Project website
Project information at http://kn.open.ac.uk/public/workspace.cfm?wpid=6087
What research questions the project addresses, aims & themes
OpenLearn is the Open University's access point for its open and free online resources. Established in 2006 it started as a two-year experiment to understand how we can operate in a more open manner and what benefits it brings for learners, educators and The Open University. Since then OpenLearn has become an integrated part of The Open University attracting more than 5 million unique visitors each year.
The Research and Evaluation team was based at The Institute of Educational Technology and had two main aims:
- Enhanced knowledge and understanding of open content delivery, how it can be effective, and the contribution it can make to the further development of e-learning.
- Enhanced understanding of sustainable and scalable models of open content delivery.
How the research questions are addressed by the project (methodology and activity/environment)
The methods applied to learn about the effects on the institution were based on an action research model where all involved in the initiative were part of the research effort and the overall experiment that was being carried out in developing OpenLearn. This included academic, technology and production teams who wrote position papers, took part in interviews and provided reflective feedback. The impact on educators included building up collaborations facilitated by open approaches, targeted interviews considering attitudes and opportunities, and case studies working with key users. Finding out about the way in which learners used the site was a challenge. Researching open content means that there are too many users and too many different routes to and through the content to gain a complete set of data. Rather a variety of methods are applied to gain an understanding of activity at different levels of detail: analytics to gain the overall picture, surveys to bring out attitudes and experiences, and interview based case studies to establish persona and illustrate examples of real use.
Findings and outputs
The project produced outputs across production methods, copyright requirements, attitudes to openness, methods for collaboration, organisational change and research methods. These were reported through papers and presentations as the initiative progressed. The key findings were collected into a research report:
McAndrew, P., Santos, A., Lane, A., Godwin, S., Okada, A., Wilson, T., Connolly, T., Ferreira, G., Buckingham Shum, S., Bretts, J. & Webb, R. (2009).OpenLearn Research Report 2006-2008. The Open University, Milton Keynes, England. http://oro.open.ac.uk/17513/
Project impact
OpenLearn is now established as one of the leading OER sites in Europe and provides more than 600 free and open courses embedded in a learning environment with content also available to edit and reuse. The research met both of its aims:
To understand the role of open content in learning:
- identifying different motivations and behaviour in learners (volunteer students and social learner)
- describing a new model for collaboration based on open sharing of content that does not require formal links
- applying activity theory to bring out potential tension points and contradictions in changing to a more open way of working
- considering the role and introduction for social tools (open forums, live connections, video conferencing and shared knowledge mapping)
- drawing out patterns of use through analytics applied to the learning process
Sustainability through identifying 8 institutional benefits of open content:
- Enhancing reputation as an innovator and provider
- Extending reach beyond normal geographical boundaries
- Widening participation by providing free content to work with other initiatives
- Experimenting with course structure and content outside of formal restrictions
- Accelerating technology adoption and trials
- Offering a catalyst for collaboration by sharing key content and encouraging open licensing
- Building a research base that has been applied across many other projects
- Attracting students and resulting in several thousand registrations likely to be drawn to The Open University by OpenLearn
Publications
See http://kn.open.ac.uk/public/workspace.cfm?wpid=6478 and ORO.
McAndrew, P., Santos, A., Lane, A., Godwin, S., Okada, A., Wilson, T., Connolly, T., Ferreira, G., Buckingham Shum, S., Bretts, J. & Webb, R. (2009). OpenLearn Research Report 2006-2008. The Open University, Milton Keynes, England. http://oro.open.ac.uk/17513/
Lane, Andrew and McAndrew, Patrick (2010). Are open educational resources systematic or systemic change agents for teaching practice? British Journal of Educational Technology, 41(6), pp. 952-962. http://oro.open.ac.uk/238808
Godwin, S., McAndrew, P., and Santos, A., (2008) 'Behind the Scenes with OpenLearn: the Challenges of Researching the Provision of Open Educational Resources', Electronic Journal of e-Learning , vol. 6, no.2, http://www.ejel.org/Volume-6/v6-i2/v6-i2-art-7.htm http://oro.open.ac.uk/12121/
McAndrew, P., Godwin, S.J. & Santos, A.I. (2009) Research 2.0: How Do We Know about the Users that Do Not Tell Us Anything? In Researching Mobile Learning: Frameworks, Tools And Research Designs Vavoula, G., Pachler, N. & Kukulska-Hulme, A.K. (eds). Peter Lang: Oxford. pp 277-288. http://oro.open.ac.uk/23854
Godwin, S.J. and McAndrew, P. (2008). Exploring User Types and What Users Seek in an Open Content Based Educational Resource. In J. Luca & E. Weippl (Eds.), Proceedings of World Conference on Educational Multimedia, Hypermedia and Telecommunications 2008 (pp. 3711-3718). Chesapeake, VA: AACE http://oro.open.ac.uk/27399/
McAndrew, P. (2006) Motivations for OpenLearn: the Open University's Open Content Initiative, commissioned report for OECD, http://kn.open.ac.uk/public/document.cfm?docid=8816
Keywords
Open educational resources
People involved
Research and evaluation director: Patrick McAndrew
Research team: Andreia Santos, Steve Godwin, Jo Watts
Funder(s)
William and Flora Hewlett Foundation
Start Date and duration
May 2006 - September 2008