Spreading the Word! Librarians & OEROER14, 29 April 2014

Dr. Beck Pitt The Open University Eleni ZazaniBirkbeck CollegeNancy GrahamUniversity of Roehampton

Background

DELILA April 2012

CoPILOT: from a project to a CoP

1. Developing Educators Learning and Information Literacies for Accreditation

2. Cross institutional project (Birmingham – LSE) to adapt digital and IL resources to OER

3. Project website: http://delilaopen.wordpress.com

DELILA April 2012

CoPILOT: from a project to a CoP

1. To gather information about librarians’ sharing of IL teaching material

2. 101 responses from UK, Europe, US and beyond3. Findings indicate closed sharing4. Willingness to share openly but don’t know where to start5. Available at http://delilaopen.wordpress.com/il-oer-survey/

DELILA April 2012August 2012

CoPILOT: from a project to a CoP

1. One day event at Birmingham2. Several attendees formed committee3. Kick off meeting November 20124. Aim: to support UK librarians in sharing openly5. 1st Event at Uni of Surrey 30th May 2013

DELILA April 2012August 2012CoPILOT

CoPILOT: from a project to a CoP

Community of Practice for Information Literacy Online TeachingRun 2 events (Surrey, Glasgow), participate in conferences &

collaborate with IFLA, UNESCO, OERRHUB, etc across sectorsMailing list IL-OERS@jiscmail.ac.ukTwitter: @CoPILOT2013Website: http://www.cilip.org.uk/information-literacy-group/about/copilot

DELILA April 2012August 2012CoPILOT

CoPILOT: from a project to a CoP

Lead by example, share ideas, practice & knowledge, surface case studies, advocates of openness.Mailing list IL-OERS@jiscmail.ac.ukTwitter: @CoPILOT2013Website: http://www.cilip.org.uk/information-literacy-group/about/copilot

Present

• 2-year research project based at The Open University (UK)

• Funded by William & Flora Hewlett Foundation

• Aiming to build the most comprehensive picture of OER impact

• Eleven research hypotheses

• Collaboration model across different educational sectors

• Fellowship Scheme

• Global reach but with a US focus

• Practicing openness: CC-BY licensed research instruments / SOO Course / Impact Map

OER Research Hub

oerresearchhub.org #oerrhub @OER_Hub

Keyword Hypothesis

Performance OER improve student performance/satisfaction

Openness People use OER differently from other online materials

Access OER widen participation in education

Retention OER can help at-risk learners to finish their studies

Reflection OER use leads educators to reflect on their practice

Finance OER adoption brings financial benefits for students/institutions

Indicators Informal learners use a variety of indicators when selecting OER

Support Informal learners develop their own forms of study support

Transition OER support informal learners in moving to formal study

Policy OER use encourages institutions to change their policies

Assessment Informal assessments motivate learners using OER

Collaboration Model

Collaboration Model

Collaboration Model

Collaboration Model

OER Impact Map

OER Impact Maphttp://oermap.org

OER Impact Maphttp://oermap.org

Methodology

Librarian Questionnaire

Research Questions

OER Research Hub hypotheses:

OER improve student performance/satisfaction

People use OER differently from other online materials

OER use leads educators to reflect on their practice*

OER adoption brings financial benefits for students/institutions

OER use encourages institutions to change their policies*

Special areas of interest (CoPILOT):

Encourage creation and sharing of OER

Curating & sustaining OER

Closing training gaps

Background to Surveys (CoPILOT)

0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.5 5 5.50

100

200

300

400

500

600

32

57

101

521

218

Librarians and OER

Series1

Surveys

Source: Zazani, Eleni. The Emerging Information Professional: 21st Century attitudes, technologies and practices. Chandos publishing (forthcoming)

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 100

100

200

300

400

500

600

3257

101

211

14

521

4

218

Librarians & openness (OA & OER)

No. of participants

Source: Zazani, Eleni. The Emerging Information Professional: 21st Century attitudes, technologies and practices. Chandos publishing (forthcoming)

Findings

Librarian Surveys

Two surveys launched during Open Access week (21-25 October 2014).

Both Surveys closed 2 January 2014.

General Librarians

197 respondents

128 of these work F/T or P/T as a Librarian

2 invalid responses, 126 valid responses

CoPILOT Librarians

115 respondents

92 respondents work F/T or P/T as a Librarian

0 invalid responses, 92 valid responses*

Librarian Sample

• 218 respondents who work F/T or P/T as a Librarian• 81.0% Female (n=175), 17.6% Male (n=38) and 1.4% Transgender (n=3) • 47.4% of respondents live in the UK (n=102), 40.0% in the USA (n=86), 3.3%

in Ghana (n=7), 3.3% in Canada (n=7) and 6.0% R.O.W. (n=13) including Botswana, South Africa, Italy, Lebanon, Czech Republic, Tanzania

• Nearly 90% of respondents have English as their first spoken language (89.4%, n=193)

• Over 85% of respondents have a Postgraduate/Graduate School University Degree (87.4%, n=188)

• Over a quarter of respondents had worked as a librarian for more than 20 years (25.3%, n=50)

OER Behaviours & Perspectives

Librarian Overview

In the last year… • Over half of respondents have published a blog post (50.5%, n=110)• Nearly 70% of respondents have shared an image online (68.8%,

n=150)• Almost a third of respondents contributed to a Wiki (30.3%, n=66)• Almost half of respondents contributed to an Internet Forum (49.1%,

n=107)• 55.0% of respondents have downloaded a Podcast (n=120) but only

8.3% have recorded and uploaded a Podcast (n=18)

Librarian Overview

Nearly 80% of respondents have used OER (78.7%, n=170)

• Over 85% of respondents said that they would be more likely to select a particular resource when searching for OER if it had been created/uploaded by a reputable/trusted institution or person (87.4%, n=180)

• Top three challenges faced when using OER:

Knowing where to find resources (60.6%, n=120)

Finding resources of a sufficiently high quality (60.1%, n=119)

Finding suitable resources in my subject area (56.1%, n=111)

Librarian Overview

• Main purposes for using OER in the context of Librarian role:

To help find available content for learning, teaching or training (72.5%, n=124) and/or to get new ideas and inspiration (72.5%, n=124)• Nearly 70% of respondents strongly agreed or agreed that they

make use of a wider range of multimedia in their Librarian role as a consequence of their use of OER (13.1%, n=19 & 56.6%, n=82 respectively)

• Top three types of OER used for teaching/training:

Images (77.6%, n=128)

Videos (58.8%, n=97)

E-books (43.0%, n=71)

Perceptions of the Impact of OER on students and institutions

• Over 50% of respondents think that their institution benefits financially by using OER (53.5%, n=85)

• Over 40% of respondents don’t know whether their institution benefits financially by using OER (40.9%, n=65)

• Over half of respondents don’t know whether their students have saved money by using OER (51.2%, n=83)

• Nearly 40% of respondents believe their students have saved money by using OER (37.7%, n=61)

“We have proof of this through our Open

Education Initiative. Savings for students is

calculated each year.”

“We actually did a study recently that showed a 30% reduction in

textbook costs after a big push to move to open access textbooks.”

Creating OER and measuring its impact

Creative Commons Licensing

“A license is a document that specifies what can and cannot be done with a work (whether sound,

text, image or multimedia). It grants permissions and states restrictions. Broadly speaking, an open

license is one which grants permission to access, re-use and distribute a work with few or no

restrictions” (Open Definition)

• Over 70% of respondents had seen the CC logo and knew what it meant (70.6%, n=154)

• 17.0% of respondents had never seen it (n=37)• 12.4% of respondents had seen it but didn’t know what it meant (n=27)

• Over 70% of respondents think that open licensing is very important or important to them when using resources in their teaching (34.4%, n=72 and 37.8%, n=79 respectively)

The Use and Creation of OER

Respondents were given a definition of Open Educational Resources (UNESCO), and asked to tells us how they had used/created OER.

• 31.9% of respondents have created OER for study or teaching (n=69)• 14.8% of respondents have created resources themselves and published

them on an open license (n=32)

If respondents told us they had created OER, they were asked two further questions:

1. How they share the OER they create2. If they measure the impact of OER they create

Please tell us more about how you share the open educational resources you create

“Added to university library

website with a CC license.”

“We have an open access repository for

teaching resources in my department,

which has been an effort put forth by

students. It’s a fledgling project which will

be more widely shared going forward.

The university where I work is embracing

OA, and moving toward OA journal

publishing as well.”

“I have uploaded copyright-free

photographs to Wikimedia Commons.”

“I compile free resources on my

library website and on a wiki for

the school. I share these

resources with the faculty and

students at my school.”

“Upload to YouTube”

“Through Google’s coursebuilder software I

created an introductory library course.”

“Via the NHS e-learning repository and from our organisational website.”

Do you measure the impact of the open educational resources you create?

Of the respondents who create OER for study or teaching and/or create OER and publish them on an open license, nearly 30% told us they measure the impact of the OER they create (29.7%, n=22)

• 60.8% of respondents who create OER do not measure the impact of the OER they create (n=45)

• Nearly 10% of respondents who create OER don’t know if they measure the impact of the OER they create (9.5%, n=7)

Question around what constitutes “measuring impact”: One respondent who answered “Don’t Know” noted:

“I track the usage of them but this (e.g. downloads) but I don’t think this is an

adequate measure of impact. There may be 1,000’s of downloads but who knows

whether anyone has looked at them again.”

Please tell us more about how you measure the impact of the open educational resources you create

“We do in the sense that we are able to

see how many hits the guides get – but

no demographics are included such as

local or distant users, who users are.

Students? Librarians? Educators? Open

web searchers, etc.”

“We have a feedback survey – little

response we measure page views via

google analytics.”

“We wish we could measure the

impact of our OERs but it’s

difficult to know who is making

use of them when they can be

downloaded for free. We don’t

really know how to track and

assess the impact of our OERs.”

“To a limited extent by looking at YouTube hits. It’s a sign of engagement if not impact.”

Respondents who told us how they currently measure impact:

60.9% look at statistics/usage/analytics (n=14)13.0% Feedback (n=3)26.1% Both analytics and feedback (n=6)

“At a rather trivial level, I check how many times resources are

accessed.”

Are there any examples, positive or negative, of your experiences of curating open educational resources that you

would like to tell us about?“The OER project office and the library

are working on a project to improve

discoverability of OERs to make it easier

for users”

“Many faculty expressed interest when the pilot

project was proposed. They did not care about the

stipend, just saving students money without sacrificing quality.”

“Faculty members do not understand Open Resources and either can’t find them or assume that everything they find can be used in any way and as often as they want, without permissions being sought.”“An interesting thing that we’ve found is that our

faculty do not think of openness as being particularly

morally important, at least not in the way that our

librarians were assuming that they would…”

“As part of our work in S2 English, we ask pupils to write an entry for one of the school blogs, based on their current novel / drama study. Part of the success criteria is to use

Creative Commons images as part of their articles. Has led to a much wider understanding of how they can use online materials, pupils actively seeking out public

domain or CC materials, and greater knowledge of their own rights.”

“The most challenging aspect

is that once you put it out

there, there’s an expectation

that you’ve committed to

keeping it up to date…”

Policy and Openness

Are you aware of any changes to policy and/or practice that have taken place at your institution as a result of participation in OER

pilots and/or programs?8.6% Yes (n=14)55.2% No (n=90)36.2% Don’t Know (n=59)

“The Training department of the Centre is trying to adapt some of the courses to suit

African/local context.”

“Faculty are encouraged to find more

electronic resources for course reserves;

Faculty encourage students to use free or

less costly course materials.”

“Partnership with Merlot”

“OER strategy document… [and] institutional repository.”

What kinds of practices and policies, if any, does your institution have in relation to OER?

“Until quite recently, we had a fund to support open access publishing…”

“Our library is presently developing guides and internal policy regarding OER”

“Absolutely none.”“None that I am aware of. There is

some resistance to sharing learning resources on the part of some

academics. Some don’t even want their reading lists to be open…”

“The University Senate has endorsed an Open Access Policy.”

In the context of your role as librarian, what kinds of policies would help you to be more open?

“A clear policy would enable me to help

students understand the value of OER

and its uses in their education.”

“I don’t have much in the way of graphic or web design skills. If I did, I’d be more likely to make my own resources and share them.” “Promoting open access resources to colleagues and

outreaching them to offer training and support in

accessing using those resources.”

“If open licenses were mandated for all materials the college produces. If administrators were more understanding of licensing and open source. My institution is still in the habit of defaulting to expensive corporate products even when superior

open ones are available. It’s infuriating.”

“It’s more about a cultural

shift and a holistic approach

– policies are limited.”

“Recognition for the impact of OER’s we create … This might incentivise us to create resources which are more reusable and can be exploited by the wider academic community instead of everybody reinventing the wheel for their local users.”

Summary

Lessons LearntNext StepsEffective Collaboration

Summary of ResultsLibrarians and Open Educational Resources

• 87.4% of librarians said that they would be more likely to select a particular resource when searching for OER if it had been created/uploaded by a reputable/trusted institution or person (n=180) • Evidence shows that many librarians working in “silos” • Preliminary results: more forthcoming • What do you think? Do these findings resonate with you? • We need you! Looking for YOUR best examples of impact... • Help us build the most comprehensive picture of the impact of OER by contributing your evidence to the Impact Map

Bibliography

• Bueno-de-la-Fuente, G. (2012). The roles of libraries and information professionals in open educational resources (OER) initiatives. « publications. Available from: http://publications.cetis.ac.uk/2012/492. [Accessed 23 November 2013].De Beer, T. (2012). SCORE library survey report. Available from: http://www.open.ac.uk/score/news/score-library-survey-report. [Accessed 23 November 2013]. Graham, N., and Secker, J. (2012). Librarians, information literacy and open educational resources: report of a survey. Available from: http://delilaopen.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/findingsharingoers_reportfinal1.pdf. [Accessed 23 November 2013]. Harris, S. (2012). Moving towards an open access future: the role of academic libraries. London. Available from:http://www.uk.sagepub.com/repository/binaries/pdf/Library-OAReport.pdf. [Accessed 23 November 2013]. Taylor & Francis. (2013). Facilitating access to free online resources: challenges and opportunities for the library community. Available from: http://www.tandf.co.uk/libsite/pdf/TF-whitepaper-free-resources.pdf. [Accessed 23 November 2013]. TBI Communications on behalf of InTech. (2012). Assessing the role of librarians in an Open Access world. Croatia. Available from: http://www.intechopen.com/js/ckeditor/kcfinder/upload/files/Role of the Librarian_Survey_Findings_Jun12.pdf. [Accessed 23 November 2013]. Zazani, Eleni. The Emerging Information Professional: 21st Century attitudes, technologies and practices. Chandos publishing (forthcoming)

• Open Definition on Licensing (http://opendefinition.org/guide/)

• Creative Commons logo: http://mirrors.creativecommons.org/presskit/icons/cc.large.png

Thanks for listening!oerresearchhub.orghttp://oermap.org Twitter: @OER_Hub @BeckPitt@EleniZazani @msnancygraham

in service of The Open University