their own provision and support in this area. By engaging with real examples of academic and learners practices we have provided compelling evidence of how effective digital learners develop and can be supported.

The briefing paper is available at http://www.jisc.ac.uk/publications/documents/learningliteraciesbp.aspx

The semtech project drew a distinction between “hard” and “soft” semantic technologies.

• [The report defines] soft semantic technologies as those that let people document certain concepts in formats that are easy to communicate to other people. These concepts can be communicated as part of learning and teaching processes. Examples of soft semantic annotation are folksonomies and topic maps.
• [The report defines] hard semantic technologies as those that support efficient exchange and processing of semantic data between programs and machines. An example would be linked data constructed from RDF statements.
• [The report distinguishes] between linked data that express the existence of relationships between resources and “traditional” metadata that express such relationships using ontologies.

It was found that “there is extensive use of soft semantic technologies in HE at the moment. Hard semantic technologies like RDF are initially used in some HE/FE repositories for interoperability.”.

Drawing on a wide ranging survey (with data available), the report identifies and critiques several potentially relevant semantic technologies that could be used to support and streamline learning related systems in HE around ideas of collaboration content authoring/annotation, searching and matching, repositories/VLEs/authoring tools, and infrastructure.

Detailed recommendations are made concerning a “roadmap” for Semantic Technology adoption, which spells out a route to the realisation of the benefits that such technology could offer the sector.

The study found that less than a third of evaluations studied made use of any sort of baseline data, therefore limiting the extent to which impact could be fully assessed. It also found that a tension existed between evaluation studies and research into student learning. However it did find pockets of good practice, and these are detailed in the report.

The study also proposes a conceptual Framework for Evaluating Learning Spaces (FELS), which builds upon the input gathered through study interviews and project workshops.

The report can be downloaded at www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/projects/learningspaces08.aspx

Much has changed since the publication of Effective Practice with e-Learning (JISC, 2004) – the first edition of this guide. National strategies for e-learning have now formally recognised the importance of technology in learning, teaching and assessment in all sectors of education in the UK, and in response many institutions have embedded the enhancement of learning and teaching through technology into their strategic missions.

As revealed by JISC research, the social context in which learning takes place has also changed, and in ways that were not foreseen in the early part of the 21st century. Learners are increasingly dependent on technology to help them fit learning into their complex, demanding lives. Ownership of personal technologies – from computers to mobile devices – is now pervasive, and use of the internet, including Web 2.0 technologies, is commonplace.

Effective Practice in a Digital Age combines the outcomes of research with examples of current practice. To reflect the different starting points of readers, the case studies are divided into colour-coded sections to indicate the different degrees of access to technology and institutional support that practitioners may experience. Definitions of acronyms and technical terms are provided in the glossary. The publication can be ordered in hard copy or downloaded in PDF and accessible text-only formats. In addition, a number of supplementary resources are available online in the Effective Practice Resource Exchange, including video clips, podcasts and extended versions of the case studies. All resources associated with this publication can be downloaded for use in educational contexts.