availability and feasibility of oer in adult learning
TRANSCRIPT
AVAILABILITY AND FEASIBILITY OF OER IN ADULT LEARNING IN THE
EUROPEAN UNION
Giles Pepler, Sero Consulting
INTED2016Valencia, Spain
7 March 2016
Study commissioned by the EU Parliament to review the current use of Open Educational Resources in Adult Education both in universities and outside higher education, assess its potential and make recommendations for policy interventions, taking account of the European Commission’s policy frameworks.
The study incorporates new research on almost half the Member States, leveraging on a synthesis of existing research from a range of projects – see references at end of presentation.
This presentation summarises our research on the eight main EU country studies for the project.
Background to this presentation
In the EU 20% of adults have low literacy and numeracy skills, 25% have completed lower secondary education at most and 33% have very low or no ICT skills.
OER can offer many benefits including the possibility of delivering education in a more effective fashion while keeping a close eye on cost.
A cautionary note – definitions of adult education and its provision vary substantially between different EU countries.
Why look at adult education?
UK: Jisc/HEA programme to 2013. Little development since then, but aspirational policy statements in Scotland and Wales
France: Not much evidence that significant resources are open and most courses fee paying for all or most learners
Spain: some progress at national level and several initiatives in communidades autonomas
Hungary: reluctance of the research community to provide open access to their publications
Sweden: use of OER in adult education fragmentary – no national political strategy, though this may be changing
Latvia: some OER-related activity in adult education, but national policy documentation does not mention OER
Romania: active in OER, but largely in schools and universities, rather than VET
Germany: relative latecomer to the OER scene, but now very active. Proposals for a national portal for OER being progressed.
OER for adults in study countries
Spain: National Post Platform with Red.es. Reference portals in almost all communidades autonomas
Germany: national OER portal in development; annual Barcamps for OER http://project.idea-space.eu/2016/03/02/oercamps/
Romania: Romanian Institute for Adult Education is a partner in OERup, designed to create a quality framework for OER
Ireland: National Forum for the Enhancement of Teaching & Learning in Higher Education - http://www.teachingandlearning.ie/
Promising initiatives
Copyright legislation: subject to national legislation and often very restrictive – attempts to reform this at EU level have not made significant progress
Quality agencies and processes: few ENQA agencies mention OER; little evidence of concerted national or regional efforts to develop quality schemes for OER
Staff training and development: little awareness of OER in initial teacher training programmes and not a great deal of evidence of OER in CPD – teachers, especially in adult and community education express nervousness about OER
Learners’ technology skills: forget the ‘digital natives’ arguments – many have limited search skills and significant numbers do not have internet access
Barriers
Adult Education and Open Educational Resources (Bacsich 2015)
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/thinktank/en/document.html?reference=IPOL_STU(2015)563397
POERUP (Policies for OER Uptake) http://poerup.referata.com/wiki/Main_Page Cross-border Content: Investigation into Sharing
Curricula across Borders and its Opportunities for Open Education Resources (Pepler G., Frank Bristow S., Bacsich P., Vuorikari R. - 2015) http://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC94956
Key References
Giles Pepler
Sero Consulting, for the ADOERUP teamhttp://www.poerup.info
http://poerup.referata.com/wiki/Main_PageEmail [email protected]
Thank you for listening