Scenario: selection and replacement

John has been teaching the same first year physics course at University of Borcetshire for 23 years. It’s Monday January the 22^nd 2009 and he’s just given his last lecture of the day. As with all his lectures, he uses no notes,  his design and teaching practices are all  tacitly embedded into his very being, and every resource is drawn from a collection he has generated himself over the 23 years he has been teaching.

He walks home from the University. On his way home, he gets hit by a car and is put into a coma.

On Tuesday, Borcetshire University’s Physics department have to find a replacement for John, and that replacement has to understand both where John has got to in the series of classes he was giving, and how to proceed.

If John had used patterns and OERs to prepare his lectures, these could be used to inform

-          the selection process for his replacement

-          the practices of this successor

so that when John returns to work he can pick up from a teaching and learning situation he is familiar with.