In 2011, MIT OpenCourseWare began publishing a series of 20 unique courses designed for independent learners. This paper explores the usefulness and impact of these resources. With the support of the Stanton Foundation, MIT OpenCourseWare set out to create resources that were not simply documents taken from classrooms and published online, but instead resources in which classroom content had been transformed into content designed for online learning, being both substantially complete and organized in logical sequences. While representing a new approach to course publication for MIT OpenCourseWare, the materials nonetheless held to the OCW model of being content only, without peer or faculty interaction and without certification. Through a series of surveys and interviews, and through analysis of web analytics, MIT OpenCourseWare has conducted a study of the usefulness and impact of these resources.
The Open Learning Initiative (OLI) has been collecting learning data for a decade. The learning activities in our online courses record data on how students use the activities as well as their performance on them. Each question is mapped to a student-centered measurable learning objective in addition to individual skills to create an overall view, which can be used to answer any range of questions about student knowledge state to content mistakes. As we have learned to utilize this data, we have created tools for instructors to see at a glance how their classrooms are performing based on learning outcomes. However, we have not produced integrated ways of visualizing this data for course authors and learning scientists to use as they assess and improve courses. Currently, the large amounts of data that courses generate can be cumbersome and difficult to interpret. These difficulties mean that learning data is not used as often as it could be and that course authors may need a long orientation period to understand how to effectively use the data.
Improving accessibility of data and speed with which it can be interpreted is essential. Data analysis plays a critical role in iterative course improvement, but it cannot reach its full potential and range of use at OLI or in the OER community without visualization tools that are easy to understand and available at the right time and context.
Over the last six months, we have been working on new visualization tools to support content authors so that they can use our data effectively and efficiently to target areas of their courses for improvement without having to run their own statistical analysis. During this presentation, OLI will discuss the discovery process we used to understand the workflow and needs of content authors. We will describe not only the vision OLI has for moving forward with data visualization, but also the process by which we arrived at our designs. Issues of granularity and context in particular will be addressed, along with ways for users to move seamlessly between appropriate visualizations.
We anticipate that these visualizations, and in particular how they are integrated into development tools, will help revolutionize the way iterative improvement is done at OLI in the future and look forward to sharing this process and findings with the OER community.
The Open University (OU) is the leading distance education provider in the UK and in addition to serving over 250,000 students at any one time, makes available content from over 600 of its courses as OER. Combined with a dedicated research base in educational technology and the leadership of various OER projects, we are learning from a unique opportunity to bring our expertise and networks together as a coordinated presence to colleagues in the OER community.
Bridge to Success (B2S) is a Next Generation Learning Challenges project whose aim is to prepare adults to successfully and confidently transition to a college environment, to pursue advanced qualifications, or to assist them in gaining employment via the use of OER. Bridging with open content gives the method and tools to address the challenge of transition: from developmental courses to mainstream, from registration to starting study, and from disadvantaged to back on track. We have helped those who have repeatedly struggled with passing courses over years and learners failing to meet entry requirements, who are now starting to understand concepts for the first time. Our starting point was The OU’s ‘Openings’ courses that have been shown to increase learner capability and confidence, encourage participation, result in student registration on accredited courses and contribute to greater progression and completion. B2S set out to take Openings content to a US context, helping students bridge between their experience and the requirements that they face completing the early stages of study and in workforce improvement programmes.
The OER Hub concept was key to bringing together the elements of planning, delivery and research for the Bridge to Success project. The essence of the hub concept is to be a coordinating presence, to provide OER project infrastructure and to be a collaborating mechanism for potential partners and colleagues in the following areas:
•OER practices – the indirect support of learning through expertise in website impact evaluation, usability and accessibility.
•Learning Product and Systems design – OU Learning Design expertise to ensure conversion to OER keeps content pedagogically sound.
•Outreach – extension of curriculum-focused OER beyond formal educational institutions.
•The Evidence Hub – a web-fronted academic database for claims about OER.
•Research – methods for analysing OER.
•Networks – collaboration with Fellows, cross-pollination with global OER projects around research, scalability of content and influencing policy.
•Soft assessment – OER links with badging initiatives and soft accreditation.
•Systems – use of Moodle to host OER content as real courses and the production of multiple formats for learners.
It is these key areas that may be of interest to others working in OER projects as we learn to amplify the good lessons learnt and would like to share practice.
