Branching out from OpenLearn: working with campus based institutions to provide new content
Date: Wednesday 26th November 2008
Venue: Jennie Lee Building (JLB) IET (Cedar) Meeting Room 6
Time: 2pm to 3pm
Title: Branching out from OpenLearn: working with campus based institutions to provide new content
Speaker: Dr Martina Wilson
Affiliation: Institute of Educational Technology, The Open University
ABSTRACT
OpenLearn launched two years ago and is on target to attract 3 million visitors by the end of November 2008. However, the LabSpace where new and revised material can be uploaded has been underused. POCKET (Project on Open Content for Knowledge Exposition and Teaching), has been established to investigate what barriers inhibit users from uploading educational content to the LabSpace. POCKET, funded by JISC is a consortium of four universities. The project is led by the University of Derby and is partnered by The Open University, the University of Bolton and the University of Exeter. POCKET is transferring the model of production from OpenLearn to campus-based institutions by building on and improving upon the OpenLearn processes and procedures. To achieve this, the three campus-based universities are transforming/repurposing existing and new educational material for open use in the OpenLearn LabSpace. Whole courses of web based materials from the universities of Derby, Exeter and Bolton, which in the main have been published in password protected areas (such as WebCT) are being made openly available in the OpenLearn LabSpace. This work includes investigating ways to improve the conversion of material and upload of this new content (in an XML format) to the OpenLearn LabSpace.
This seminar will report on progress and discuss the issues surrounding the development and upload of new content from the POCKET project to the OpenLearn LabSpace.
Biography
Tina Wilson is a researcher in The Open University's Institute of Educational Technology. She has been the principal investigator on a number of internally funded research projects concerned with the educational use of online resources, systems and tools. Her research interests include: Open Content; eLearning; Human Computer Interaction; Computers and Education; New Media and Education. She managed the STILE project funded by TLTP. In terms of Open Content she has worked on OpenLearn funded by the Hewlett Foundation and POCKET funded by JISC. Her particular focus for exploration is the interactivity and interaction aspects of on-line communities of learners and the use of structure, organisation and support in such environments. Although this research is mainly related to adult eLearning, students' supervisions have also focused on using eLearning to assist young children and those with learning difficulties such as dyslexia. She has experience of teaching in both face to face and distance learning modes. Tina's MSc is in Information Technology from Coventry University and her PhD is in Computer Science from The Open University. She is currently working on the Open Content project called POCKET.
