OER Synthesis and Evaluation / Cascade: differences between HE and FE
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Cascade: differences between HE and FE

Page history last edited by Helen Beetham 12 years, 5 months ago

Under barriers and motives for OER release we have noted that some barriers appear to be particularly relevant for FE colleges, or manifest in particular ways in that sector. OERCafe noted that three of the most significant were:

- OER not being separately resourced as a topic for staff development (though it can be incorporated into general training around e.g. use of the VLE)

- lack of time to explore existing resources, to re-purpose, to develop new resources, to make existing resources open;

- lack of technical support for VLE development, which is increasingly likely to be an open source platform such as Moodle, DSpace, Google Apps: 'such systems normally rely on in-house IT development capabilities which are unlikely to be available to colleges... In particular, colleges are unlikely to have the resources to implement a dedicated repository system. Colleges are, therefore, much more likely to rely on external repository systems such as JorumOpen to manage their OERs'.

 

However, Ripple noted that because their FE partner had no history of uploading materials to Jorum, it was helpful to develop an intermediate stage in the process, with release to a limited-access collection of land-use materials followed by automated transfer to Jorum. This ties in with findings from UK OER stage 1 that intermediate steps towards open access 'in the wild' are often essential, and that a subject-based turnstile system in which trust is built within a relatively small community of users is often the most effective. Either way, it seems that FE colleges lag behind HEIs in developing the technical expertise and person-power for repository management and routine upload to external repositories.

 

Without ignoring the differences between colleges in the FE sector, which are often significant, there seem to be some general cultural differences between HE and FE providers. The C-SAP online presentation on OER development in the HE in FE context summarises some of the inhibiting factors in FE culture as:

- High teaching workloads and little time to engage in research

- Lack of flexibility in terms of curriculum, prescriptive nature of learning outcomes etc.

- Issues around professional identity – caught in between two distinct cultures of HE and FE

To these, the OERCafe final report adds:

- lack of confidence, arising from many factors (explored in more detail below)

- higher teaching workload, and less time available to develop specialist teaching materials for HE students.

 

The same two projects also note distinctive contributions that FE culture can bring to the OER endavour. From C-SAP:

- High level of pastoral support for students

- Emphasis on teaching and student satisfaction

- Greater link between teaching and research

And from OERCafe:

- Greater willingness to take account of OER generation in development and performance review

- opportunities to develop open resources in specific subject areas e.g. 'where course populations are low and delivery costs are high (for example horticulture, beauty therapy, some health-related courses)'

 

The OERCafe project found a lack of confidence among FE lecturers in the value and originality of their materials. At the interim programme meeting it was speculated that for HE lecturers, the internal model of a shared resource is a ppt they would produce for a research conference: not as highly polished as a paper but confidently and fairly routinely produced for sharing with colleagues. For FE lecturers however the internal model is more like the centrally-produced learning and teaching materials championed by Becta - nationally recognised and quality assured, professionally produced. This does not lend itself to routine production and distribution. Additionally, HE teachers in FE colleges rarely see themselves as owning the curriculum. For them, HE work can be a minor element of their teaching workload and professional identity.

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