On May 9, Clint Lalonde, BCcampus Client Service Manager, was invited to speak about Open Education at the annual Tourism Educators Conference.  The Tourism Educators Conference (TEC) is the premier annual conference for tourism and hospitality educators in the province of B.C. TEC 2013 was hosted by the School of Tourism and Hospitality Management, Royal Roads University, in Victoria.

In his session, Clint took the attendees on a journey through the land of open education and spoke about the many different ways the word "open" is defined in higher education. Open Educational Resources, open courseware, open textbooks and open learning are all trends that are an important part of our contemporary education landscape. And, of course, there are those little "open" things called MOOCs - Massive Open Online Courses. It is becoming clear that the word "open" is being used in different ways and means quite different things to people. In the emerging world of MOOCs, some MOOCs are more open than others.

Below are Clint's slides.

Professor Asha S. Kanwar, COL President and Chief Executive Officer, tells us how COL is helping to improve opportunities for learning through the application of open, distance and technology-mediated teaching methods.

1) How does the Commonwealth of Learning improve access to distance education and online learning, particularly for disadvantaged people in developing Commonwealth countries?

We often make these connections by working with educational institutions to reach the unreached sections of society. For example, Shahnaz, a young girl in Pakistan was thrown out of her husband’s house when she gave birth to a girl instead of a boy. After returning home to her poor parents she met her former teacher, with whom Shahnaz had completed eight years of schooling. Her teacher advised her to enroll as a distance learning student with the Allama Iqbal Open University (AIOU) –one of COL’s partners. Shahnaz completed school, set up her own sewing business, and helped her sister to continue her education. She also dreams of sending her own daughter to an English school one day. Many girls like Shahnaz benefit from distance learning because it’s both affordable and flexible.

Another COL program - Lifelong Learning for Farmers (L3F) - strengthens livelihoods and empowers the poorer sections of rural societies in many Commonwealth countries. Under the L3F model, COL is a catalyst in bringing together communities, institutions, civil society and the private sector to build the capacity of the goat-herders and farmers through gender-sensitive open and distance learning.

2) Tell us about COL’s work with UNESCO in the area of Open Educational Resources (OER).

COL and UNESCO, with funding support from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, embarked on a major initiative to encourage more governments to adopt policies that encourage OER. Our joint commitment to “Fostering Governmental Support for OER Internationally” increased understanding of the significance of OER and gathered support for the principle that the products of publicly funded work should carry open licenses. COL and UNESCO received approval for the Paris Declaration on OER at UNESCO’s World OER Congress in June 2012. The Paris Declaration is a commitment to supporting the use of OER to expand access to education and contains 10 recommendations to advance the development and use of OER.

Since the adoption of the Paris Declaration, COL has been actively working with UNESCO to implement the recommendations, with a particular focus on five areas: awareness and advocacy, policy development, capacity building, research and sharing.

3) COL has several Honorary Chairs in Open and Distance Learning, sometimes in collaboration with UNESCO. How do these Honorary Chairs (all of whom seem to have a great deal of experience in the fields of OER and Online Education) support COL (and UNESCO)?

Our Honorary Chairs in Open and Distance Learning and OER have been carefully chosen. Honorary Chairs work with national agencies and educational institutions to conduct studies, surveys and research on the current status and emerging trends in open and distance learning and technology-enhanced education and training at all levels. Canada-based Dr. Rory McGreal is the UNESCO_COL Chair in OER at Athabasca University.

4) You’ve done a great deal of research around gender studies – in particular the impact of distance education on the lives of Asian women. How has your research helped the COL to improve educational opportunities for women in developing countries? Are strides being made in this area or is there still a great deal to be done?

One-third of the world’s poor live in Commonwealth countries and two-thirds of them are women. COL recognizes that advancement of the goals of gender equality and women’s empowerment is central to its agenda of learning for development. As a cross-cutting corporate goal for COL, gender equality requires that both women’s and men’s views, interests and needs shape our programs. Open and distance learning can be especially helpful in enabling women and girls to access educational opportunities while also fulfilling other responsibilities –consider Shahnaz’s story.

Given the violence that continues to surface against women in many Commonwealth countries, much more research is required. But we need constant advocacy for gender equality at all levels—starting from early schooling right on to tertiary education.

5) How do organizations like BCcampus help to support COL’s mandate for improving access to online and distance educational opportunities?

BCcampus is a strong advocate for OER on the world scene, which supports COL’s goals in this area. BCcampus has also collaborated with COL on several publications that are distributed, referenced and in use around the world.

The slides shown during the presentation are also posted below. You can also download a copy of the hand-out.

Presentation slides

Click on the "Slideshare" icon below to view in the slideshare page and get a summary of the presentation content not shown on the slides themselves.

For further reading

• 5 Questions with Tori Klassen on Communicating Open Educational Resources, EdTech, and Social Media
• Presentation hand-out

For example, since 2008 BCcampus has hosted SCoPE, a well-populated, online community of people with a shared interest in educational research and practice. SCoPE seminars fit the definition of a MOOC; they’re scheduled, free, and open to thousands of members and site visitors.

“SCoPE is very MOOC-like in that everyone is welcome to join in, but participation is not mandatory,” says Sylvia Currie, BCcampus Senior Manager, Professional Development. “We currently have over 4000 registered SCoPE members from all around the world. However, because there is no required membership to access SCoPE’s many free professional development opportunities, the actual number of people who have benefited from participating is likely much higher.”

BCcampus has also been involved in delivering other MOOCs. Back in 2011, BCcampus teamed with MOOC pioneer George Siemens from Athabasca University to offer a free and open course called Learning and Knowledge Analytics to hundreds of learners. This not-for-credit MOOC was hosted in the SCoPE community.

Last May, BCcampus played an integral role in helping the prestigious Oxford Brookes University to deliver First Steps into Learning and Teaching. This successful MOOC is being offered for a second round, running from May 8 to June 14, 2013.

“BCcampus has been involved in many open online learning activities - we’re always looking for ways to help institutions open up their quality, online learning opportunities to broad audiences,” says Currie. “Professional development courses, workshops and seminars are of particular interest as we strive to support our educators. Our goal is to provide comfortable and inviting online learning communities that are easy to navigate, even for those faculty who find new technology intimidating.”

I was hired as a Learner Services Research Assistant, and in the beginning of the work term, I think I was not confident enough in myself. As a non-native English speaker, being a research assistant which requires good communication skills was challenging. However, my supervisor Dave always encouraged me to share my opinion and listened to my concerns. Building self-confidence was one of my learning objectives for my co-op and I think I successfully achieved this over the past eight months.

One of my main projects was to conduct usability testing of ApplyBC-SFU application. Our Learner Services team wanted to find out how usable the application is and how well users are able to complete the task of applying to Simon Fraser University. This user study was a big project with thorough research, planning, and consultations with managers and developers. Prior to the actual testing, we had a lot of things to consider such as: how to recruit participants, what tools to use, how to set up the testing environment, how to record the testing, and what kind of refreshments and rewards we should provide to participants. Through the process, I learned how to communicate with others at work. Sometimes I had to use not just text but also visual images or videos in order to communicate with developers and managers. Recording the monitor screen was especially helpful when I had found some technical errors and wanted to show them to developers. After a successful completion of the user testing, I had felt more confidence in my usability skills as well as communication skills.

Another project I was working on was an online survey concerning student services for B.C. Public post secondary students. The purpose was to understand the needs of post-secondary students and what kinds of challenges they are facing. Instead of just staying in the office and writing questionnaires for the survey, I decided to approach students directly on campus and have conversations with them. It was one of the most memorable experiences during my co-op. I went to SFU Burnaby campus with other co-op students Patricia and Hilda. We set up a table on a campus and asked students what's on their minds, what they want, and what challenges they are facing, using a big display board and sticky notes. Students left their comments in a speech bubble shaped sticky note and attached them on a large display board. It was very interesting to know what other students think about different issues and I learned the importance of listening to others.

Overall, I have grown more over the past eight months of the co-op. My research and usability testing skills have improved and more importantly, now I am more self-confident because of all the valuable experience I gained from BCcampus. I would like to thank my supervisor Dave for his support and everyone else at BCcampus. BCcampus is a great place to learn and grow!

Where does BCcampus fit into this picture? Our new vendor partner, Osler Systems, is a leading supplier of EMR software to specialty and family practices around the province. Osler pioneered electronic billing in the mid-1980s, and has since added record keeping and scheduling to create a full-featured paperless record-keeping system.

The company’s EMR software is integrated throughout B.C. college medical administration training programs. However, over the past year, BCcampus has worked closely with Osler on a new shared services model for medical office training in the Applied Business Technology Online Collaborative Program. It’s a hosted model in which the software is deployed from one central location over the Internet.

How hosting changed the game

For Osler, the partnership was well-timed. General Manager Mark Sudul says: “We were looking for a better way to deploy our software to colleges rather than having to install it on separate lab computers at each institution, which was quite a bit of work. With a hosted model, it’s easier to get a class ready to go. It’s also less work for college IT staff – just make sure lab machines can connect to the Internet. And with no backup or maintenance, there’s less expense.”

The software gives students their own sample patient database to complete billing assignments for various medical procedures or visits. “It’s like a sandbox,” says Sudul. “Students get to play around as much as they want and learn without having to mess with a live patient database. The big advantage with hosting is now students and instructors can use an Internet connection to log in anywhere. They don’t need to be in a college lab to use the EMR system.”

Making the most of the shared service

This unique partnership offers significant time and cost savings to participating institutions. BCcampus provides funding, and eliminates duplicated work by coordinating access and course schedules. With an eye on the overall number of users, we’re also able to make the system available to institutions for their own in-house or continuing education use.

After a successful pilot run last Fall, the service has been rolled out to the wider post-secondary community. There are now five participating institutions: Douglas College, Camosun College, Vancouver Community College, Capilano University, and the College of New Caledonia.  

A win/win partnership

Ultimately, for BCcampus, it’s about offering a service that’s out there in a collaborative and more cost-effective way for institutions. For students, it’s a faster track to a job in medical office administration. And for Osler, it’s a wider reach (1,500 students on the system by June this year) and competitive edge. The company now uses the hosting method in doctor’s offices as well as colleges. “It’s been a great success from our point of view. It’s a win/win story,” says Sudul.

If you are an educational technology co-ordinator, a member of ETUG, on our Open Textbook sub-committee -- if you are working or volunteering in any way in our OER space, we invite you to complete the survey.

As part of the POERUP promoting the uptake of Open Educational Resources Project, funded by the European Commission, researchers are investigating the communities (like BCcampus) behind Open Educational Resources. Research studies indicate that communities are the driving force behind shared, free educational resources.

The aim of this research is to investigate several case studies to get a better understanding about the kind of resources that are shared in these communities and what kind of relationships people form to discuss, create or use open educational resources.

We hope you will take 20 minutes out of your day to complete the survey before May 31, 2013.

My presentation at Social Media Camp is essentially a case-study. It’s called: Assembling your posse: turning small budgets and scarce resources into Big Picture strategies. I share my experience of what it takes to make the most of a modest communications budget in small non-profit organization. I try to attend Social Media Camp each year, because I get practical tips and tactics that I can take back to work and use. My presentation, on May 7, will talk about what I’ve learned (in my role as Communications Director at BCcampus) about designing, delivering and implementing a web project that takes on a life of its own. My “show and tell” approach will help other professionals working in the post-secondary sector tame the digital beast, AKA the corporate website, and help them move from a traditional top-down communications and marketing approach, to a more fluid and collaborative one. My case study will talk about how we’re bringing EdTech to life, one blog post at a time.

2. What are some of the tools you use to manage your editorial calendar, keep track of assignments and your posse of freelance writers?

I can’t say enough about the new version of Basecamp. It’s what I use for our editorial calendar. I love the mobile version and that you’re able reply to threads directly from your email account, so it includes people who may not want to log into an app from their browser to keep up with what's going on. Its user interface provides lots of visual cues to let me see if we're on track. This collaboration and project management app includes the freelance writer, my own home team and other BCcampus subject matter experts who help shape and provide feedback on our articles and story ideas.

Evernote/Skitch is always open on my desktop; it’s indispensible for note taking, clipping articles from the web, taking and annotating screen shots, and keeping track of ideas. I email a lot of things into my Evernote account. I also use Skype and Google Hangout as needed.

3. How do you develop topics, themes and ideas for your BCcampus blog? And, do you have templates?

Snowball! I've asked the writers, when they interview people working in universities and colleges, to ask their sources for leads on other cool stuff that's happening in the education technology space in the province. Much to everyone’s delight, it’s like a huge snowball rolling downhill, gathering momentum. 

I hired professional, seasoned writers who are not only able to digest and translate large amounts of background research and information, follow directions and deliver on time, but also add their own ideas and flavour. The result has been fantastic!

The writing and nature of our posts has evolved - for instance this “5 questions with…” format is now a standard. Most blog posts have a notable quotes and further reading section. And, our latest addition is something we’ve named Friday Diversions. I adapted some great ideas from other sources (which I’ll share during my talk) on style, tone and presentation.

Our tone for the BCcampus Blog is business casual. It’s conversational and approachable. That means wading through a lot of academic writing to make it more “human.”

4. What are the top three things you learned about content management and managing your BCcampus blog over the past year?

At the top of the list is organizational support. I presented my plan (based on data - surveys and analytics) to senior management team, their managers and my colleagues and received agreement on the communications goals and my approach.

Second: hire the right people (you’ll learn more about how to assemble the right posse in my presentation.) I'm extremely lucky to have two stellar staff people (a graphic and web designer, and a smart-as-a-whip co-op student) along with the most amazing writers.

Third, and probably the most important, is learning to “let go” and be flexible. As the Communications Director, I have to keep my eye on the horizon, on my goals. I trust my posse to implement the plan. But, as we all know, plans on paper, or even deadlines mapped out on Basecamp, sometimes tend to go askew. A hot story lead goes dead. Or, the editorial deadlines don’t align with my colleagues' or stakeholders' availability. So, on more than one occasion, we’ve had to shift our focus. That’s where the letting go comes in. I call it content management for the real world!

5. What's the big picture for the BCcampus blog and website?

We want to be the go-to organization for system-wide collaboration and innovation in educational technology and open educational resources for British Columbia. However, in this digital age talking only about your organization, all the time, doesn’t engender any love. We’ve all been on the receiving end of self-congratulatory tweets, Facebook and blog posts. Our goal is to create compelling, interesting content that invites people to learn more about educational technology and open educational resources.

What we do for the post-secondary system in B.C. is in the background. BCcampus is the plumbing. Our stakeholders (colleges, universities and institutes - 25 public ones in our province) are the shiny fixtures. They're what everyone sees and uses, we just provide the supports: the IT infrastructure and the training and co-ordination to make it all work better.

Educational Technology should not be noticed. It should just work - to enhance learning, to ease the registration process, to free up resources our stakeholders can use elsewhere in their IT departments, registrar's offices, and their teaching and learning centres.

On our website, on our blog, we want to reflect our stakeholders in our work. We want to hold a mirror up, so they can see themselves in what we do.

If you want to be interesting, be interested in others.

And, from what I've seen so far in 2013 - we're definitely on the right track!

Notable quotes:

I trust my posse to implement the plan. But, as we all know, plans on paper, or even deadlines mapped out on Basecamp, sometimes tend to go askew. A hot story lead goes dead. Or, the editorial deadlines don’t align with my colleagues' or stakeholders' availability. So, on more than one occasion, we’ve had to shift our focus. That’s where the letting go comes in.

What we do for the post-secondary system in B.C. is in the background. BCcampus is the plumbing. Our stakeholders (colleges, universities and institutes - 25 public ones in our province) are the shiny fixtures.

Join us:

• BCcampus Facebook
• BCcampus Twitter
• Newsletter

For further reading:

• Search Analytics for Your Site: Conversations with Your Customers
• Content Strategy for the Web
• Letting Go of the Words: Writing Web Content that Works

Launched in November, led by Leibniz University Hannover, and consisting of partners from Europe and a network of associated organizations stretching out as far as Canada and Brazil, LinkedUp is directed toward:

• Gathering open web data success stories
• Collecting and cataloging educational web data
• Providing an evaluation framework for open web data applications; and
• Demonstrating and promoting the benefits of open web data technologies in education

“There’s a wealth of resources, research and data on the web; however, many people don’t know where to find information or how to use it properly,” explains Stefan Dietze. “My vision for LinkedUp allows educational data to be explored and exploited to its fullest potential - not just by researchers and academics, but also educational institutions and learners from around the world.”

One of the key components of the project is the LinkedUp Challenge. The Challenge aims to identify and promote innovative success stories which have flowed from large-scale web data in educational scenarios. The Challenge is divided into three stages, with the final stage focused on Challenge submissions that can be applied and tested in real world cases. LinkedUp partners have provided several use cases to inspire Challenge participants and offer examples of the types of issues that submissions can address.

“It’s not unrealistic to expect LinkedUp to provide feasible options for helping large numbers of people access educational opportunities,” says Dietze. “For instance, one of the LinkedUp Challenge use cases targets the creation of a platform for learners in developing countries to have free and open access to education.”

The deadline for the first round of LinkedUp Challenge submissions is June 27, 2013. It is possible to enter the competition during the second or even third round, depending on the quality of the submission.

For April’s installment, we’ve scoured the web to bring you our top ten science videos covering astronomy, biology, geology, geometry, mathematics, technology and physics.

We’d love to know which ones stimulate your thinking and ignite your imagination.

1. A Brief, Wondrous Tour of Earth (From Outer Space) - Recorded in 2011, this HD footage offers a dazzling tour of our planet.  These time-lapse sequences of photographs were taken by the crew onboard the International Space Station. Locations include passes over the Sahara Desert and the Middle East, the Aurora Borealis and the United States, and the Aurora Australis over the Indian Ocean.
   
   
2. How Ants Know What to Do – Stanford biologist Deborah Gordon has been studying ants in the Arizona desert for more than two decades. This TED talk is a fascinating look at how harvester ants organize and direct themselves without the help of a leader. Deborah’s most recent research reveals the behaviour of ants mirrors protocols that control Internet traffic/bandwidth!
   
   
3. How Tiny Eyes Inspire Technology  -This video is part of the University of Cambridge’s ‘Under the Microscope’ series. Here, Dr. Chris Forman uses an electron microscope to share, in detail, the eyes of a beetle and fruit fly. In this one-minute video, he ignites our imagination by asking us to think about biology can shape technological designs.
   
   
4. The Secret Life of Plankton – This video is from The Plankton Chronicles - beautiful collection combines state-of-the-art optics, art and science to reveal the diversity of these hidden marine organisms. Here, a red snapper is the narrator who explains his own lifecycle and the role of plankton. 
   
   
5. Nature by Numbers –  For centuries, famous artists (Michelangelo), writers (Milton) and architects (Parthenon) have relied on mathematical and geometrical formulas in their work: the Fibonacci Series, the Golden Ratio and the Delaunay Triangulation.  Here, Spanish filmmaker Cristobel Vila explores how these formulas are fully present in the natural world.
   
   
6. The Wild Kingdom - We’re bending the rules just a little bit and sneaking in a YouTube channel that’s worth bookmarking: Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom. We discovered the entire archive online. These are the full 30-minute episodes that aired each Sunday night from 1963 through 1988.
   
   
7. Flatline – Is life possible without a heartbeat? This short film tells the story of two visionary doctors from the Texas Heart Institute who successfully replaced a dying man's heart with a rotor-driven device of their own design.
   
   
8. Carl Sagan and Stephen Hawking Remixed – With over 8 million views on YouTube, this Symphony of Science video, titled ‘A Glorious Dawn’ is described as a ‘musical tribute to two great men of science.’ The samples and footage are from Carl Sagan’s Cosmos and Stephen Hawking’s Universe series. A Glorious Dawn is now available on iTunes.
   
   Our favourite lyrics from video come from Carl:
   
   “I believe our future depends powerfully
   On how well we understand this cosmos
   In which we float like a mote of dust
   In the morning sky”
   
   
9. The Pleasure of Finding Things Out – Richard Feynman was an American theoretical physicist and Nobel Prize recipient. A master storyteller, Richard shares his love for science and the joy of scientific discovery in this 50-minute candid interview produced by the BBC and PBS.
   
   
10. Earth 100 Million Years From Now - Worried about climate change and tectonic shifts? This video shows how today's continents are thought to have evolved over the last 600 million years, and where they'll end up in the next 100 million years, in about three minutes.

And a bonus:

Want to brush up on your biology, chemistry or ecology but don’t have a lot of time? You’ll want to check out the Crash Course YouTube Channel by brothers Hank and John Green. Since the channel’s launch in December 2011, their videos have garnered over 24 million views. Their episodes have been used in classrooms across the world. This episode is called Precipitation Reactions.

Photo credits:
Headline: Dudu.Maroja via photopin; cc
Front page carousel: OnFoot4now (Didi) via photopin; cc

Working with post-secondary institutions to modernize their paper-based systems

Since 2009, BCcampus has been working on a three-phased electronic transcript exchange pilot program with six lower mainland post-secondary institutions on developing, testing and standardizing this new e-transcript system. Other jurisdictions, like the United States, have implemented an electronic transcript exchange program.

UBC comes on board in April  

This month, the University of British Columbia sent its first e-transcript transaction, using the BCcampus Connector System. The second phase of the program will see the transcript exchange service expand to Vancouver Island – with the third phase, expanding across the province.

For students, the adoption of a province-wide solution will mean:

• Faster and easier transcript request and delivery
• Reduced cost and time involved in printing and sending paper transcripts
• Ease of use for senders and recipients
• Ability to track transcript delivery
• Speed of transfer that no manual transcript process can match

For post-secondary institutions, the adoption of a province-wide solution will mean:

• Reduced costs for paper, postage, and labour.
• Improved sustainability – using less paper results in less recycling, less filing, less shredding.
• Easier access to student records for a faster, more stream-lined approach
• Increased customer service to students

For further reading:

More on Transcript Exchange Service Lift Off

Transcript Exchange Pilot Program

photo credit: ulianne; via photopin; cc

An honorarium of $250 will be provided to individuals who review one of the 10 open textbooks, which have been created by faculty from around North America and have been released under Creative Commons licenses which allow for reuse and modifications.

Details on how you can be an open textbook reviewer are available on the Phase 1 Call for Proposals page. The call closes on May 24th, 2013.

The in-person meetings helped to highlight similarities between the various science lab programs but also articulate the best practices and methodologies emerging within this specialized pedagogic community.

For post-secondary students enrolled in NANSLO consortium online courses in either physics, biology of chemistry, remote science labs offer the opportunity to perform scientific experiments and test legitimate hypotheses using top-of-the-line, high-powered, modern instruments that are, typically, only available in privately-funded research facilities. These students use computers for their inquiry, data acquisition, analysis and communication.

But it’s not just post-secondary students who gain valuable, hands-on experience, using advanced scientific instrumentation. Through the BC-Integrated Laboratory Network, younger scientists (high-school students) are able to perform scientific experiments like CIA – Chemicals in Action: Atomic Absorption Spectrometry or Do the Paint Samples Match.

In part, these live demonstrations and experiments are meant to bring meaningful scientific experimentation to remote areas of the province where this type of experience would otherwise be impossible. But, more importantly, these labs are all about:

• Igniting passions in tomorrow’s generation of physicists, chemists and engineers.
• Increasing access and deconstructing our strongly held, pervasive assumption that science is an elite, urban discipline.
• And, changing the face of science education using technology.

A recent article in the Huffington Post, written by 17-year-old Catherine Wong, a finalist in the 2013 Intel Science Talent Search, captures the “Whoa” moment of discovery for science students:

I fell in love with engineering through research: science framed as playing, breakable and touchable and real. Within the classroom, it can be easy to get trapped in the details. Indeed, it is just these pieces -- the facts and equations -- that lie at the heart of science, form the baseline on which everything new can be built. But there is something else at the heart of science, too. Classroom science may be science, yes, but what draws scientists back to the lab for another day is the real thrill in experimentation without pre-written answers -- building what has never been built, science where there is always the giddy chance, however improbable, that the next result might just rock the world.

MAKING CONNECTIONS FOR THE REAL WORLD

The two-day session reinforced the need for the RWSL instructor community to share their signature pedagogy with peers. Doing so will help these courses gain acceptance in the broader science community and help drive, not only enrollment, but spur the expansion of course offerings across the province. Colleagues also committed to sharing learning outcomes and experiments with the goal of validating the pedagogy.

A key action item included making the connection with industry and employers to ensure that science graduates have the skills and critical thinking necessary for the real world.

For further reading:

Just Beyond the Textbook: Why the Best Classroom Labs Are Real Labs

photo credit: only alice via photopin; cc

The summit brought together participants from Alberta, BC, California, DC, Minnesota, Ontario, Rhode Island, South Africa, Texas, Utah and Washington.  All the open textbook project leaders from North America were in attendance, along with the Siyavula project from South Africa. Student leaders from both Canadian and US organizations were prominent in the lively and productive discussions that were expertly facilitated by Paul Stacey of Creative Commons (CC).  Cable Green, CC’s Director of Global Learning kept us focused on outcomes throughout the discussions.

Summit participants represented:

• Alberta Enterprise & Advanced Education
• BC Ministry of Advanced Education, Innovation and Technology (AEIT)
• BCcampus
• Canadian Alliance of Student Associations
• Creative Commons 
• eCampusAlberta
• LumenLearning (virtually)
• Open Course Library
• Open Courseware Consortium
• OpenStax College
• Right to Research Coalition - SPARC
• Student Public Interest Research Groups
• Siyavula
• Twenty Million Minds Foundation
• University of Minnesota

From the discussions, it was clear there is a willingness to partner and support one another, as well as the potential for the creation of a "Federation" of open courseware and textbook projects to insure that we get broad coverage of subjects, and minimize duplication of effort.

The other welcome outcome from the summit was the potential to use a common technical platform for authoring, remixing, storage, publishing and distribution.  This will be big news when we have more to show and tell.

Our BCcampus team was congratulated by the summit participants for the process it has used to build towards an open textbook program for British Columbia. We are seen as part of a leadership network of open projects in North America. We in turn very much value the collaborative spirit of the emerging federation and the willingness of participants to share open models, policies and practices.

For further reading:

• Paul Stacey's follow-up post about the summit on the Creative Commons blog
• Notes of our conversations during the summit (on Google Docs)

What spurred the JIBC to explore opportunities for mobile learning?

It began in our Emergency Management Division where there was already some great innovation and forward-thinking about how mobile devices can make it easier for both students and people in the field to do their jobs.  A conversation about providing just-in-time information for Emergency Managers in the field on a tablet or smartphone versus a stack of binders led to the development of the first JIBC app, the Incident Command System/Incident Management System (ICS/IMS) multimedia glossary.  Existing content and media was repurposed and developed into this app, filling a gap in Canadian ICS context. 

What are some of the advantages of mobile learning? Are there also limits?

For the JIBC, mobile learning isn’t a classroom tool so much as a tool that is taken and used authentically within a workplace or training context outside of the traditional classroom.  Increasingly, when we look at our training we ask ourselves first “is this a desktop context or a mobile context?”  If it’s the latter, the design thinking changes and leads us down a different path. 

The advantage with mobile learning is it allows for just-in-time information, tools, and learning opportunities in the field.  The limits have more to do with development and distribution of what is created for mobile learning and managing all of these considerations.

Is mobile technology a complement to online learning, or does it standalone?

It can be both; we see it more as a complement to “in the field” learning than to online learning.  Mobile learning can certainly standalone if you are considering it as part of a broader learning context that may include face to face interactions, online education, and in the field learning.  But in our view, it doesn’t standalone in the same way that a three credit online course stands alone. 

Is there a concern that mobile technology will eventually make textbooks and courses obsolete?

Not at all. We see it as a converging or complementary relationship to other forms of learning.

How does a post-secondary institution go about developing an “app”?

I’m not sure we’ve figured out the best way to do that yet, but we are getting better! Generally, these are the steps we take:

1. Consider whether you are designing for a desktop or a mobile learning context.
2. Map out the concept, purpose, audience and educational value.
3. Identify the app developer.
4. Establish the business model you will be using (eg. paid app, free app, both).  If you decide on a paid app, get your finance people involved as soon as possible so they can take care of necessary financial set up details.  Firming up these details takes time.
5. Gather resources and create a storyboard.  Online storyboarding tools will help with communicating your design to the developer and save on meeting time.
6. Work with developer on format, design, and content decisions.  Important things to establish at this stage are localization and designing for easy updating and editing.
7. Identify logo/branding, identify name, keywords, identify terms of use
8. Get it in to the App store.
9. Establish a review and maintenance schedule.

Photo credit: Dennis Yip

We invite you to join us as we participate in discussions about thoughtful integration of technology into education; innovative approaches to teaching, learning, and professional development; use of open content and awareness of digital copyright issues; and plans, projects and predictions for the future!

In addition, there will be a Pub Night on Wednesday, June 5 at 5:30 pm.

For registration and more details, see the ETUG workshop page.

The idea originated with Emma Irwin, a senior systems analyst and web developer at Royal Roads University. But its roots go back to a project started in 2007 by Mary Burgess before she joined BCcampus.

Drawing on her Master of Educational Technology studies at UBC, Burgess advocated open practices to instructors and other stakeholders at Royal Roads, then used a grant from BCcampus to pioneer the university’s first collection of open educational resources. These early resources “put a face on the whole aspect of sharing for the university,” says Irwin.

Expanding the vision

A self-avowed “big open advocate,” Irwin took the project to another level after attending a Drupal conference last year and learning about the work of Open.Michigan. Galvanized by the extent of research, code, and resources being shared, she developed a bigger picture vision of open that ultimately led Royal Roads to create a GitHub repository for Moodle and Drupal code sharing.

By sharing code, the university is giving back to the open source community in return for adopting open software to support its operations. 

Open by doing, not by talking

“The launch opened it up as a whole bucket of resources that includes OER, code, and other things from faculty,” Irwin told BCcampus. “It got people thinking about how universities can better participate in higher education and about the role of open in their practices.” About Moodle, she says: “We can make better software this way because universities are sharing their work and helping improve it.”

From tweets of recognition and support to requests for resources, reaction to the launch was immediate. Within the university, there is a sense of excitement that they are on the right track in sharing ideas and collaborating with other universities. Outside the university, Irwin sees interest building and adoption rates climbing.

Reaping the benefits

Open RRU is benefiting not only code developers in the open source community, but higher education in general. Licensing is an important piece of the puzzle. All materials are shared with a Creative Commons license, which means educators can tweak them and ensure they are contextually relevant. 

Above all, open resources benefit “the person we’re all working for, the learner,” says Irwin. This includes not only current students, but also prospective students and autonomous learners around the world.

As the university progresses along an open learning curve, Irwin sees continuous growth in code sharing, a catalogue of OER, and in the long-term, institutions helping each other to become more efficient.

Notable quote:

“The launch of Open RRU was really amazing. There was immediate feedback, for example, on Twitter, that Open Royal Roads was open by doing, not by talking about it, and that more universities should be open and collaborating. It was great confirmation about what we’re doing.” - Emma Irwin, Senior Systems Analyst and Web Developer at Royal Roads University

One of our key partners is Lambda Solutions, a B.C.-based company that specializes in Managed Hosting services for Moodle. Lambda’s mission is “to provide cost effective, quality e-Learning solutions that are easily deployed in organizations, large and small.” For the past four years, BCcampus has been working closely with Lambda on our Moodle shared service. As an official Moodle partner, Lambda helps us analyze, develop, design, deploy and support Moodle in a variety of ways including:

• Installation of Moodle and various plug-ins;
• Training for faculty, course creators, and administrators;
• Integration of existing systems based on the needs of the organization, such as Banner, Mahara, etc;
• Assistance in moving from Moodle 1.9 to Moodle 2.x;
• Working closely with institutions in developing themes and course templates;
• Hosting of Moodle installations in partnership with BCcampus through Simon Fraser University (SFU).

Thanks to this unique partnership, any B.C. post secondary institution can access Lambda as a dedicated Moodle service provider through BCcampus Shared Services. Currently, 11 B.C. institutions have various Moodle instances supported by Lambda Solutions. Lambda considers BCcampus a trailblazer in the implementation of our shared services model.

“Several years ago, BCcampus and Lambda launched this initiative as a pilot project with only two participating schools,” recalls Lambda Solutions CEO, Shevy Levy. “Today, we’ve not only expanded that number considerably; we’re also making inroads with other jurisdictions who’ve heard about our success with the BCcampus shared services model and want to explore opportunities of their own.”

While the costs savings associated with the BCcampus shared services model are significant, our partnership with Lambda isn’t just about saving money – there are other benefits. Pooling resources and expertise creates a type of support network. For example, participating institutions can join Lambda-led professional development workshops, access ongoing technical support, and share best-practices in using Moodle. This network minimizes the learning curve for all and helps institutions adopt Moodle as the e-learning solution of choice.

“BCcampus is an enthusiastic supporter of the shared services model,” says Lawrence Parisotto, BCcampus director for shared services. “Our collaboration with Lambda is an excellent example of a forward-thinking solution for acquiring, hosting, and supporting an important post-secondary teaching tool – we couldn’t be more pleased by how well this initiative has been embraced.”