ANGroup - Innovation in Learning and Teaching

Innovation in Learning and Teaching

Open Educational Services (OER)

Higher education institutions all over the world are increasingly making their educational resources openly available and are investing heavily in developing Open Educational Resources (OERs). That trend fits in with a global “openness movement” publicely mostly symbolised through Open Online Universities and Consortias such as Coursera and Udacity. Scientific and scholarly organisations throughout the world have signed the Berlin Declaration on Open Access and the declarations of Unesco and the European Commission. Although a great deal of knowledge is available, actual concrete results are lagging behind.

What are Open Educational Resources?

Open Educational Resources belong to a digital “openness family”, which also includes Open Source, Open Access, and Open Content. Open Educational Resources are resources that are made available online for use or reuse free of charge. Copying, adapting, and distributing the material is permitted subject to certain conditions (at least a “Creative Commons Attribution” licence).

Why Open Educational Resources?

Open Educational Resources are bringing about changes inside and outside higher education. There are an option for strategic positioning in the market. For example, providing Open Access to teaching materials is an effective marketing and information tool. It enables higher education institutions to show the rest of the world what they have to offer, and thus to attract talented students and researchers. Prospective students are given a realistic idea of the content and quality of an institution’s teaching, are better prepared for what it will expect of them, and can therefore make a more effective choice of what they wish to study. Institutions that make their educational resources openly available have noticed another positive effect, namely an improvement in the quality of the resources themselves. Not only do the producers set higher quality standards for the material if it is made publicly available, but the institutions themselves devote more attention to quality assurance when the material is made available to all with their “visiting card” attached. OERs also make it possible to engage in a dialogue about content with the rest of the world; feedback from users improves quality and sustainability.

We support you in the development of your OER concept and identify the potential benefits of using external OERs. With out OER Finder we can offer you a tool that increases the use of OER with some of the following results

higher quality standards of teaching materials
internationalisation of teaching and research
reduction of student failure rates
preparation for accreditation and certification procedures

Learning Analytics

Global developments in the analysis of data regarding students’ study behaviour and study results, known as Learning Analytics, generate new opportunities when combined with OERs. Learning Analytics enables instructors to see which teaching materials are effective (or ineffective), and which students require assistance with which components of the course. This makes it possible for instructors to offer the right material at the right time, even if they are dealing with large numbers of students. The availability of a wide range of OERs ensures that students are able to utilise those resources that fit in best with their own learning style. OERs can be a driving force for innovation, in combination with advances in Learning Analytics. With the help of our analytic tools, students and instructors can better understand the learning process and take action to improve course outcomes.
More effective use of results of collected data of evaluation and feedback processes, which increased inflationary over the past years, are another benefit of learning analytics. LA applications gather internal data resources of institutions even diversified in multiple places, analyze that data, generate reports for University Management, boards and programme directors which help to make strategic decisions and enable interventions.