Presented at OER10 Cambridge, March 2010 by Andreia Santos, Murilo Mendonca and Patrick McAndrew CC-BY

1. Cultural Imperialism or
Multicultural Mix: promoting
OER reuse through
collaboration
OER10 – Cambridge
Andreia I. Santos, Patrick McAndrew and
Murilo M. Mendonca
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2. Outline
• Risk of Cultural Imperialism
• Opportunities for Multiculturalism
• Collaboration Cycle
• UnisulVirtual: illustrating the provider-user-provider
continuum
• Future directions
Andreia I. Santos, Patrick McAndrew and Murilo M. Mendonca 2

3. National culture

5. OU Culture

7. Culture imperialism

8. Cultural
mix
http://www.lumaxart.com/

11. YO HABLO
ESPAÑOL
EU FALO
PORTUGUÊS
I SPEAK ENGLISH
我發言
Я владею 中
русским
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12. By James J. Zuiches urilo M. Mendonca 12

13. Collaboration
inter-institutional
inter-institutional peer-to-peer
peer-to-peer
practitioners
practitioners
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14. Andreia I. Santos, Patrick McAndrew and Murilo M. Mendonca 14

15. Andreia I. Santos, Patrick McAndrew and Murilo M. Mendonca 15

16. Andreia I. Santos, Patrick McAndrew and Murilo M. Mendonca 16

17. Social network analysis course
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18. Collaboration cycle
Santos, A. OpenLearn Research Report 2006-2008
Andreia I. Santos, Patrick McAndrew and Murilo M. Mendonca 18

20. Collaboration Phase 1: Spotting an
Opportunity
• To use, provide, promote uptake. Then...
• Make the collaboration formal! Commitmet!
• Foster DE faculty and technical staff to participate.
• Encourage students to use OpenLearn.
• Publish, repurpose, translate material (8 Portuguese-
speaking countries = 223 million people.
• Share our own intellectual production (cross-cultural,
comparative studies  cultural exchange).

21. Collaboration Phase 1: Spotting
an Opportunity
• Establish GOALS:
1.Offer and encourage DE and face-to-face students to
use and benefit from OER.
2.Make OpenLearn a repository of contents of excellence
produced at UNISUL.
3.Translate OL content into Portuguese based on
students’ areas of interest (initially).
4.Establish a scientific co-operation programme with the
Open University.
5.Hold a 2-day OU seminar at UNISUL on DE trends and
methodologies with an emphasis on OER.

22. Collaboration Phase 2: Promoting Staff
Engagement
• MOVE 1: invite (under)graduate programme
coordinators to browse OL for courses of potential
interest to their students as complementary study
material, to be translated into Portuguese.  OER
USER
• MOVE 2: invite coordinators to suggest Unisul courses
of potential interest to external communities for upload
and sharing on the Unisul Collaborations Area inside the
LabSpace of OpenLearn.  OER PROVIDER

23. Collaboration Phase 3: Towards OER
Acculturation
• ACTIONS:
1.UnisulVirtual curricula x related/complementary OER
courses on OpenLearn  matrices.
2.URL’s of related/complementary courses published in
each VLS.
3.Explanatory/contextualizing/encouraging e-mails sent to
students: usability / findability / discoverability.
4.Permanent process of encouraging faculty to use and
provide OER.
5.OU Seminar at UNISUL.

24. Collaboration Phase 3: Towards OER
Acculturation
• Open University Seminar at UNISUL:
• to inform and instruct UnisulVirtual’s faculty, technical
staff on how to use OpenLearn’s wide range of
educational applicability;
• to establish a modus operandi, to lead to joint research
opportunities;
• to impart cultural identity to the collaboration and
create a sense of belonging in order to foster effective
participation.

25. Collaboration Phase 3: Towards OER
Acculturation
• “+ in June” Programme 2009:
• The Concept of Innovation (215 students)
• Designing the User Interface (136 students)
• TOTAL = 351 students enrolled.
• Steps involved:
• Translation.
• Adaptation.
• Hiring tutor.
• Double interface: UnisulVirtual VLS and OpenLearn
website

26. Future Actions: Taking OER Beyond the
University
• “+ in June” Programme 2010:
• Digital literacy initiave: basic computer skills +
“Information on the Web” (taken from OL).
• Aimed at UnisulVirtual students’ friends and/or relatives
(30,853 students at UV).
• Tutor + friend/relative support  widening
participation  participatory culture  social
inclusion  fulfilment of university mission.

27. Conclusions
Language can be a barrier to OER use, but:
• Mentoring and collaborative action can help overcome
the linguistic barrier and reduce the gap between
different educational traditions (cultural imperialism)
• Collaborative action empowers OER take up and fosters
dissemination (from user to provider)
• Interoperability of OER encompasses a technological
perspective but also a social approach. Technology is a
medium to facilitate cultural exchange (multiculturalism)
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28. Thank you!
Andreia Santos – a.i.santos@open.ac.uk
Dr Patrick McAndrew – p.mcandrew@open.ac.uk
Murilo Mendonça – murilo.mendonca@unisul.br
Image credits: flickr
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