Research into collaborative open course design and development using OERs in the Open Educational Resource university wiki environment

1. Open Course Design and Development:
A Case Study in the Open Educational Resource university
Irwin DeVries, PhD
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike 4.0 International License
1
Screenshot, OERu website. Licensed under Creative Commons 3.0 BY-SA Unported.

2. What is the OERu?
2





Global partnership of like-minded postsecondary institutions
– not university per se
Committed to free courses and programs based on OERs
Optional support, assessment and credible credentials
through partner institutions
Sponsored by a not-for-profit foundation in New Zealand
(OERu Foundation)
Virtual presence in WikiEducator wiki

3. 3
Screenshot, WikiEducator. Licensed under Creative Commons 3.0 BY-SA Unported.

4. How does it work?
“Parallel learning universe” (Taylor, 2007)
4
OERu logic high level. Wayne Mackintosh. Licensed under Creative Commons 3.0 BY-SA Unported.

5. The “unbundling” concept
5
Model showing OER or OCW reuse (“any content”). Friesen & Murray (2011). Licensed under Creative
Commons 3.0 BY-SA Unported.

6. OERu collaborations
6
Diagram showing high-level logic model for OERu. By Wayne Macintosh. Licensed under Creative Commons 3.0 BY-SA Unported.

7. Open design and development
7



The generic design process, for instance, the
ADDIE Model incorporating the five processes
of Analysis, Design, Development,
Implementation, and Evaluation as a dynamic
system.
Open collaborative design and development
models associated with the open source
software development model to facilitate rapid
prototyping and continuous feedback and
improvement loops
“Dynamic processes for collaborative
development” (WikiEducator, 2013)

8. Prototype development
8



Focus on small number of prototype courses
for OERu
Our first contribution: ART100 Art Appeciation
and Techniques
Redesigned from existing OERs
 Course
from Saylor.com via WA State Board of
Community Colleges Open Course Library
 Added own content, activities, assessments, etc.

Is the focus of my research

9. 9
Screenshot, WikiEducator. Licensed under Creative Commons 3.0 BY-SA
Unported.

10. Research questions
10
1.
2.
How has open design and development been
conceptualized and realized in the Open
Educational Resource university (OERu)?
What are the currently visible features of open
design and development as indicated by
practices and products in the OERu prototype
course projects:
• As compared with traditional instructional
design and development; and,
• As compared with open source software
development?

11. Open / traditional instructional design
Aspect
Open Design and Development
Traditional Instructional Design
• Participants
• Volunteer – either individual or
institutional
• Paid, institutionally based
• Makeup of design team
• Volunteers from global
WikiEducator community –
individuals or institutions
• From within one organization
• Roles of design team
members
• Varied, overlapping
• More clearly circumscribed
• Content copyright
• Open licensing with some rights
reserved
• Mostly rights reserved
• Content versions
• Multiple simultaneous
• Single official version
• Intended learners
• Multiple constituencies, many
unknown in advance
• Predefined
• Design processes
• Informal design processes
• Formal design processes
• Authoring environment
• Generally open source software –
e.g. WikiMedia, OpenOffice
• Generally proprietary; e.g. Word,
Photoshop
• Delivery environment
• Multiple options, based on those
used by member institutions
• Usually a single dedicated
platform – e.g. BlackBoard,
11
Moodle

12. “Traditional instructional design”
working description
12

Three elements



Higher education online or distance education course
development
Scientific / planned process (Richey et al., 2011)
“Messiness” (Conole, 2009), iterative cycles of
knowledge building and adaptations to situational
contexts and events (Rowland, 1992)
Public Mural, Liverpool. Photo by Keith Edkins. Licensed under
Creative Commons 2.0 BY-SA Unported.
Ceramic Bowl, Mexico. Photo by Alejandro Linares Garcia. Licensed under
Creative Commons 3.0 BY-SA Unported.

13. Open design and development
13
Related concepts &
historical context
Pastels. Clementina. Licensed under Creative Commons BY-SA 3.0 Unported.
Open educational
resources (OERs)
Learning objects
Sharing of learning
design knowledge
Open source
software
development

14. Open educational resources
14
“Teaching, learning, and research
resources that reside in the public
domain or have been released
under an intellectual property
license that permits their free use
or re-purposing by others.
Open educational resources
include full courses, course
materials, modules, textbooks, str
eaming
videos, tests, software, and any
other tools, materials, or
techniques used to support
access to knowledge”
Atkins, Brown and Hammond
(2007)
The Golden Arches. Photo by Kenny Louie. Lcensed under
Creative Commons 2.0 BY.

15. Open educational resources
15

The 4 R’s of reusability
 Reuse
 Redistribute
 Revise
 Remix
(Hilton et al., 2010).
Stucco Gandhara figure. Photo by Michael Wai. Licensed
under Creative Commons 3.0 BY-SA Unported.

16. Learning objects
16
Learning objects



Chunks of learning content that can be
shared and reused
Concept was driven mainly by
technological considerations
Concerns grew about “sequencing”
and need for pedagogy – e.g.,
Activity centred – engage learners in
reflection – allow for practice and
production – personalized – feedback –
different learning approaches
(Watson, 2010)
Fränzi vor geschnitztem Stuhl, by Kirchner. Public
Domain.

17. 17
Sharing of learning design
knowledge

Learning design - examples
 What
is (are) learning design(s)?
 Structuring
learning sequences (Britain, 2004)
 Capturing learning design practice (Conole et
al., 2007)
 Representations of how to support learning
(Goodyear, 2005)
 Learning design patterns (Rohse & Anderson, 2006)
 Sharing
“pedagogical know-how”
only content  design knowledge
 Tools and collaboration
 From

18. Sharing learning design knowledge
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Conole (2008). Used with permission.

19. Sharing learning design knowledge
19

Quietly listening to the wind in the pines, 1246. Ma Lin. Public Domain.
“Traditionally
design has been an
implicit
process, how do we
shift to a process of
design that is more
explicit and hence
shareable?”
(Conole, 2008)

20. 20
Screenshot, WikiEducator. Licensed under Creative Commons 3.0 BY-SA Unported.

21. 21
Screenshot, WikiEducator. Licensed under Creative Commons 3.0 B

22. Sharing learning design knowledge
22



Rationalistic tradition of instructional
design models (Richey et al., 2011)
Situated, iterative nature of practice /
instructional design (e.g. Rowland, 1992;
Suchman, 2007)
Reusability: conduit and encapsulation
metaphors (Griffiths and Garcia, 2003)
“In order to achieve a convergence of
meaning, knowledge has to be acquired by doing
and experiencing: becoming a reflective
practitioner” (Brown, Collins & Duguid, 1991)
Sioux quilled tobacco bag. Photo by Pierre Fabre. Public
Domain.

23. Collaborative design in other fields
23

Architecture, expert
systems, telecommunications, engineering
 Multiple
points of negotiation and evaluation
(Kvan, 2000)
 Explicit sharing of design information using
communication tools (Chiu, 2002)
 Design teams need to explore and integrate
differences (Sonnenwald, 1996)
 Intentional communication processes are
essential (Hixon, 2008)

24. OSS design and development
24

Based on collaboration and
communities of volunteers
 Commitment
to philosophy of
sharing
 Personal and professional benefits
 Induction processes for newbies
 Communication and versioning
systems
 Decentralized but with some
leadership
 Visible design rules
Masque aux lépreux Bwa. Village de Boni. By
Ji-Ell . Licensed under Creative Commons 3.0
BY-SA Unported.

25. Research design
25

Comparative case study
 Scope:
one course developed over a fixed period
of time in OERu
 Similar case study in OSS used for comparison:
Freenet (von Krogh et al., 2003)
 Highlight “relationships, contrasts and similarities
 Extend learning from one case to the other (Khan
& VanWynsberghe, 2008)

26. Research methods
26

In-depth, semi-structured interviews with OERu
developers (Creswell, 2007)



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Selected as “key informants”
(Marshall, 1996, Yin, 2009) – ART100 developers in
OERu project
Public email conversations and archives
History of wiki contributions and “talk pages” by
developers
Meeting records
Publicly available sources (contextual)

27. Data analysis
27



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
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Collection of content in ATLAS.ti QDA
Initial coding of content (Soldaña, 2009)
Secondary grouping, multiple iterations
generating themes
Qualitative, narrative portrait (Auerbach and
Silverstein, 2003)
Frequent cross-checks back and forth
Trustworthiness:
Triangulation, overlapping, member
checks, audit trail (Guba,1981; Guba &
Lincoln, 1982; Yin, 2009)

28. Findings
28

Two over-arching themes
 Designing for openness
 A community of volunteers
Street Musicians. Eugène_Atget. PD-US-1923.

29. Designing for openness
29


Influence of assessment and credit on design
Need to share core expectations about learners


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Digital and learning literacies
Tool use – LMS, wiki, blog, ePortfolio,Twitter etc.
Independent and cohort models
Pedagogical design and the challenge of scale




Institutional autonomy over pedagogical designs of
contributed courses  learning design design community
within OERu
Scope of learner control
Obtaining local or other support resources
Feedback

30. Designing for openness
30


Institutional flexibility – assessment and
credit, curricular oversight
Designing with OERs


Wiki environment



E.g., source files – marking regimes – LMS – multiple
versions – timetables – assumptions re groupwork –
copyright issues – cultural biases – developing as OERs
Wiki challenges – text conversions, formatting, flat file
structure, wiki syntax, templates
Need for mediating artifacts - There but hard to find
Communication habits, use of appropriate channels
and protocols is essential


Decision histories for later joiners
Shared understandings and approaches

31. 31
Screenshot, WikiEducator. Licensed by Creative Commons 3.0 BY-SA Unported.

32. 32
Screenshot, WikiEducator. Licensed under Creative Commons 3.0 BY-SA Unported.

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34. 34

35. A community of volunteers
35

Comparison with OSS: Importance of community

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Developer motivations (want to make a contribution)
A community of volunteers (attrition) – needs to grow
Division of labor - developer specializations (multiple roles)
Shared and standardized communication habits (essential for
shared understanding of project) – mediating artifacts
Mentoring
Visible design rules/agreements and history for late joiners
Patterns of persistence
“When code and community do not develop in parallel, the
learning curve can be steep” (O’Mahoney, 2007)

36. Developer contributions
36

37. Conclusions
37

Turn “unknowns” of designing for openness
into “knowns”
 But
maintain as much design flexibility as
possible

Develop core of instructional design expertise
in OERu beyond institutional preferences
 Awareness
of mediating artifacts, visible design
rules

Use OERu as catalyst for institutional
innovation
 Non-traditional
assessment, credit

38. Conclusions
38




Learn from OSS development experience
Attention to community, recruitment, induction
Appropriate division of labor and specialization
Developer motivations
 Incorporate


work into regular responsibilities
Communication systems and protocols
Value of system-wide views and visible design
rules/mediating artifacts

39. Limitations
39


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Differences between
Freenet comparator and
OERu cases
Bracketing of other
developments both
within and outside OERu
Limited timespan of
study
Small developer sample
Sagami Temple detail. Photo by 663highland. Licensed
under Creative Commons 3.0 BY-SA Unported.

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Recommendations for further
research


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Partner institutions’ attitudes toward acceptance of
differently structured courses for credit
Recruitment and retention of volunteer developers
outside institutional volunteers
Developer roles and responsibilities
Further integration/use of Web 2.0 tools
Alternative collaborations – e.g. sjprints, hackathons
Design research specific to course design

41. References

Atkins, D., Brown, J., & Hammond, A. (2007). A Review of the Open
Educational Resources (OER) Movement: Achievements, Challenges, and
New Opportunities. Report to the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation

Britain, S. (2004). A Review of Learning Design: Concept, Specification and
Tools. Retrieved from www.jisc.ac.uk/uploaded_documents/ACF1ABB.doc
Hixon, E. (2008). Team-based Online Course Development A Case Study
:
of Collaboration Models. Online Journal of Distance Learning
Administration, 11(4), 1–8. Retrieved from
http://www.westga.edu/~distance/ojdla/ winter114/hixon114.html


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Brown, J., Collins, A., & Duguid, P. (1989). Situated Cognition and the
Culture of Learning. Educational Researcher, 18(1), 32–42.
Kvan, T. (2000). Collaborative design: what is it? Automation in
Construction, 9(4), 409–415. doi:10.1016/S0926-5805(99)00025-4

Khan, S., & Samuel VanWysberghe. (2008). Cultivating the Under-Mined:
Cross-Case Analysis as Knowledge Mobilization. Qualitative Social
Research, 9(1). Retrieved from http://www.qualitativeresearch.net/index.php/fqs/ article/view/334/729

Marshall, M. N. (1996). The key informant technique. Family
practice, 13(1), 92–7. Retrieved from
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
Conole, Gráinne, Thorpe, M., Weller, M., Wilson, P., Nixon, S., & Grace, P.
(2007). Capturing Practice and Scaffolding Learning Design. Retrieved
March 17, 2011, from http://www.open.ac.uk/openlearn/home.php

Conole, Gráinne. (2008). Using Compendium as a tool to support the design
of learning activities 1, 1–19. Retrieved from
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
Conole, Gráinne, & Culver, J. (2009). Cloudworks: Social networking for
learning design. Australasian Journal of Educational Technology, 25(5), 763–
782.

Chiu, M. (2002). An organizational view of design communication in design
collaboration. Design Studies, 23, 187–210.

Cresswell, J. W. (2007). Qualitative research design: Choosing among five
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
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42. Thank you
Irwin DeVries, PhD
Director, Curriculum Development
Thompson Rivers University, Open Learning
idevries@tru.ca
Demonstration of Reification in Perception. S. Lahar.
Public Domain.
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