Session 3: E-Learning Activity

E-Learning Activity #OCL4Ed

This scenario might be similar to that of the example but it is something that we faced in our institution while developing a course for online delivery.

Scenario:

Lilo and Stitch work as course facilitators/educators and are tasked to develop a course for online mode. The course will be delivered via the institutions Learning Management System; Moodle. The team has been encouraged to use Open Educational Resources as much as possible. However the team is not at all familiar with the licenses and copyright of Open Educational Resources and are facing the following dilemma:

Question 1:

While preparing the reading materials for the course, could the developers incorporate images from a textbook that is not currently the prescribed text for the course?

A.            Yes

[Incorrect/Distractor: All images are copyright to the publisher of the textbook and no materials may be used with their prior approval.]

B.            No

[Correct: The team needs to consult the publishers of the textbook first and get prior approval from the publishers to use the images. Normally, the agreement with the publisher is that if a textbook is prescribed for a course and they themselves are the major suppliers to the bookstore, necessary permission is granted to use materials for teaching purposes. Of course this does not include photocopying and re-distributing.]

Question 2:

The team is also considering to use YouTube videos in the course; however due to bandwidth issues most videos would not be accessible to students and so the team is contemplating to download the videos from YouTube and make those videos available for offline use (i.e. to put videos on a CD and ship to regional students). Could the team do this?

A.                 Yes

[Incorrect/Distractor: Even though the intention of the developers is to provide materials for offline use, they still need to get permission from the creator for necessary permissions to do so]

     B.         No

[Correct: YouTube does not own the copyright to the video and even so the video could be downloaded from their website, necessary permissions from the creator of the video needs to be sought]

Question 3:

Progressing through the development phase, the team has come across OER materials available on the MITOPENCOURSEWARE website which have a CC BY-NC-SA license. The institution they work for is a non-profit organisation. Could the team use the OER materials in their course?  

A.            Yes

[Correct: The information on Privacy and Terms of Use available on the website provides for the use of the materials: http://ocw.mit.edu/terms/index.htm#noncomm. It is important to note that the use of the material itself is not a commercialization of the materials or a use that is directly intended to generate sales or profit]

B.            No

[Incorrect/Distractor: The information on Privacy and Terms of Use available on the website provides for the use of the materials: http://ocw.mit.edu/terms/index.htm#noncomm.]

Hopefully, i am on the right track. Thanks.

Learning Reflection on Session 2

2^nd Learning Reflection #OCL4Ed

The second session gives us more insight on what constitutes an open educational resource? My favourite definition of OER is: “Open Educational Resources (OER) are teaching, learning, and research materials in any medium that reside in the public domain or have been released under an open license that permits their free use and re-purposing by others (Creative Commons[3]).”

Dr. Wiley in his video defines “Openness” as a matter of:

• Price (i.e. having free access and free copyright permissions) and
• Permission (i.e. the 4 R’: Reuse, Revise, Remix and Redistribute)

The video on the ownership of ideas in a digital world based on Eben Moglen and Lawrence Lessig presentations makes me realize the extent of oversight on the importance of free and open sharing. Eben Moglen in his session explains on how sharing has become “theft” with the question being that of “why” and “who”. I find his statement “the era of precedence for life is over” very thought-provoking and agree that today control of ownership needs to sit with the producer to decide on how exactly their work is used.

Lawrence Lessig talks more about openness from the perspective of fair-use to enable/create a creative culture to build on commercial work and sharing. The work/actions undertaken by the two big companies (Disney and Star Wars/Lucas) comes as a shock to say the very least as to how conveniently they have exploited resources in the public domain. From that I would conclude that “Openness” is a commitment to values where we need to respect and acknowledge the work done by a creator to ensure that their work could be shared freely using “fair use” strategy. 

The latter half talks about Barriers and Opportunities to OER in institutions. Particularly for us; the greatest barrier we have is that of lack of awareness of OER and its benefits. And as such there is huge opportunity for the institution to adopt OER at an institutional level by means of policy and institutional practices. Even so, incentive could be given to staff to utilize OER in their courses and also create content and distribute their work under open license.

The #Open Textbook Tweet book summarises the session well. My 2 favorite tweets that defines my experience of this session is: #76 “As educators, our goals should be to do whatever we can to make educational opportunities available and affordable to every student we can."  And #112 “There is a great future for open education resources. We need to embrace the concept that education is a fundamental right for all of us”.

Learning Reflection on Session 1

Why does open matter in education? - Learning Reflection #OCL4Ed

Firstly, I must say that this workshop has so far been that of a great learning experience. It is indeed a pleasure to get to read and share each other’s view via this workshop. 

I whole heartedly agree with Stephen Downes with his video in addressing that Open Licensing would not only save money but at the same time allow sharing of resources amongst everyone. Given the fact that the cost of education is on the rise; effective use and sharing of OER materials will allow educators to be able to deliver high quality education at minimal or no cost.

The second video by Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu was no less inspiring. Since I am new in this field of work, I was not aware about Archbishop Desmond Tutu's contribution. To get to hear and read about his contribution in the fight for freedom in education is very motivating. His video highlighted the importance of Free and Open Software and Open Resources in education and in my opinion, this has become a core of learning and teaching in today's education sector. The ability to share materials and learn from each other has allowed for better collaboration amongst educators in today's world. But than at the same time, there are some who tend to take advantage of such situations and tend to commercialize the entire process for monetary gain. 

The practice of using OERs has recently gained momentum at my work place where staffs are now realizing the benefits of OER materials and are encouraged to incorporate them in their respective courses. Of course, we always encourage them to keep in mind the issues in relation to fair and proper use, copyright, etc…

However, we do acknowledge the fact that Open Licensing (Creative Commons) is fairly new for us and it will take some time for everyone to be able to fully understand and adapt to this new way of sharing and accessing resources.

  

Introductory Message

Bula everyone,

My name is Deepak Bhartu and I work as an eLearning Designer/Developer with The University of the South Pacific (USP) here at the Laucala Campus in Suva, Fiji. I am originally from Fiji and have lived here for the past 25+ years.

The University as part of its transformation from a good to an excellent university is committed to offer atleast 30% of undergraduate programmes via online mode by the year 2018. As a result there is huge potential/demand for Open Content (OER's) to be integrated in various courses across various disciplines throughout the university. 

I am very much looking forward to the Open Content Licensing for Educators workshop and I am hoping that we all could share our experiences and learn from each other especially considering that we all come from different cultural backgrounds. 

Great learning everyone...