Open University Learning Design Initiative

OULDI Project Report and Evaluation Report

Simon — Wed, 08 Aug 2012 14:37:46 +0000

Over the last month, we’ve been working on finishing our final Evaluation and Project reports. In pulling together research and experience from all five project strands and nine pilots we’ve been able to collate findings and think about what we have achieved, what we have discovered and what this means.

The focus of the OULDI project has been on developing and piloting tools, resources and approaches that support institutional curriculum design processes and design practice/cultures. The Evaluation Report (PDF 91pp) reviews each of these in turn, including tools for sharing learning design expertise (Cloudworks), for visualising designs (CompendiumLD, Module Map, Activity Profile) and for supporting design and reflection in workshops (Course Features Facilitation Cards, Information Literacies Cards, workshop activities, etc.). The Report evaluates how effective these have been and what this tells us. For example: how do communities of practice use a shared design space? How well do university processes map actual practice? What benefits and barriers can we discern? What discourses of resistance and case studies of personal success have we recorded?

One clear message is that it is possible to be successful in changing or improving the process, practice and perception of curriculum design but has found this requires a combination of elements working together: selection of effective design tools; well configured institutional and informal design processes; proper opportunity for collaboration; reflexive working and dedicated time away from the day-to-day to work on a design; positive and real management endorsement; staff with positive attitudes and adequate tacit knowledges of the art of teaching and the discipline of designing learning; and an expert consultant role to guide and advise teams. The success of embedding learning design is therefore dependent both on the internal quality of the particular design approach or tool and on the capability of the (institutional/professional skills) context to ‘receive’ it

Building on the Evaluation Report, the final Project Report (PDF, 21pp) presents a concise project summary offering an overview of the educational, learning design and technical context and documenting the benefits seen to the design process, design communities, design practices, design software and visualisation and the sector. The Project Report concludes with some ‘lessons to share.’

HEA conference 2012: The Art of the Designer

Rebeccagalley — Fri, 06 Jul 2012 09:29:43 +0000

Vilinda Ross (from Ulster’s Viewpoints project) and I presented at this year’s HEA conferenece and had an excellent turn-out (thanks to everyone that came along!) I only had a very quick 10 minutes to update the conference on the OULDI-JISC project, so thought I’d upload my slides here. All the reports, tools and resources . . . → Read More: HEA conference 2012: The Art of the Designer

Community Indicators: A framework for observing and supporting community activity on Cloudworks

Rebeccagalley — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 15:26:37 +0000

I’ve just had my first paper as lead author accepted by the Interactive Learning Environments journal (written in collaboration with Grainne Conole and Giota Alevizou) – a nice end to the week! I’ve added an image of the indicators below and you can read more about it’s development in a Cloudworks blog here: http://cloudworks.ac.uk/news/view/1474

Abstract

Cloudworks (Cloudworks.ac.uk) is a social networking site designed for sharing, finding and discussing learning and teaching ideas and experiences. Design and development of the site has been based on an iterative analysis, development and implementation approach, underpinned by ongoing research and evaluation. To this end, we have been seeking to establish strategies to enable us to systematically position transactions and emerging patterns of activity on the site so that we can more reliably use the empirical evidence we have gathered (Galley, 2009a, Galley 2009b, Alevizou et al., 2010a, Conole et al, 2010). In this paper we will introduce a framework we have developed for observing and supporting community development on the site. In building our framework we have used empirical evidence gathered from the site, then related it to the literature from a range of disciplines concerned with professional and learning communities. We link research relating to distance learning communities with studies into Computer Mediated Communication (CMC), self-organising communities on the web, and wider research about the nature of learning organisations and continuous professional development. We argue that this framework can be used to capture the development of productive communities in the space (i.e. how far cohesive, productive groups can be said to be emerging or not) and also help focus future development of the platform, and provide guidelines for community support.

7Cs Design and Delivery

Rebeccagalley — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 09:23:36 +0000

Grainne’s written a new blog post about Leicester’s audit and review of LD tools from across the OULDI and Carpe Diem projects. A useful framework for categorising tools seems to be emerging…watch this space!

Collectivity, Performance and Self-representation: Analysing Cloudworks as a Public Space for Networked Learning and Reflection

Rebeccagalley — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 12:08:10 +0000

It has been argued that processes of participatory culture, afforded by social media and technologies blur the boundaries between creative production and consumption, and open up novel, public spaces for, and styles of, networked learning; social spaces that promote collaborative knowledge building, and shared assets. However, empirical evidence on the application of such technologies for supporting teaching and learning in higher education contexts is only slowly emerging.

This chapter explores these concepts in the context of analysis of emergent patterns of behaviour and activity in Cloudworks, a specialised networking site, and a public space for aggregating and sharing resources and exchanging ideas about the scholarship and practice of education, with particular emphasis on the relationship between ICTs and teaching and learning. Performance and expression within the site are analyzed through combining notions of self-representation and collective intelligence with dimensions of expansive learning and activity patterns. The chapter contextualizes findings through a critical lens, and offers insights that can shape the future research agenda for productive learning in networked environments.

Authors
Panagiota Alevizou, Institute of Educational Technology, The Open University, Milton Keynes, UK
Rebecca Galley, Institute of Educational Technology, The Open University, Milton Keynes, UK
Gráinne Conole, Institute of Educational Technology, The Open University, Milton Keynes, UK

Book Chapter, Pages 75-97

Book Exploring the Theory, Pedagogy and Practice of Networked Learning

DOI 10.1007/978-1-4614-0496-5_5
Online ISBN 978-1-4614-0496-5
Print ISBN 978-1-4614-0495-8

Workshop at JISC Experts Meeting, Maple House, Birmingham

Rebeccagalley — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 16:50:06 +0000

I’m leading a workshop tomorrow at the JISC Experts Meeting in Birmingham. I’ll be sharing the key principles of the OULDI methodology and some of the tools and activities, but more particularly I’ll be inviting participants to begin to develop and share their own Curriculum Design activities, using best practice frameworks and collaboration methods from their own settings. The one hour workshop is called: ‘Collaborative activities for curriculum design’. The slides are available for download from Slideshare and embedded below.

Presentation

View more presentations from Open University Learning Design Initiative

The activity that goes with slide 14 is as follows:

1. Identify your module’s key features. Choose a maximum of 12 cards from the module features prompt card set (10mins).

Note: The cards correspond to the aspects drawn out in the module map. Orange=Guidance and support, Blue=Content and experience, Green=Communication and collaboration, Purple=Reflection and demonstration. Are there any colour cards you haven’t chosen? How might this impact on learners’ experience?

2. Add your 12 keywords to the keywords box on the module map and begin to complete the boxes (see the example module map for more guidance) (10mins).

3. You want to ensure that these students are given the opportunity to practice a wide range on level 1/4 Information Literacy Skills. Using the Information Literacy Facilitation Cards, consider whether you need to amend or enhance any aspects of your module map (10mins)

We’ll be using these three resources in the activities (links below). Please feel free to download and try them but please do let us know how you get on!

Course Map Spreadsheet

Information Literacy Facilitation Cards

Module features prompt cards

Brunel and Reading Universities present at the Alt C 2011

Brunel — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 10:37:50 +0000

Natalie Parnis, Dr Phil Alberts (Brunel University) and Maria Papefthimiou (Reading University) delivered a collaborative presentation during this year’s Alt C Conference in September. The presentation entitled Curriculum Design: An approach for successfully embedding Technology Enhanced Learning in the curriculum provided the audience with an account of the commonalities and variances of the learning design initiatives and approaches as implemented in the two institutions. The presenters also gave a description of the positive impact these approaches had on the institutions’ teaching process. The observed benefits were improved stakeholder engagement, stronger collaboration within course design teams, and increased opportunity for creativity and innovative design approaches.

The presentation was well attended and questions were raised by the members from the audience about the sustainability of these initiatives and plans for embedding such initiatives into institutional processes. More details about both partner institutions’ sustainability plans will be included in their final project report which will be finalised soon.

JISC Elluminate Wednesday Session

Rebeccagalley — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 11:18:07 +0000

We have been invited to talk about Cloudworks and more specifically Cloudworks as open source which we’ve called ‘CloudEngine’ by JISC as part of their Elluminate Wednedsday sessions. The presentation is embedded below (and available to download from Slideshare).

Get cloudengine jisc-elluminate_wednesdays

View more presentations from Open University Learning Design Initiative

Link to Elluminate recording : Please note that when you launch the recording you will need to click on Tools – Application Sharing – Scale to fit to ensure you will be able to see the main screen properly. You can then resize the ‘Application sharing’ box by dragging the corners out to fit your screen.

If you would like to know more about how to install your own version of CloudEngine please contact either me (r.galley@open.ac.uk) or Nick (n.d.freear@open.ac.uk).

In conversation with Rachel Harris: Using video to gather evidence

Rebeccagalley — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 12:49:46 +0000

JISC Curriculum Design and Delivery blog post

Presentation at the 6th International Blended Learning Conference

Brunel — Tue, 05 Jul 2011 10:45:41 +0000

Phil Alberts and Natalie Parnis participated in a presentation at the 6^th International Blended Learning Conference which took place at the University of Hertfordshire on the 15^th & 16^th of June 2011.

The presentation entitled ‘Designing the Curriculum: from innovation to enhancement’ was delivered in collaboration with Rebecca Galley from the OU and Maria Papefthimiou from Reading University.

During the presentation we gave an account of a number of evaluation strategies that were adopted across the three institutions (OU, Brunel and Reading) and demonstrated evidence on the impact of these approaches thus far.