Thursday 26^th June, 10:20 to 11:40

Emma Hill, Matt Johnston, Martin Jenkins

Presentations from workshop are now available (see below) along with a list of issues raised during the discussion.

T_L_conference_what_is_open

How might ‘open’ change the practice

This session will provide participants with the opportunity to engage in discussion of how ‘Open’ might change the practice of education.  The session facilitators will each present briefly on what ‘Open’ means to them; so informing the discussion that follows which will address questions such as:

• To what extent should the institution adopt a philosophy of ‘openness’? This might include use and development of open educational resources, encouraging greater peer learning, collaborative relationships.
• Open means, Free to access, Free to reuse, Free to revise, Free to remix, Free to redistribute; what are the implications for learning and teaching?

Issues and recommendations raised during the workshop;

• good ICT support and investment is required in order to support a proper ‘open’ education
• a well thoughtout assessment system should be installed in order to handle the challenges posed in the ‘open’ arena
• needs to think about a proper business model for this type of operation
• how do we stimulate lecturer to ‘open’ in practice of education as students may have lots of questions and need much support time from lecturers
• agree on the personal encounter with students – my online course students hugely appreciate residential workshops for face to face meeting even though we do individual skype tutorials
• thinking about ‘open’ learning – how is the learning taking place for those who are trained in different ways of learning (knowledge creation), such as in other countries?  They certainly need support.
• Open
  • Control
    • data protection
    • manage expectations
    • accessibility
    • feedback
    • availability of tutor – 24/7
  • Very exciting
    • how do we get started
  • How to engage students (easily for novice tutor)
    • methods
    • tools
    • management
  • Digital tutor
    • how to get skilled to do it
• how will the university’s administrative structure/strategy support openness in course delivery?
• can we adapt to greater individual support/recognition to compensate for any anonymity in the learning experience?
• perhaps we should have open degrees, where students are not expected from the outset the degree they wish to study.  Perhaps we need to look at the American model major/minor where students choose degree programme much later on.