Data collection tools and techniques for OER research

Talk shoe is a service that enables anyone to easily create, join, or listen to Live Interactive Discussions, Conversations, Podcasts
and Audioblogs. Sessions are recorded. It can be used as a tool for recording interviews.

http://www.talkshoe.com/talkshoe

Flashmeeting is a free online video conferencing tool, sessions are recorded so it can be used as a means of doing online interviews or focus groups.

http://flashmeeting.e2bn.net/

ManyEyes tool for data visualisation. Very easy to use!

Example of how users from different countries share the same learning content http://manyeyes.alphaworks.ibm.com/manyeyes/visualizations/content-connecting-users-across-coun 

Compendium is a free tool for visualising ideas and arguments. We have used it as a means of live  capturing ideas in sessions or focus groups and also as a means of doing an initial collaborative coding of data and a means of drawing on a set of top level themes from a series of interview transcripts.

http://compendium.open.ac.uk/

Wordle is a tool for creatig word clouds. It can be used as a means of visualising a set of ideas or arguments or as a means of representing a data set or interview transcipt.

http://www.wordle.net/

Evaluation Research

- Flash Meeting
- Similar to a web meeting
- More organic than Elluminate, Elluminate is more intended for instruction
- People were not that keen on a video-based interview, they preferred a telephone
- E-mail interviews create a drawn-out dialogue
- Bookmarks are another great way to visualize relevance
- Much of this is like detective work, one person, faculty, follow the trail of what is being used
- Determining what is being used and for what purpose
- Beginning to study how things are being used, in terms of localization- our dream was to create something that people could re-purpose
- It is being done, but not a lot
- We added a database of feedback from teachers that wanted to share how they employed the content: http://phet.colorado.edu
- We will try and create a template so that teachers can use this across the globe
- Bioquest.org
- Translation is a major example of repurposing
- Globalization is another major component to this
- We built a translation tool that places the text on one side and then allows the user to translate on the other side, now employing 36 languages
- Creating a network for researchers might originally thought to be too narrow, but it is now a good idea- how do we keep in touch?
- Perhaps only for targeted events
- How do you put OER together with conferences on education?