Blogging for creation of Open Education Resources – 5R’s perspective
Abstract:
The concept of Open Educational Resources (OER) was conceived in 2002 by UNESCO forum and used extensively since then. Many efforts have been made to integrate OERs in the higher education in general and distance mode programmes in particular across the globe. Patel (2015) makes a meta-analysis of use of OER in Asian countries, and finds that India is no exception, and elucidates that it is far ahead in OER usage for educational purposes. The efforts in use of OER requires training of educators, course writers, course designers working in the area of distance education and awareness creation of learners regarding various OERs. MHRD (2016) website gives an information about existence of 677 universities in India in 2014, which includes one national, 13 state uni-modal and 194 bimodal universities listed on the DEB website (2016) that are facilitating distance education. But, practically to our surprise, dismay, we find that only few of these distance education universities/departments in India have taken up the task of integrating OERs in all of their programmes. Hence, an alternative mechanism need to be developed by the gross root level functionaries like teachers/academic counsellors in the field in respective courses, subjects, who can develop blogs so that these blogs can complement the efforts of integration of OER into various programmes. Therefore, there is a need to look into what the blogs are from the perspective of ‘OER’ integration and try to correlate facilities which can be incorporated in the context of use of different media formats and also compare these in the context of Wiley’s 5 R’s model of Open Educational Resources. This paper attempts to look into blogging for creation of OER – a 5 R’s perspective.
Key words: Open Educational Resources (OERs); Blogs; 5 R’s
Open Educational Resources (OER)
The Universities have prescribed syllabus, set structures of teaching and learning and well designed evaluation procedures. The teacher is a master facilitator of content, who is although a multifaceted personality but has certain limitations as compared to technological gadget like computer. A teacher organises information present in mind, which is grasped from various sense organs and then connects the same for facilitation of learning processes in the classroom. However, while doing so teacher faces limitations of time, money, physical movement, accessibility, physical tiredness, emotional, familial problems etc., whereas in comparison to these limitations of teacher a sources available on the internet or technological device is accessible to the learner round the clock. It depends on learners’ zeal and interest of exploration that they find learning material of various levels, interest areas and different formats from within and outside country in one or multiple media and languages, thereby increasing horizon of learning. Variety in learning and vivid impact is possible if the educators blend their teaching with different formats of material available such as text, audio, video, animation, image or multiple media. These materials are sometime freely available to the learners but most of the host agencies require the users to pay for the usage of the same. Thereby the concept of Open Educational Resources (OER) has emerged in the education system.
The concept of Open Educational Resources (OER) describes any educational resources (including curriculum maps, course materials, textbooks, streaming videos, multimedia applications, podcasts, and any other materials that have been designed for use in teaching and learning) that are openly available for use by educators and students, without an accompanying need to pay royalties or licence fees (Butcher, 2011).
“OER are 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 and re-purposing by others. Open educational resources include full courses, course materials, modules, textbooks, streaming videos, tests, software, and any other tools, materials, or techniques used to support access to knowledge.”1
Thus, OER is an extension of presence of Classroom teacher in different formats beyond normal working hours and geographical boundaries in various subject domains for all learners.
Efforts in OER integration
The institutes of third world countries have shown slow pace approach towards integration of OER in all level and all modes of education. This is applicable to India too, as practically we find that the higher education both in regular and distance mode is not making effective use of the OER material. Cursory look at the syllabus available on the websites of various institutes still gives list of references for the students and teachers. Enormous efforts are to be made by the government to take the OERs to all the universities, as efforts made by NMICT are not exploited for learning purposes by educational institutes. There is still a feeling of ownership of material even both by the public and private institutes and they do not prefer to share their material as OER. In this context a ray of hope appears when we look at the meta-analysis of use of OER in Asian countries conducted by Patel (2015), which gives various effects being made in Asian Countries. In Indian settings, efforts of IGNOU, NIOS, NCERT, various SCERTs, IITs, IIMs, IIScs etc are going to pave a lot in this direction. A proper planning of learning shall ensure integration of OER in educational processes both at school education and higher education. This requires additional efforts both from the managers of the educational institutes and policy makers. While doing so we requires training of educators, course writers, course designers working in the area of regular and distance education and awareness of learners regarding various OERs.
Gigantic task
MHRD (2016) website gives an information about existence of 677 universities in India in 2014, which includes one national, 13 state unimodal and 194 bimodal universities listed on the DEB website (2016) that are facilitating distance education. The latest data quoted by Vidushy (2017) indicates that there are 757 higher education institutes, with estimated enrolment of 33.3 million in higher education, GER for 18-23 age group is 23.6%. It is further said that Pupil Teacher Ratio (PTR) is 1:23, which has to be reduced to 1:12 & 1:15 for PG and UG programmes respectively. The cursory look at the number of universities takes deep into the expanse of higher education through network of affiliations of these universities. The number & type of programmes; different courses offered; semester & annual patterns; practical & theoretical orientations; different language mediums etc. speaks volumes about the OER material to be arranged. This is not possible by a teacher or an institute or an university. Hence, MHRD has planned for development of course material through NMICT programme for different curriculum areas.
Prevalent Condition and alternative mechanism
But, practically to our surprise, dismay, we find that very few of these regular and distance education universities/departments in India have taken up the task of integrating OERs in all of their programmes. This shows pathetic conditions of state of matter and requires to develop alternative mechanism. Hence, it is felt that a teacher as a content expert, well aware of the learner who gathers information from different sources can devise his own way of dissemination of information. In this context it is felt that blogs can be developed by the teaching communities to give information about the programme content, day-to-day teaching processes, evaluation procedure, assignment etc. In addition to this teacher can direct their students for learning of the material from different sources freely available for the user. Hence, there appears an opportunity to create blogs as OER by the teacher working at gross root level.
Blogs and their educational usages
A teacher who wants to communicate his/her thoughts or ideas about a subject matter to his/her learner can make use of blogs as a means of career. Thereby subject related material can be brought before the learner. Blog is a regularly updated website or web page, typically one run by an individual or small group, that is written in an informal or conversational style. This also means that groups of teachers do come together to write a blog e.g. Science or Mathematics teachers’ blogs.
A blog is a frequently updated online personal journal or diary. It is a place to express yourself to the world. A place to share your thoughts and your passions. Really, it’s anything you want it to be. For our purposes we’ll say that a blog is your own website that you are going to update on an ongoing basis. Blog is a short form for the word weblog and the two words are used interchangeably.
Following terminologies are prevalent in use of blogs.
Blog (noun) – a journal or diary that is on the Internet.
Blogger (noun) – a person who keeps a blog – Bloggers are revolutionizing the way news is shared.
Blog (verb) – to write a blog – I am going to blog before breakfast this morning.
Blogging (verb) – the action of writing a blog – Blogging is my way of sharing my passions with the world.
Teachers write variety of things about their academics in blogs. These are no more routine and mundane exercises. It requires lot of patience and openness to take up blogging, as the teachers’ life become public when he/she is followed by large number of people and quoted at various places. The teachers not only require what is to be quoted, but at the same time minimum technological know-how is also required regarding posting on the weblogs. There are few popular sites which provide platforms for creation of blogs, which make an ordinary user create blog easily. Through these blogs ordinary teachers are heard and taken seriously at higher level like state or national level. Some bloggers write about each and every class, their students, classroom transactions, whereas some bloggers dedicate their postings to special areas of interest like dealing with special children, teaching slow learners, using innovative technologies in classroom, specific scientific experiments/projects etc. In fact these blogs provide us information about present day classroom situations, teachers, teachers’ concerns etc. and become a primary source of gathering information by research investigators.
Blogs from perspective of 5 R’s model
It is the time to we examine the OER available in public domain, as it appears that they have some specific characteristics which make it accessible to all types of learners. Accordingly, Wiley’s has proposed 5-Rs of Openness for any Open Education Resources. These are discussed as under,
Retain – this provides a right to make, own, and control copies of the content by the user,
Reuse – this gives a right to use the content in a wide range of ways (e.g., in a class, in a study group, on a website, in a video)
Revise – this provides right to adapt, adjust, modify, or alter the content itself (e.g., translate the content into another language)
Remix – this extends the right to user to combine the original or revised content with other open content to create something new (e.g., incorporate the content into a mash-up)
Redistribute – this gives the right to share copies of the original content, your revisions, or your remixes with others (e.g., give a copy of the content to a friend)
Therefore, there is a need to look into the blogs from the perspective of ‘OER’ integration and try to correlate OER characteristics, in the context of 5 R’s model of Open Educational Resources.
Table analysing Blogs as OER vis-à-vis Wiley’s model
It is to be noted here that these permissions or licensing of sharing depends on the blogger (individual/team) and their objectives of creation of blog. Mere, fulfilling the above characterstics is not sufficient for bloggers. But, there is a need of maintenance of quality of the material to be developed, which can be ascertained by the stakeholders and their observations. Camilleri, Ehlers, & Pawlowski (2014) enlists Stakeholders in Open Education Quality as Policy maker level, Management and administration level, Educational level (teachers, professors, curriculum designers, etc.), Teaching and learning level (learners, students, tutors, teachers) at different levels of learning i.e. Schools, Higher education and Adult learning.
The future of OER is great which can be understood by underpinning the potential of robust technological infrastructure, high level of IT literacy, transparent legal framework, abundance of tools and positive attitude towards the benefits and value of OER (Yuen & Wong, 2013).
References:
DEB, U. (2016, October 25). ODL System. Retrieved from University Grants Commission: http://www.ugc.ac.in/deb/ODLSystem.html
MHRD, D. o. (2016, October 25). Universities and Higher Education. Retrieved from MHRD: http://mhrd.gov.in/university-and-higher-education
Patel, M. I. (2015). Assessment of Open Educational Resources (OER) practices in Asian Continent and building up of synergetic models. Empowering India through Open and Distance Learning: Breaking down Barriers, Building Partnership and Delivering Opportunities (pp. 239-244). Chennai: TNOU.
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