Recently a FutureLearn MOOC linked to a full text research article archived in ORO. The paper was “New directions for early literacy in a digital age: the iPad. Journal of Early Childhood Literacy, 2014 (Early View) by Rosie Flewitt, David Messer and Natalia Kucirkova.” and it featured in the “Childhood in the digital age” MOOC.
A short extract from the paper appeared in the body of the course and the full text ORO item was linked to as a “See Also” option. The full text was used free of charge with no need to worry about licenses as all full text content in ORO is made available with a CC-BY-NC-ND license.
Using ORO is a cost effective and increasingly popular way of getting OU research publications into module materials. Astrid Wissenburg gave a great presentation outlining some of these opportunities at the Inspiring Content event last year. The presentation is available to watch again here: “Sprinkling Gold Dust: challenging students with cutting edge research“.
The ORO item “New directions for early literacy in a digital age…” was the most visited item page in ORO immediately after it was used in the MOOC and showed a marked spike in both site visits and downloads.
Feel free to contact us if you are interested in using ORO items in an OU module or MOOC.