OCWtool and dScribes –
Pedagogy, Social Practices, and
Tools
What a long, strange trip it’s being
OCW and Sakai
Simple Assumptions –
OCW is a good idea
CMS/VLE installations (like Sakai, Moodle,
ATutor, etc) can/should become generators of
OCW content on a very large scale
This must be mutually beneficial to the academy
and the OCW community
How would we do that?
Situate OER collections not as
distinct from the courseware
environment for the formally
enrolled students but as a low
marginal cost derivative of the
routinely used course preparation
and management systems.
A Review of the Open Educational
Resources (OER) Movement:
Achievements, Challenges, and
New Opportunities – Atkins, Brown, Hammond
Putting an OCW Pipeline in the LMS OCW Publishing from Sakai
Teaching
Research
Sakai
Raw
Course
Content
Publication Pipeline
Digital Course Materials:
(1) IP Management
(2) Tagging OCW Categories
(3) Exporting from CTools
(4) QA and Review
eduCommons tools
Vetted
OCW
Content
UM
OCW
Web Site
or
other
Institutional
Repository
Initial MIT OCW process is a heavyweight process.
How can we make this process more lightweight?
Sakai in Production
Open Educational Resource Engines
Text
4000 courses each year at U
Michigan alone; more at
UNISA (U South Africa)
Overview of Process
Based on Hybrid Publishing Model
Integrated with MIT Teaching Process
Plan
Build
ELIMINATED
STEPS
HYBRID INTEGRATED
PROCESS
Upstream foundational
prep
Teach/Manage
Content development
• Recruit faculty
• Plan TEACHING version of
course
• Plan OCW version of course
• Review existing content
• Identify & resolve IP
(except permissions)
• Track IP by object in
system
• Collect/capture existing
content
• Build content into LMS
sections/templates
• Enter metadata
• Create commissioned
works
• Process permission
requests & make IP edits
• Spec course/map content
• Reformat/clean up/
restructure/contextualize
• Enter content into CMS
• Perform authoring QA
Live teaching and course
administration
• Update/supplement
materials
• Post announcements
• Assign, track, grade
student work
• Interact (faculty-student
and student-student)
• Document managemt
- OR -
ARCHITECTURE
OVERVIEW
Open publication
Renewal, archiving, and
preservation
• Perform course QA
• Obtain faculty approval
• Export to OCW site
– Restricted teaching matls
– Open teaching matls
• Import/export
– Offline authoring
– Self-publishing
• Multiple views
• Course admin
• Workflow
Harvest for archi
Individual/local supported option
Assume 20% participation
Embedded tracking code
Embedded license terms
IP tracking
Metadata tagging
Hi-design display templates
Preview capability
Downloadable ZIP files
Discussion group suppt
Archiving
ving or publishing
Individual Teaching Web Sites
• Respond to user feedback
• Review/refine metadata
(MIT Library)
• Edit course for errors
Archive
Dspace
Archive
Publish
OCW External
Web Site
• Publishing tools
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
• Update course content
• Archive course content
Color legend
BLACK
Normal teaching process
BLUE
Required for open publishing
ORANGE
Former OCW steps eliminated
MIT-Supported LMS
• Robust authoring
– Easy capture
– Easy update
MIT Faculty
& Teaching
Assistants
Support
• Perform final edit
• Perform production QA
MIT-supported option
Assume 80% participation
Publish
Teach
External
OCW
Audiences
MIT
Students
OCW Tool – Support for the Hybrid Process
Support for Tagging in Sakai –
Helping faculty, students create
tags (metadata) for:
OCW Tool
• IP status – Creative Commons+
• OCW Navigation – MIT Categories
• Export – Choose what to put on
OCW site
Tagging Course
Resources
RDF tagging in the future
Add or remove tags within specific site
User can modify
tags to fit their
needs –
But start with MIT
tag set to
encourage
standard
approach to
navigation of
resulting OCW
site
Content Development and Teaching Proceed
Throughout Course Period
Build
Teach/Manage
This is a dynamic,
emergent, iterative
process
• Take advantage of that – OCW Tool is available to add
tags anytime in development or teaching
• Capture IP and OCW category metadata as class
proceeds, as new material is developed
• Perhaps have a student ‘scribe’ who has permissions
set to add metadata – when new document appears,
they tag it – perhaps make this a class activity,
develop student incentives (e.g., better future access)
• Have system flag incomplete data on objects – direct
faculty or students to places of needed metadata
How Do We Get This Done?
•This currently costs MIT ~$10-20,000 per
course
•We can get some faculty to do it
•But we need to get adoption supported by
the administration, at first or eventually –
top-down and/or bottom-up
•And we need to support the faculty
•How do we do all this?
3 Incentive Structures
Students
Administration
Faculty
3 Incentive Structures for
Adoption
• Administration – why Chuck Vest adopted OCW,
modified for non-first-movers, with local context
added… why department heads…
• Faculty – why your faculty would adopt, for exposure,
then student demand…
• Students – all the reasons on the following slide
All 3 have initial, then self- and mutually-reinforcing
aspects as the system becomes embedded, woven into
fabric of university - similar to adoption of Sakai/CLE
in the first place
Can we build any of these, or other, incentives into the
software?
Digital Scribes
Basic idea – get students to help the faculty in courses they are
taking – students become digital scribes – DScribes – and get
access rights to OCW tool area, taking part of load off faculty
Leveraging the students’ interests, creating student incentives
Developing student incentives: (emerging list)
Do to get access to course material in the future; Do to get closer
access to TA’s and teachers; Become part of the online DScribe
community; Do for the greater good; Do to learn better; Get a
Tshirt; etc…
1 hour course credit for UG DScribes – learn a bit about IP, media
management, how to use tools
3 hour course for Grad DScribes II – leveraging interest among SI
students – more complete coverage of IP, multimedia, lecture
capture, synopsizing, notes project – general ‘lite editing for web’
Goal of having the DScribes provide much of the ongoing
infrastructure for the actual cleaning, tagging and preparing for
export – two tiered: DS II’s help DS’s – maybe GSI’s, alumni
But, we hadn’t really looked hard enough at
students (especially students), faculty and the
teaching-learning process in the web era
So, by way of working with students in my SI 514
‘semantic tech and OCW’ class this past
winter/spring, where we talked about these
things…
…a few moments with John Seely-Brown, Chris
Anderson and some thoughts on emerging
pedagogies.
Students as Co-Producers
• Emphasizes Mentor/Apprentice
relationships
• Participants in learning process
• Not jugs to be filled up with knowledge
• Provides value to faculty – students know
the tech
• Think of as a ‘Participatory Pedagogy’
Long Tail of Education
Why fill it up
• Where a lot of the action is
• Where our faculties’ passions are
• What you want is probably there
• Personalization of learning examples and objects
largely happen in the tail
What about the head
• Future Learning Environment has both – well
populated head and tail – to date we’ve mostly
discussed the head
Think about OCW as
helping to fill out the long tail
and,
dScribe activities as helping to do that,
and at the same time,
encouraging people in the academy with
models of mentoring that are
fundamentally participatory,
as OS and peer production models are.
Because, really
• We’re here to change learning
• Use the generation of OCW to change
learning so we can generate OCW more
easily; then use that OCW we generated to
attract more faculty/students to open
learning practices; then …
• We’re interested in revolutionizing our
institutions – transforming them
Changing Education
OER are understood to be an important element of
policies that want to leverage education and lifelong
learning for the knowledge economy and society.
However, OLCOS emphasizes that it is crucial to also
promote innovation and change in educational practices.
In particular, OLCOS warns that delivering OER to the still
dominant model of teacher centred knowledge transfer
will have little effect on equipping teachers, students and
workers with the competences, knowledge and skills to
participate successfully in the knowledge economy and
society.
Open Educational Practices and Resources - OLCOS.org
Higher Education Institutions and
OCW Community Both Benefit
HE Institutions
• Meeting needs of HE - for
innovation and adoption of
emerging methods
• Increases importance of teaching in
HE – contributes to re-balancing vs
research
• Creating virtuous cycles in HE
institutions, and outside – publish,
feedback, improvements, republish…thus,
• Showing the importance of “Open”
in/to HE – introduction to web 2.0
dynamics in education
• Bridging formal and informal ed –
classroom and self-learners
OCW Communities
• Mobilizing our established
communities of scholars
• Best place, in ways only place, for
generation of enough material to fill
the long tail
• Universities are one place where
the mentors are…we are teachers
• Showing the importance of “Open”
in/to HE – introduction of web 2.0
dynamics in education
• Bridging formal and informal ed –
classroom and self-learners
Digital Scribes – making this work
Basic idea – students help the faculty in courses they are taking –
students become digital scribes – dScribes – get access rights
to OCW tool area, taking large part of load off faculty
Why would students do this? – (see following early research)
Leveraging the students’ interests, creating student incentives:
Developing student incentives: (emerging list)
Do to get access to course material in the future; Do to get closer
access to TA’s and teachers; Become part of the online dScribe
community; Do for the greater good; Do to learn better; Get a Tshirt;
etc…
1 hour course credit for UG dScribes – learn a bit about IP, media
management, how to use tools
3 hour course for Grad dScribes II – leveraging interest among SI
students – more complete coverage of IP, multimedia, lecture
capture, synopsizing, notes project – general ‘lite editing for web’
Goal of having the dScribes provide much of the ongoing infrastructure
for the actual cleaning, tagging and preparing for export, using the
tools – two tiered: dS II’s help dS’s – maybe GSI’s, alumni in future
Students as Apprentices and
Co-Participants in Teaching/Learning
• What happens when we encourage, support and integrate
student efforts, as we are in the dScribe/OCW project
• We are encouraging both students and faculty to engage in more
participatory pedagogies
• The faculty (and admin) incentives we know a good bit about
• The students’ incentives we don’t know much about, but they
have, and quickly recognize they have, multiple, significant
positive incentives
• This mobilization of new incentive structures parallels results of
the recent research done on open source (see S. Weber), which
shows that complex artifacts can be constructed by distributed
communities, with unexpected incentive structures, in an open
environment
• Investigating such alternative incentive structures is driving the
social part of the development of the dScribes tool
• And cracking that hard nut of sustainability – cost
dScribes
• Catalyzing new relationships between faculty and students
and among students – institutionalizing collaborative
apprenticeships at the earliest possible level
• Finding places the students can become “peers in the
process,” can become contributors, e.g., using their ‘digital
native’ tech knowledge and experience
• Introducing faculty gently, in the process of their teaching,
to new (digital/social) technologies and their use, with the
help of the students
• New partnership construction in the academy
• Practical engagement as a part of learning at all levels,
building it into the learning process – Dewey would be
pleased
Building a dScribe Community Building into a Curriculum
•
What a student might do if taking the 1-credit OCW dScribe class:
--Learn about IP issues related to making course materials available
--Learn about useful metadata standards relevant to open courseware (eg,
marking up citations to enable use of open URL resolvers; ).
--Publish a course they are taking - work with faculty to
--get permissions; generate substitutions where necessary
--mark up citations; perhaps find open versions
--tag materials, using MIT's navigation categories, or faculty’s
•
What students might do in a 3-credit SI 501 dScribe class:
--Go into more depth on IP, metadata issues above
--Learn about effective, easy, low-touch capture, production, editing of A/V,
include screencasts, podcasts, videocasts of lectures, discussions
--Learn about appropriate techniques for capturing different types of events,
from interviews to lectures to conferences, includes setting up wikis or other
tools for distributed capture of events and their activities
--Mentor students taking the 1-credit OCW dScribing class – to Learn, Teach
--Act as dScribe for some of their own classes, and for professional event (e.g.,
a conference)
OCW – Inter-related incentive
structures
• Administration – why Chuck Vest adopted OCW,
modified for non-”first-movers”, with local context added.
Why Provosts, Deans, Department Heads…
• Faculty – why your faculty would adopt – e.g., for
exposure, then student demand, new form of publication,
build into evaluations…
• Students – see following slides…
All 3 have initial, then self- and mutually-reinforcing aspects
as the system becomes embedded, woven into the fabric
of university – sometimes similar to adoption of
Sakai/CLE in the first place
Baseline & Investigation of
Benefits vs Incentives
UMichigan Survey – April 2007
• All instructional faculty, including graduate
student instructors, were invited to respond
(n=7,244). There was a 20% response rate
to the survey (n=1,481).
• A random sample of 25% of the student
body, stratified by college/department, was
invited to respond (n=8,790). There was a
26% response rate to the survey (n=2,281).
What is your familiarity with OCW websites at other institutions?
5%
1%
Student
7%
11%
I have never heard of OCW
I have heard of OCW but have never
gone to an OCW site
I have looked at an OCW site
I have looked at and used material from
an OCW site in my studies
No response
76%
Value of "Would provide a resource to enhance my own personal knowledge"
2%
Student
26%
24%
Not Sure
Not Valuable
Valuable
Very Valuable
6%
42%
No Response
Value of "Would help me to plan my long-term course of study"
2%
22%
Student
27%
Not Sure
Not Valuable
Valuable
Very Valuable
No Response
9%
40%
Value of "Would allow me to preview prospective courses in depth before I
register"
Student
1%
22%
38%
2%
Not Sure
Not Valuable
Valuable
Very Valuable
No Response
37%
Value of "Would allow me to use materials from past courses for review"
2%
Student
21%
39%
3%
Not Sure
Not Valuable
Valuable
Very Valuable
No Response
35%
Value of "Would allow me to see examples from past courses or work done by
students"
Student
1%
22%
29%
Not Sure
Not Valuable
5%
Valuable
Very Valuable
No Response
43%
What is your familiarity with OCW websites at other institutions?
4% 1%
Faculty
14%
I have never heard of OCW
I have heard of OCW but have never
gone to an OCW site
I have looked at an OCW site
23%
58%
I have looked at and used material from
an OCW site in my teaching
No response
Value of "Would increase the visibility of my courses"
5%
3%
Faculty
29%
45%
Not Sure
Not Valuable
Valuable
Very Valuable
No Response
18%
Value of "Would allow me to see how other faculty are approaching material in
my area"
3%
Faculty
21%
27%
Not Sure
Not Valuable
Valuable
Very Valuable
4%
45%
No Response
Value of "Would help me to prepare materials for an upcoming class"
3%
15%
Faculty
34%
Not Sure
Not Valuable
Valuable
Very Valuable
No Response
40%
8%
Value of "Would help me to connect with faculty at UM or other instiutions in
my area of teaching or research"
3%
12%
Faculty
36%
Not Sure
Not Valuable
Valuable
Very Valuable
No Response
40%
9%
Value of "Would help me to develop or plan curriculum for my department"
3%
11%
Faculty
42%
Not Sure
Not Valuable
Valuable
Very Valuable
No Response
35%
9%
Focus Groups –
Incentives vs Benefits
• Often talk about value/benefits to faculty and
administration
• Usually list benefits of OCW use for students – not
incentives to create OCW
• Results of focus groups at UM
• Students see incentives to help generate OCW,
and the highest incentives do not necessarily line
up with usually cited benefits – they have more to
do with interaction with faculty, and deepening
pedagogical relationships – that mentor-apprentice
relationship
Segment
Benefits
Quantifier
Allows me to preview prospective courses
before I register
Provides a resource to enhance my own
personal knowledge
Provides an additional resource for alumni to
enhance personal knowledge
Helps me to plan my long-term course of
study
Helps reaffirm the University’s reputation for
innovation
Helps reinforce the University’s commitment
to learning
Allows me to complement current course
content with materials from other courses
Increases my interaction with faculty members
or other instructors (when participating)
Allows me to make my own contributions and
thoughts visible to others
Undergraduate
Mean
Mode
4.5
5.0
3.8
3.0
3.8
4.0
3.8
4.0
3.5
3.0
2.8
2.0
4.3
5.0
3.0
3.0
3.0
3.0
Segment
Incentives
Quantifier
Being able to master the course topic and
course materials by helping to create
OpenCourseWare
Interacting directly with faculty when creating
OpenCourseWare material
Regular (free) lunches and dinners for “Lindsey
quex”
students involved in the creation of OCW
Learning about intellectual property and
related issues when creating OCW
Being able to conduct research as an
undergraduate/graduate (Research Program)
Getting course credit for helping to create
OpenCourseWare
Connect with other students who are involved
in the creation of OpenCourseWare
Being recognized for contribution to creating
OCW (i.e., contributor on the Web site)
Undergraduate
Mean
Mode
4.5
4.0
4.0
5.0
4.5
5.0
4.0
4.0
3.5
N/A
3.3
4.0
3.5
4.0
1.8
1.0
Tools for dScribes
• Workflow customized for dScribes and faculty,
not ‘professional OCW’ staff
• Build around ‘participatory pedagogical’ model
• Faculty engagement gated, can be large or small
(faculty can be their own dScribes)
• Tools integrated with learning environment, so
faculty can use knowledge from CLE tools
• Create portable materials for faculty and students,
and Library
All a faculty ‘has’ to see.
Some V~0.3 Screenshots
Some V~0.3 Screenshots
Connection to CMS
Some V~0.3 Screenshots
Supporting
annotation,
workflow
Some V~0.3 Screenshots
Some V~0.3 Screenshots
Some V~0.3 Screenshots
Some V~0.3 Screenshots
Embedded objects support
Some V~0.3 Screenshots
More
Workflow
support
Some V~0.3 Screenshots
Some V~0.3 Screenshots
Participatory Pedagogies, dScribes and
OCW tool
• Building participation into the pedagogy
• Blending Open Source successes with Open Content
Initiatives
• Mobilizing transformative processes of Web 2.0 dynamics
in service of transforming the academy,
• While at the same time using resulting contributions from
the academy to feed Learning Web 2.0 dynamics
• Developing positive feedback loop that rewards
participatory pedagogies and drives both transformation in
the academy and the growth of Learning Web 2.0
• OER/OCW generation at the center of both
Must Reads
and, for
pedagogical
foundations
(and fun reading)
Thanks - Quex