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  • Scottish Open Education Declaration 0.1 (55 comments)

    • Comment by Joe Wilson on March 9, 2014

      While universities are being encouraged to adopt open research policy and publish publically funded research to open repositories it seems contradictory that no similar policy is in place for learning materials

      Comment by Joe Wilson on March 9, 2014

      If education is a public good we should be doing all we can to open up opportunities for learning

      Comment by Linda Creanor on March 10, 2014

      I think these principles usefully underline the fact that a major culture shift is needed. The ‘capacity building’ highlighted in point e) in terms of engaging and supporting educators to do this is vital.

      Comment by lornamcampbell on March 10, 2014

      Thanks Linda.  Absolutely agree that we need a major culture shift to really embed open education practice in Scotland.  Do you think the declaration should explicitly put more emphasis on culture shift and capacity building?

      Comment by Linda Creanor on March 10, 2014

      It certainly wouldn’t do any harm to highlight it. It’s important across Scottish education as a whole, as well as within institutions.

      Comment by lornamcampbell on March 11, 2014

      Lorna M. Campbell, Assistant Director, Cetis.

      Comment by Doug Belshaw on March 12, 2014

      For me, this is the key paragraph. Educating people to play a role in democracy is a fundamental part of education.

      Comment by Lorna M. Campbell on March 13, 2014

      Absolutely agree Doug. The wording in this paragraph was heavily influenced by various strategy documents issued by the Scottish Government, so hopefully it’s very much in line with their vision for education in Scotland.

      Comment by Lorraine on March 17, 2014

      For inclusion could this document  be changed into a sans serif font

      Comment by Gordon McLeod on March 17, 2014

      It is to be hoped that we can learn from initiatives such as Glow and address constraining local barriers to using technology effectively as a nation, and to share good practice and resources sensibly without a ‘monetisation of knowledge’ agenda.

      Comment by PAULA SMITH on March 17, 2014

      The advent of MOOCs has definitely shown us that open online resources do work but I’m not clear on the business models of such and what the long-term future of MOOCs (and SPOCs) are. I guess what MOOCs have shown us is the principle of “safety in numbers” holds true – because major players in the States got involved the rest of us followed. If the Europeans were all in it together then it would work, i.e. make it so wide-spread that NOT to be involved would be viewed as  bad thing. Most universities have philanthropic ventures in action so to play under this label would be easy, but the Commission is not really looking at developing countries or ability to afford.

       

      Comment by Gordon McLeod on March 17, 2014

      I wonder if it would be useful to say something regarding rethinking copyright in the digital age? What educators are permitted to do under fair use within a classroom environment is considerably less restrictive than via online or recorded media, yet we move increasingly towards digital delivery of many resources. While I’m not suggesting that original authors shouldn’t be credited (or paid), content not already licenced for re-use is a huge can of worms for many institutions. Copyright legislation can be dated and doesn’t reflect changing cultural attitudes towards openness.

      Comment by lornamcampbell on March 17, 2014

      Hi Lorraine, there doesn’t seem to be any simple way to change the font on CommentPress, but I will keep looking into it.

      Comment by Scott Wilson on March 18, 2014

      Equal consideration of open source software in procurement decisions would have been a nice one to add, though I guess the focus is on educational content.

      Comment by Martyn Ware on March 18, 2014

      Agree with Joe’s point and suggest it’s fair to reflect the historical position of education in Scotland as a public good and not something to which access depends on ability to pay

      Comment by Martyn Ware on March 18, 2014

      Agree this is a key para. Woud it carry more weight through reversing the order of the sentences, so expanding access comes earlier and through adding a point about the economic case for open education i.e. it’s not just a ‘good thing’ to do – there is also a sound economic case in tne return on public money spent

      Comment by Martyn Ware on March 18, 2014

      Perhaps worth making the point at the start of this para that open education is mainly about changing culture rather than technology although progress in educational technology is a key enabler and reason for highlighting the poential for and benefits of action now.

      Comment by Martyn Ware on March 18, 2014

      Would be good to include some refs in these principles to the importance of actvity being cross-sectoral wherever possible e.g. for tools and technologies, so that everything is designed to facilitate and enable sharing within and across sectors rather than just within.

      Comment by Tavis Reddick on March 18, 2014

      Perhaps some additional functions are worth mentioning (probably not as many as listed below)?

      “…tools and technologies to

      [insert] create, edit, repurpose, combine, extract, describe, rate, track, monitor, style, abstract, recode, package, test, index, optimize,

      find, retrieve and share…”

      Comment by Scott Wilson on March 18, 2014

      Not sure on the development of tools aspect, but definitely supporting open formats is good.

      (Some other issues related to tools…if I stick a CC license on a file that can only be opened using some very expensive proprietary software is it an OER? If I distribute a file under a CC-BY (not ND) license that is flagged to the software (e.g. Acrobat) to make it locked and non-editable, is it still OER?)

      Comment by Tavis Reddick on March 18, 2014

      Indeed re: proprietary and non-editable. And although a format may technically be open (like a PNG image), if it is used inappropriately (like a scan of text), the lack of accessibility and editability may render it closed. Or HTML files emitted by some proprietary tool may be effectively uneditable in other tools.

      So, in addition to open standards, would a mention of “best practices” be helpful in this paragraph?

      Comment by James Henderson on March 18, 2014

      Whilst this point is very valid and important, I think it is significant that technology should not be the driver in open education. Although acknowledging it plays a key role in facilitating education, investment, I feel, has to be based on sound pedagogical principles in conjunction with the benefits that open education offers and the clear need for culture change emphasised in this declaration.

      By example, I would regard ploughing money into institutions to cater for learners to be provided with their own mobile devices as a ‘solution’ that puts forethought into the technology as opposed to deriving the need for it from whatever the underpinning pedagogical requirements may be.

      Comment by Lorna M. Campbell on March 18, 2014

      I’d be happy to add something about encouraging the procurement of open source software in education. Do you think you could draft a sentence and I’ll add it to the declaration?

      Comment by Tavis Reddick on March 18, 2014

      In the sense that technology means systematic know-how (rather than simply hardware and software), I suggest that technology will be the primary enabler of open education. A recent post on open source software <http://www.techrepublic.com/article/open-souce-developers-must-examine-the-past-to-invent-the-future/#ftag=RSS56d97e7&gt; presents the view that open is not enough; your overall system architecture needs portability, interoperability, decentralization, modularity, layers, separation of concerns, a crucial reduction in effort.

      In the past, the technology that allowed printing of paperback books contributed hugely to an expansion of educational opportunities. Today, the enabling technology is largely digital.

      So I think that the first sentence-and-a-half of this paragraph makes these points well. And in the rest, you are going to need broadband for video and mobile for low-point-entry access. I would hope, however, that we will still be providing OERs and educational services that can be used by parts of the world without broadband and smartphones, like <http://www.etekkatho.mimas.ac.uk/about-us/&gt;.

      I agree with James’ point about buying mobile devices for students as being a questionable investment, but the trend may be for bringing your own device (BYOD), in which case the best practice approach is to make the content as device-independent as possible. And this takes technical know-how. I suggest that publishing technologists will be providing a layer of software and services (“facilitate enabling environments”) that content authors will create on top of.

      Maybe, as it takes a village to raise a child, it takes a community of different specialists (speaking the same language of digital literacy) to create successful OERs.

      Comment by Scott Wilson on March 19, 2014

      How about:

      x. Promote the adoption of procurement policies that give equal consideration to open source software and openly licensed materials, and support the development in education and related sectors of  processes and practices to provide a level playing field for open source software and open education resources in procurement

      Comment by Tavis Reddick on March 19, 2014

      An example of a tool that might be developed: BUFVC Audiovisual Citation Generator, an unofficial, unfinished effort based on unstable HTML5 specifications and unclear browser support. The citation rules are, however, reasonably stable (“will be reviewed periodically”). BUFVC said that they did not have the capacity to undertake such a development themselves.

      Comment by lornamcampbell on March 20, 2014

      Thanks Scott!  I’ll add that.

      Comment by Wayne Mackintosh on March 21, 2014

      OER Foundation & UNESCO/COL/ICDE Chair in OER endorses these principles.

      Comment by Peter Suber on March 23, 2014

      Peter Suber, director of the Harvard Office for Scholarly Communication and Harvard Open Access Project

      Sheila MacNeill, Senior Lecturer, Glasgow Caledonian University.

      Good point Martyn think that change would be effective

      Comment by Joe Wilson on March 25, 2014

      Joe Wilson
      Head of New Ventures
      Scottish Qualifications Authority

      Comment by Lee Ballantyne on March 26, 2014

      Lee Ballantyne

      Senior Learning Technologist

      City of Glasgow College

      Comment by Lee Ballantyne on March 26, 2014

      I agree with Martyn. It’s not about technology per se. Sometimes the explicit reference almost drives a wedge between learning and ‘e’-learning. Perhaps we could leave out  ‘technology supported’ and say:

      Scotland has long been at the forefront of education innovation and there are many examples of pioneering open education developments across all sectors of Scottish education. 

      Comment by Lee Ballantyne on March 26, 2014

      Technology itself isn’t a driver but those learners without access are disadvantaged. This point is addressing access not delivery. The pedagogy is irrelevant without the option, without access.

      Comment by Lee Ballantyne on March 26, 2014

      That was meant to be in paragraph 5.

      Comment by Celeste McLaughlin on March 27, 2014

      Celeste McLaughlin,

      Advisor, Jisc RSC Scotland

      Comment by Fionnuala Carmichael on March 27, 2014

      Fionnuala Carmichael

      Manager Jisc RSC Scotland

      Comment by Wilbert Kraan on March 27, 2014

      Wilbert Kraan

      Assistant Director, CETIS

      Comment by Linda Creanor on March 28, 2014

      Linda Creanor

      Professor of Learning Technology

      Glasgow Caledonian University

       

      Comment by Scott Wilson on March 31, 2014

      Just one thing… replace “Open Source Software” with “Free and Open Source Software” or I’ll be in trouble 🙂

      Comment by lornamcampbell on March 31, 2014

      Done!  Sorry it took me so long to get round to adding this to the Declaration :}

      Comment by Ronald Macintyre on April 1, 2014

      I made this point in a paper recently about education in Scotland being seen as a shared common good where the benefits are seen to accrue to society, the reviewer asked for the evidence of this distinct political difference between the private good private benefit model that is implied by tuition fees etc, perhaps these statements add to the evidence base

      Comment by Ronald Macintyre on April 1, 2014

      Agree, emphasising the social justice WP aspects are key

      Comment by Ronald Macintyre on April 1, 2014

      I would like to see this pulled back from the technology aspects,  technology as in technique and/or approaches in its broadest sense, yes. I suppose I am suggesting a broader reading of tech(ology/nique) probably more in line with Martyn’s comment

      Comment by Ronald Macintyre on April 1, 2014

      Lorna,  I think those changes in customs and practices are key. The comments and the tone of the document seems to me about building on and reinforcing our culture of understanding education as a common good, so a focus on customs and practice would be useful. I am not sure whether this the document wants to emphasise the paradigm shift (Linda “major cultural shift”), or the evolution, building on a culture (common good), it is an interesting question

      Comment by Ronald Macintyre on April 1, 2014

      This for me is very important, it is not just about HE providers opening up content, it is about opening up practices.

      Comment by Ronald Macintyre on April 1, 2014

      I have in the past myself argued that the digital is the medium of exchange the message is about openness. At the same time acknowledging that access to the means of exchange is still constrained, and not just by available infrastructure, it is a tricky one

      Comment by Ronald Macintyre on April 1, 2014

      I think these alliances are not just about using technology.  Alliances and sharing are about common goals, going back to the “common good”.

       

      On a purely practical level what I have found is that Scotland is a wee place, people know each other and those networks, we can do things in Scotland because of our scale that people might struggle to elsewhere.  It seems to be about communities.

      Rather than specify in the last part might be it better to have across all sectors and at all levels.

      Comment by Ronald Macintyre on April 1, 2014

      Just encourage?

      Comment by Ronald Macintyre on April 1, 2014

      Ronald Macintyre

      Learning and Teaching Coordinator

      The Open University in Scotland

      Comment by Alek Tarkowski on April 28, 2014

      Have you considered moving beyond the UNESCO standard into one with a stronger commitment to openness? In this paragraph, the most troubling part is the “any restrictions deemed necessary” provision – it would be good to have a clear open standard to which Scottish institutions can commit. If CC BY / CC BY SA cannot be committed to, then maybe at least it can be recommended as best practice?

       

      Comment by Ian Stuart on June 29, 2014

      Ian Stuart
      Educator seconded to the Scottish Government

      Comment by Bill Steele on August 20, 2014

       The European Commission Open Up Education Initiative web address has changed to http://www.openeducationeuropa.eu/en/initiative

      Comment by Bill Steele on August 20, 2014

      To match with David Wylies’s 5R’s model http://www.slideshare.net/opencontent/the-power-of-open-educational-resources-32336823 then Retention should be included Retain: Make own copiesReuse: use in a wide range of waysRevise: adapt, modify and improveRemix: Combine two oe moreRedistribute: Share with others

  • Scottish Open Education Declaration 0.2 (15 comments)

    • Comment by lornamcampbell on November 21, 2014

      Suggested by Joe Wilson, Martyn Ware and Ronald MacIntyre 

      Comment by lornamcampbell on November 21, 2014

      Edits suggested by Martyn Ware and Sheila MacNeill 

      Comment by lornamcampbell on November 21, 2014

      Additional paragraph suggested by Joe Wilson and Martyn Ware. 

      Comment by lornamcampbell on November 21, 2014

      Additions suggested by Martyn Ware, Lee Ballantyne and Ronald MacIntyre. 

      Comment by lornamcampbell on November 21, 2014

      Additions suggested by James Henderson, Tavis Reddick, Lee Ballantyne and Ronald MacIntyre. 

      Comment by lornamcampbell on November 21, 2014

      Edits suggested by Bill Steele. ‘Retention’ added in line with Wiley’s revised 5Rs framework. 

      Comment by lornamcampbell on November 21, 2014

      Adapted from POERUP policy recommendations for Scotland. 

      Comment by lornamcampbell on November 21, 2014

      Edit suggested by Ronald MacIntyre. 

      Comment by lornamcampbell on November 21, 2014

      Adopted from POERUP policy guidelines for Scotland.

      Comment by lornamcampbell on November 21, 2014

      Addition of CC BY suggested by Alek Tarkowski 

      Comment by lornamcampbell on November 21, 2014

      ‘Sustainable business models’ added from POERUP Guidelines. 

      Comment by lornamcampbell on November 21, 2014

      Suggested by Scott Wilson and Tavis Reddick. 

      Comment by lornamcampbell on November 21, 2014

      Added by Scott Wilson. 

      Comment by lornamcampbell on November 21, 2014

      The Scottish Open Education Declaration 0.1 was endorsed by: 

      Lee Ballantyne, Senior Learning Technologist, City of Glasgow College.

      Lorna M. Campbell,  Assistant Director, Cetis.

      Fionnuala Carmichael, Manager, Jisc RSC Scotland.

      Linda Creanor, Professor of Learning Technology, Glasgow Caledonian University.

      Wilbert Kraan, Assistant Director, Cetis.

      Ronald Macintyre, Learning and Teaching Coordinator, The Open University in Scotland.

      Wayne Mackintosh, OER Foundation & UNESCO/COL/ICDE Chair in OER.

      Sheila MacNeill, Senior Lecturer, Glasgow Caledonian University.

      Celeste McLaughlin, Advisor, Jisc RSC Scotland.

      Ian Stuart, Educator seconded to the Scottish Government

      Peter Suber, director of the Harvard Office for Scholarly Communication and Harvard Open Access Project.

      Joe Wilson, Head of New Ventures, Scottish Qualifications Authority

      Comment by Terry McAndrew on April 7, 2015

      Practitioners should be able to validate OERs against available advice and guidance to ensure that the resources they release/share are as accessible as reasonably possible beyond their own typical cohorts. Some level of accessibility audit (e.g. self-check questionnaire against common issues)should be supported by the repository network before a resource is accepted.

       

  • Scottish Open Education Declaration 1.0 (4 comments)

    • Comment by James Suttie on September 10, 2015

      Excellent document.

      Comment by Peter Suber on April 29, 2016

      This declaration is undated. When was it released?

      Comment by ac39 on April 27, 2017
      Comment by Serge Ravet on July 15, 2017

      Interesting declaration. My suggestion would be to add a paragraph related to Open Recognition (http://www.openrecognition.org) as it is a key component to education itself, employment and social inclusion. Without open recognition, can we say that there is real open learning?

  • General Comments (3 comments)

    • Comment by Wayne Mackintosh on March 18, 2014

      Greetings from New Zealand

      As UNESCO,  COL & ICDE Chair in OER working in the Edinburgh of the South (Dunedin) – I wish to compliment our Scottish colleagues on an outstanding open declaration. Great to see that you haven’t forgotten to apply an open license as in the case of other initiatives in this space 😉

      I was particularly pleased to see the use of “open education” as an umbrella concept incorporating aspects like OER, OEP and Open Access.

      Well done team Scotland !

      Where do I sign the declaration? … can’t wait to see the final product. 

      Comment by lornamcampbell on March 20, 2014

      Hi Wayne,

      Many thanks for your support and encouragement. While we fully support the Paris OER Declaration, we thought it would be beneficial to extend the Scottish declaration to encompass “open education” in the widest sense. It remains to be seen whether we can get institutional senior managers, the funding council and the Government to support this declaration, but we hope at the very least this will raise the profile of open education in Scotland and help to engage the community.

      This version of the declaration is still a draft but if you’d like to sign it, you can add your name in a comment on paragraph 17.

      Very best wishes
      Lorna

      Comment by Jan Neumann on September 19, 2014

      Dear Colleagues, congratulations to your great initiative, which I hope will become a huge success! I would like to make two general comments:First I personally would love to see a library participating as well! Libraries can contribute to the OER movement by providing high quality metadata for OER and hosting OER repositories. They therefore should be considered as an important stakeholder and an essential component of every OER-ecosystem.Secondly, my dear hbz-colleague Adrian Pohl wrote a „Library empowerment manifesto“ which I like very much. It might be interesting for you to have a look at it, since it takes a quite different approach than the Open Scotland Declaration, so it might be worth comparing both of them. All the bestJan 

Source: https://declaration.openscot.net/all-comments/