Project website/blog
What research questions the project addresses, aims & themes
The openSE - open educational framework for computer science Software Engineering is establishing ways to provide Open Courses to accompany Open Resources. By focussing on Software Engineering it is able to explore novel ways to use openness to combing content, tutoring and projects with authentic participation in open source development. The project offered a combination of free learning with an option for "for fee" activity to link in with development work in developing regions, in particular Africa, where flexibility is needed.
openSE brings together higher education institutions, open source projects and enterprises from different countries, across Europe and beyond, to collaboratively build up a common learning ecosystem.
The openSE framework is an open approach to computer science Software Engineering, aiming at the continuous provision of up-to-date and relevant learning materials and opportunities that match students' interests and employers' demand; providing firms with better educated employees and allowing learners to acquire an enhanced set of skills in comparison to traditional education. The openSE framework will be open to any type of learner: students of partnering universities, learners from the enterprise community or 'free learners' outside of any type of formal educational context.
It is the aim of the openSE Project to draw upon ongoing initiatives and prior experiences related to open educational provision or experiences of computer science education within open source projects. We cordially invite fellow educational institutions, practitioners and enterprises from the open source field, as well as all types of learners, to contribute to the development of openSE, be it in terms of structuring and shaping the openSE environment, providing learning resources and mentorship or support current opportunities.
Research questions:
- What is the overall set of services required for an open learning framework?
- How can courses be designed around open content to incorporate authentic activity?
- What is the learning experience of students taking part in authentic activity?
- Can the model transfer to other domains?
How the research questions are addressed by the project (methodology and activity/environment)
The project developed an open environment for project-based learning together with a range of courses. These were piloted with students that were working in some of the partner sites and also as openly announced courses. Initial design work was carried out through a workshop-based approach to capture maps of the facilities that were needed.
The project focussed on the following key objectives:
- To set up an Open Educational Framework for Software Engineering bringing together academia, formally enrolled students, fellow students, free learners outside of formal education and open source practitioners and enterprises;
- To systematically combine formal and informal learning within an informal learning environment;
- To stimulate participatory learning experiences and foster practical "hands-on" sessions where learning activities and outputs become learning resources themselves;
- To enable current and future learners to benefit fully and continuously from others' achievements, regardless of where these achievements have been made.
Findings and outputs
The project carried out a series of pilots that revealed that simplified information is needed to avoid learners getting overloaded and distracted by the information available inside the open source projects. Being able to address this sort of issue showed the value of providing a framework and bridging site for project-based learning. The site could offer second-level support that made taking part in the authentic activities more relevant to the learning experience. The site also provided links back to the learning community rather than the developer community.
Findings are described in http://oro.open.ac.uk/29820/: Wilson, Tina; McAndrew, Patrick and Meiszner, Andreas (2011). Sharing software engineering resources and open source software across entities. In: 12th Annual Conference of Higher EducationAcademy Subject Centre for Information and Computer Science, 23rd -25th August 2011, BelfastUK.
Project impact
The project was innovative in its approach to courses from open content by bringing together the use of external projects with student groups and shared access. In doing this it developed independently a model for badges applied to learning with Open Educational Resources. For The Open University team OpenSE provides a component in the work o OER in Information and Computing Studies, reported as a strand in OLnet.
Publications
Presentation at http://cloudworks.ac.uk/cloud/view/5450
Paper on ORO: http://oro.open.ac.uk/29820/:
Keywords
Open educational resources, software engineering, authentic assessment, badging
People involved
Tina Wilson
Patrick McAndrew
Project partners and links
Augusto Medina, Sociedade Portuguesa de Inovacao
Ioannis Stamelos, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
Imed Hammouda, Tampere University of Technology
Jesus M. Gonzalez-Barahona, Universidad Rey Juan Carlos
Olivier Ricou, Ecole pour l'Informatique et les Techniques Avancees
Wouter Tebbens, Free Knowledge Institute
Ruediger Glott, University of Maastricht / UNU-MERIT
Ross Gardler, University of Oxford
Patrick McAndrew, The Open University
Elmar Husmann, linkSpace Management Services Gesellschaft m.b.H
Funder(s)
EU Lifelong Learning Programme: Erasmus
503641-LLP-1-2009-1-PT-ERASMUS-ECUE
Start Date and duration
1 November 2009 - 30 September 2011