VM curriculum designing

Training material development on VM curriculum designing was lead by VMU and KUL with the involvement of other partners. E-learning centres' staff or other staff members from consortium institutions worked collaboratively online to develop training material with practical assignments and templates, as well as video or audio explanations on how to design VM curriculum and what are peculiarities in such process.

Unit 5. Quality Assurance of Curriculum Design for Virtual Mobility

5.1. Open educational resources (OER)

Most of OER users are interested that OER would be freely available, open, free of charge. Teachers are interested in that edited OER could customize for their lectures as this may significantly reduce the time required to prepare lectures. The resulting variety of materials  also stimulates students. In its simplest form, the concept of  OER describes any educational resources (including curriculum maps, course materials, textbooks, streaming videos, multimedia applications, podcasts, and any other materials that have been designed for use in teaching and learning) that are openly available for use by educators and students. 

OER are teaching, learning and research materials in any medium that reside in the public domain and have been released under an open license that permits access, use, repurposing, reuse and redistribution by others with no or limited restrictions (Atkins, Brown & Hammond, 2007[1]). OER are typically made freely available over the Web or the Internet. Their principle use is by teachers and educational institutions to support course development, but OER may also be used directly by students. OER include learning objects such as lecture material, references and readings, simulations, experiments and demonstrations, as well as syllabuses, curricula, and teachers’ guides (Wiley, 2006[2]).

OER may be classified in a variety of systems that are suggested by different scholars (Hylén, 2005[3];  Wenk, 2010[4]):

  • Learning content: full courses, modules, courseware, curriculum maps, teaching notes, learning objects, exercises, collections and journals courses, references to collections and archives, textbooks, simulations and role plays, student guides, streaming videos, multimedia applications, podcasts, assessment tools and instruments, databases).

Tools: software to support the development, use, reuse and delivery of learning content, including searching and organization of content, content and learning management systems, content development tools, online learning communities, simulation tools, apps (including mobile apps) and hardware tools. Implementation resources: intellectual property licenses to promote open publishing of materials, design principles of best practice and localized content.

Removing restrictions around copying resources may reduce the cost of accessing educational materials. The principle of allowing adaptation of materials provides a possible mechanism for students becoming active participants in educational processes, who learn best by doing and creating, not by passively reading and absorbing. Content licenses that encourage activity and creation by students through re-use and adaptation of that content can make a significant contribution to creating more effective learning environments.

According to UNESCO published Guidelines for Open Educational Resources (OER) in Higher Education, (2011)[5], the transformative educational potential of OERs may also be maximized through different practices and procedures that their providers should incur. Peer review processes may improve the quality of learning materials. Capacity for the creation and use of OERs would increase if it was treated as part of the professional development of academic staff. Using OERs in education could increase serving the needs of particular student populations such as those with special needs and serving students in their local languages. Involving students in the selection and adaptation of OERs would engage them more actively in the learning process.

According  Open University (UK)[6] a qualitative  OER is:

  • findable  – it can be in multiple locations;
  • clearly described;
  • clearly licensed (normally through Creative Commons);
  • from a source you trust;
  • easy to modify;
  • Free standing – it does not assume knowledge of other resources;
  • free of copyright content;
  • being used by/recommended by people like you;
  • imperfect  - it just needs to work for you.

 

Reviewing your OER. Self check

Begin by thinking about including OER in curriculum.  The table  below will help guide your reflection.

OER

 

Yes

No

Lecture records

 

 

Research publications

 

 

Information resources (encyclopaedia, glossaries, references, etc.)

 

 

Interactive resources (tests, other)

 

 

Graphical material

 

 

Dictionaries

 

 

Other ________________________________

 

 


[1] Atkins, D.E., Brown, J.S., & Hammond, A.L. (2007). A review of the open educational resources (OER) movement: Achievements, challenges, and new opportunities. Retrieved from http://www.hewlett.org/uploads/files/ReviewoftheOERMovement.pdf.

[2] Wiley D., Green C., Soares L. (2012). Dramatically Bringing Down the Cost of Education with OER. www.americanprogress.org/issues/2012/02/open_education_resources.html.

[3] Hylén, J. (2005). "Open Educational Resources: Opportunities and Challenges." OECD’s Centre for Educational Research and Innovation. http://www.oecd.org/edu/ceri/37351085.pdf

[4] Wenk, B. (2010). Open educational resources (OER) inspire teaching and learning. Education Engineering (EDUCON), 2010 IEEE (pp. 435-442).

[5] UNESCO (2011). “Open Educational Resourses”. Retrieved from https://en.unesco.org/themes/building-knowledge-societies/oer.