OER Synthesis and Evaluation / Release Practice Change
  • If you are citizen of an European Union member nation, you may not use this service unless you are at least 16 years old.

  • You already know Dokkio is an AI-powered assistant to organize & manage your digital files & messages. Very soon, Dokkio will support Outlook as well as One Drive. Check it out today!

View
 

Release Practice Change

Page history last edited by Lou McGill 12 years, 5 months ago

This page is part of Phase2 Release strand synthesis

 

Here we focus on how practices are changing due to engagement with the development, release and use of OERs. We asked projects to highlight where these changes are happening and how they are supporting staff to do so. What is it about open resources that encourages and/or facilitates practice change - is this different to learning resources which are not open. This includes practice of teaching staff as well as professional/support staff and that of senior/strategic managers. It also relates to how institutional or organisational practice changes - related also to policy and strategic change. see also Release Institutional Issues

 

One issue to emerge is that the terminology around OERs in not universally relevant/recognisable and that we may be asking people the wrong questions. Some projects have adopted different terminology to improve engagement and remove some barriers around language - e.g. sharing (PORSCHE). This also relates to the iceberg analogy discussed in the TALL study into OER: The value of reuse in education, which illustrates a lot of sharing and reuse happening under the radar as part of existing academic practice.

 

This section draws together what projects have said and is in mainly in their own words. These findings have been synthesised across into the main report findings pages. Coloured excerpts are from project final reports or evaluation reports - bold emphasis is mine (LM) to highlight key points  Learning from WOeRK (Learning from WOeRK final report) | SWAP (SWAP Final report) |  TIGER (TIGER Final Report) | DHOER (DHOER Final report) | SCOOTER (SCOOTER Final Project Report)  DeSTRESS (DeSTRESS Final Project Report) | SPACE SPACE final report | LEARNING LEGACIES (Learning Legacies Final Report) ALTO (ALTO Final Report)  | OSIER (OSIER Final Report) | ORBEE (ORBEE Final Report)    | PORSCHE (PORSCHE Final Report)

 

These links allow you to jump to specific sections of the page


 

What are the main Motivations and barriers for the release and use of OERs?

Projects identified similar issues to pilot phase projects. There seem to be three aspects to talk to:

  • motivation to engage with the concept of open or OERs
  •  to release OERs
  • motivation to use OERs  

In most cases motivations or intentions to engage with the concept of OER reflect percieved benefits. Many of the Release strand projects had previous experience from the pilot programme and motivation to engage was strongly evident from project teams and project partners. Gaining motivation from other stakeholders was achieved by explaining concepts, articulating benefits and demonstrating the potential to change learning and teaching practice. Altruistic intentions around sharing were seen to be a powerful driver, but the current economic climate was noted as an impetus by some projects as OERs were seen as offering potential efficiency measures. Institutionally, reducing duplication and showcasing taster learning materials to potential students continue to be strong motivators. Subject and sector communities identify OERs as having potential to enhance existing communities and building new networks. Increasingly projects have talked about the importance of broader activities around the OERs - the community networking, curriculum development and student engagement. Motivations are very diverse ranging from institutional, personal or community led. Projects often start with one or two main motivations but other emerge as individual preceptions and activities develop. See also Impacts and Benefits for this strand.

 

Motivation to engage with the concept of open or OERs with some benefits acting as strong motivators

 

  •  The nature, philosophy and principles of OER, and the features of Creative Commons licences, provide academics and students  with the ease of accessibility which is so important in the design of current learning environments, particularly as we move towards Personal Learning Environments in which the ability and capacity of the student to search for and access resources is critical. LEARNING LEGACIES
  • “.... very strongly identified with the project and the impact they believed it would have on learners. Some of the values expressed most strongly were: open access to HE; work based learning; entrepreneurship in HE; save resources that would otherwise be lost; research/teaching linkages and pedagogic research; enhancing the experience and independence of learner; enhancing the know-how of SMEs/enterprises in the SW; (leading to) better economic recovery”. (Interim Evaluation Report) Learning from WOeRK 
  • “For me it relates to some of the great educationalists like Dewey or Friere who had that motivation to make education freely available.”
  •  The project was being implemented during a tumultuous and uncertain time in the HE sector. Cuts in funding and increases in tuition fees have hit hard, particularly for institutions like UAL specialising in arts and humanities. The financial strain and anticipated further changes to our provision mean some staff were reluctant to engage in discussion regarding OER creation and reuse.  Despite this environment and reluctance by a minority, interest remained high amongst those whom the team contacted and many have engaged, agreeing to create and share their resources.  ALTO 
  • Engagement with OER at the UAL came to be seen as a powerful driver for learning and development, as the process of resource creation requires reflection on ones own teaching and professional practice. When done by many individuals across a department, college or university this should lead to broader cultural change.  In addition, as has been evident in other institutions aggressively undertaking OER creation, such collaboration and sharing with the external world helped to begin breaking down internal barriers by making them seem insignificant in the context opening up ones practice to the world.   ALTO

  • the project team engaged with the institutional context early by holding a benefits realisation workshop with key UAL stakeholders; this has resulted in a set of simple ‘statements of principle’, which provided a sound foundation for the project (http://blogs.arts.ac.uk/alto/about/). ALTO
  • The OER Programme has been effective at rapidly increasing awareness and interest in OERs and related practices amongst academics and institutions in the UK by providing funding opportunities. What is also striking from our perspective, is that this engagement with OERs is also highly effective at ‘surfacing’ soft issues like; local teaching cultures, learning design skills and IPR policy. We think that using OER engagement as a motor for cultural change in UK HE has real potential to help both academic staff and their support services to function effectively together in teams in order to offer greater flexible and blended learning opportunities to both domestic and international students. ALTO
  • However, motivations for engagement with this agenda were strong and widespread, with evidence from audio and video transcripts and event feedback. Motivations included: altruism and professional pride; zeitgeist; previous positive experiences of sharing; efficiencies of content production; and funding constraints. PORSCHE evaluation report 

 

Motivation to release OERs (anticipated benefits)

Desire to release high quality content in their subject area and passion for their subject - notion of public value. 

  • “I feel really committed to the fact that modules around WBL need to be wholly accessible to everybody in the workplace. That might be people doing night duty, not able to access college, people in other countries who don't have the funds to access opportunities.”
  • “Key for me was that it should work for people in the workplace.”

Notion of Legacy (interesting that legacy has emerged during phase 2 - as organisations involved are being disbanded/cut and people fear loss of knowledge)

  • “I was involved last year in some legacy projects, writing open learning resources for local authorities in areas where they were all going to be disbanded... all those staff are about to lose their jobs so it was about capturing their expertise.”
  • “This is how we have got the social research people in – they know their subject area is under threat and they have to move towards flexible CPD based learning. So there is a lot of self-interest”
  • “Career development issues that were identified in the evaluation were to: establish a legacy of materials; have a record of teaching/learning ideas; access and make use of funding opportunities; (see the possibility of) some rewards for learning/teaching innovation.” (Learning from WOeRK OER developers) 
  • A growing and sustainable collection of learning resources and digital assets across both private and public spaces – constitutes a valuable form of institutional ‘memory’ ALTO

Personal development and career benefits

  • To gain experience of open content development; To learn/do action research in this area; To benefit from new ideas ('freshen up my own materials');  Personal interest and satisfaction  
  • “Academics involved are actually looking outside their own subject area and resources, and are aware of MIT Open Courseware and repositories in a way they weren’t. So that enables cultural change, that may mean at least some academics rather than constantly reinventing wheels will start to pull things down much more.” (Learning from WOeRK Academic Lead)

  • Becomes part of your portfolio of published work, as a teacher and as an art and design practitioner. Serves current students to support teaching and learning across the UAL  ALTO 

  • A showcase for individual students and staff at the UAL for promoting our work, networking and attracting new students ALTO

  • Support development of collaborative learning design skills by developing the staff skills base in course authoring and delivery ALTO
  • Freeing up time to concentrate on teaching rather than on the development and delivery of content. Reduce the repetitive parts of our work ALTO
  • Sharing experiences – a positive professional development activity that helps in reflecting on our practice, which also facilitates accountability and aids in continuous improvement. ALTO
  • Passing on subject knowledge and teaching expertise A driver for cultural change that can also help develop policy (e.g. IPR, Employment, CPD) ALTO

Networking and community building within institutions and outside these across sectors (sharing ideas)

  • Cascading expertise to others was mainly expressed as a value, particularly: enhancing the performance of small businesses; supporting other teachers; distilling 'how to do this' so others can avoid the pain. 
    • “We wanted people with the knowledge because that's the primary driver [for me], making the knowledge more openly available.”
    • “A culture where academics share their materials and get comments from peers around the world. To improve their work.”
    • “In the business school there are 250 lecturers – how do I know what that other person is doing? With this I can quickly find out, is there a possibility of collaborating, is there a possibility of using somebody else's knowledge?” (Learning from WOeRK OER developers)
  • A clear lesson from several SWAPBox workshops and from correspondence with colleagues is the ongoing need for face to face encouragement to use SWAPBox as well as online encouragement. SWAP
  • Some interviewees suggested that the lack of engagement could be related to the nature of the subjects ESD/GC themselves: “Unless people teach GC (Global Citizenship), they don’t see it as a priority;” and “many colleagues engage with ESD/GC [only] because they have to.” Another “had to go one-to-one and discuss the whole project with individuals” to get resources, and even then, found that colleagues were “very protective of academic work in this area and preferred not to give materials.” OSIER
  • Partners were already participants in several regional, national and transnational networks, so that there was the basis for a user community before the project started.  On the other hand, there was no uniform appreciation of the use and nature of OERs and little history of their use. OSIER
  • Despite the issues raised by interviewees in interesting the wider community in supplying resources, they reported that colleagues seemed to perceive benefits in using OERs in this area: “It is a waste of resources [for them] not to be open.” “I anticipate a lot of interest in the project because [there is] not a lot of resources out there for ESD.” Colleagues are “happy to share.”  Overall, 66% of respondents to the online survey either agreed or agreed strongly that OERs offer valuable support for training and CPD in teaching ESD and GC (the survey had 15 responses overall).” OSIER

  •  Encourage cross college/disciplinary collaboration by engendering a culture of openness, transparency and integrity ALTO

Institutional motivations - showcasing, student recruitment, efficiencies - (see also legacy above) 

  • A showcase for individual students and staff at the UAL for promoting our work, networking and attracting new students; Helps students making well-informed application choices by providing windows into the world of the UAL = better retention and satisfaction rates; Link with national and international communities of practice to create longer-term collaborations and partnerships ALTO 
  • Advances institutional recognition and reputation that builds a sense of shared identity and unity while enhancing the international public service reputation of the UAL ALTO
  • Making OERs available is a good way for institutions to fulfil part of their public service and outreach mission by making a growing quantity of learning resources available for public use. This also displays a willingness to collaborate and share resources that demonstrate HEIs are making good use of modern technology as well as providing a useful ‘shop window’ into the teaching and learning cultures of institutions.  It was striking that a number of times staff suggested that ‘OERs’ also fulfilled a ‘try before you buy’ function for prospective students to help them decide if they were selecting the right course of study ALTO
  • The project outputs are being tested with a user group of digital humanities students, tutors and practitioners and it is hoped that by allowing students to access high-quality teaching and learning resources prior to applying for a degree programme, the project will benefit not only UCL in terms of (home and overseas) recruitment and academic reputation, but will also be instrumental in consolidating the UK’s role as one of the leading research cultures in this field. DHOER

 

Motivations to use OERs

Evidence from projects appears to confirm the long held acknowledgement that teachers do use other people's content but do not necessarily consider IPR aspects and do not share them afterwards. The lack of awareness of OERs and IPR issues means this existing practice is under the radar, fraught with issues relating to quality - from issues around quality of resources being used, and also to the quality of the learning and teaching experience. So while Motivation to use OER is low - in practice the use other peoples resources is widespread. Both the Good Intentions report and the TALL study highlighted this and project experiences reflect this.

  • Informal discussion with various project partners confirms the impression that OER use within the sector has been very low, and awareness of availability and use of OERs is correspondingly low.  This contrasts with a culture in education of free resources use and sharing that is often outside the more formal environment of OERs.  The project has undoubtedly brought OERs to the attention of a wider community, but there is little evidence at present for a ‘step change’. OSIER
  • 71% of respondents to the survey reported that they were not making use of OERs in their teaching or staff development. OSIER
  • Most reported that prior to involvement in OSIER, they frequently downloaded and used third party material “from other websites, e.g. NGOs” in their teaching, but while they may have adapted the material for their own teaching context, they did not republish or share the material: “most people are users not sharers.” One participant admitted to a “good knowledge of the area and the issues, but not about the formality” [i.e. standards and metadata] of OERs. This idea of a formality to the use of OERs was echoed by other interviewees, who noted “we never considered IPR, metadata and things like that” [prior to working on OSIER].
  • For many projects like OSIER in UK OER 2, and most if not all projects in UK OER 1, there has been an emphasis on resource creation and distribution.  At the same time, the culture of OER use appears poorly developed across many sectors, in comparison with OER production and dissemination.  This does not contribute to a dynamically growing culture of OER use and re-purposing. Recommendation:  HEA/JISC should consider a greater shift of emphasis in future parts of the programme from OER availability to OER use, particularly by supporting research into both the stimuli for and barriers to OER use by individual users as well as institutions.  OSIER

Openness to changing practice

  • “There's something very interesting in breaking down the barrier that says 'if I haven't researched it or have my own notes on it, then I can't teach it.”  (Senior Manager) Learning from WOeRK

Time saving

  • People are increasingly pushed for time and are recognising that there is a lot of really good stuff out there on the web being shared under Creative Commons.  However, there is a paradox, with the short-term costs of building resource sharing capacity, and in the long term potentially reducing cost, being out of the reach of currently cash-strapped departments. PORSCHE evaluation report

 


Barriers to release and use

IPR issues, existing cultural practice and traditions, trust, quality and, to a lesser extent technological, challenges still present significant barriers. Time emerged as both a barrier (in terms of time needed to engage, learn, upskill and release existing content) but also as a possible benefit (saving time if people re-use OERs rather than developing their own). Lack of awareness emerged as a significant barrier and one of the key benefits of project activities has to be to continue awareness building and engagement across institutions and communities.

  • The main challenges faced by members of the team were around IPR, the production of quality on-line resources, making resources accessible and licensing content.  Learning from WOeRK
  • IPR considerations were largely overlooked in [NHS] education and training guidance and support…. The NHS has not kept up with or benefitted from the wider shift towards OER being led by the Higher Education sector. PORSCHE evaluation report
  • Above and beyond the initial barrier of awareness, other issues to sharing and re-use included the following: costing models and the desire to see returns on investment; technology and know-how; time for development; and the issues of clearing copyright and consent. PORSCHE evaluation report
  • Time is the usual barrier. Creating things of a standard where you are happy for them to go global will take more time to create than something of less polish. If resources are to be seen by lots of people you’ll want them to be very polished. If it is just for your students, you can do a more off-the-cuff, face-to-face, blended session. PORSCHE Evaluation Report

Lack of awareness identified by many projects as an initial barrier - usually addressed by extolling the benefits and community building, practice embedding

  • It was striking that, during our evaluation process, when we asked respondents about any suggestions, concerns or questions they had about the resource as an open educational resource as opposed to any other kind of resource, many admitted that they did not have a full understanding of the implications. The following was typical of responses: “To be honest, I’m not really sure what it means in practice. I understand it’s free, and available to everyone, but not what that means about what I could or couldn’t use it for etc.” (HE stakeholder) SPACE
  • Finally, in thinking about the development of OERs more generally, we can conclude that levels of awareness of what an OER is (and isn’t) amongst teachers, lecturers and students are relatively poor. In addition, awareness of Jorum Open and its role as a repository was very low. The implication of this is that they won’t always understand the possibilities and limitations of working with OERs, and that OERs will therefore not be re-used and re-purposed to the extent that they might otherwise be. SPACE
  • there is still much work to be undertaken across the academic community to communicate the OER message; indeed, many academic and support staff are not really aware of developments in OER in recent year. LEARNING LEGACIES.  
  • The Economics Network’s lecturer survey revealed that, while some constituents seek out and remix open content, about half are unfamiliar with the basic concepts of OER. This demonstrates that we need to make it a priority not just to promote the resources arising from OER projects but the working practices that drive them. This will be the emphasis of the next phase of DeSTRESS dissemination, with the project’s resources used as examples of a broader revolution in educational resources. DeSTRESS 
  • The first barrier to engagement with the OER agenda, both in terms of OER release and re-use and irrespective of discipline, is one of awareness. PORSCHE

I think a lot of academics are still oblivious to the copyright legislation and think “I can still Googlesearch something and use that image” and aren’t aware of it. 

Lack of reward and recognition opportunities 

  • A lack of serious career enhancement through learning and teaching innovation was recognised by two senior staff as hindering wider investment in the skills and practices of OER release.

“Some people really see themselves as part of a community of academics who are building and sharing, and some people don't. We're not going to crack the people who don't want to share and play, but for the people who have that ethos we need to meet their needs.”

“There is no disincentive [to releasing OER] but it might take a while for it to be recognised. But that's just because it's hard to get anything to do with teaching recognised.” (Learning from WOeRK Academic Leads)

Difficulty in making existing content open

  • The major issues typically relate to resources that have been developed for classroom use.  These may have been prepared without full regard to copyright issues in particular, because as a classroom presentation the resource does not have the same ‘sensitivity’ as freely-licensed online content. It is often hard to modify existing resources retrospectively.  However, it would make the release of OERs a great deal easier if new resources were developed to OER standards.  This in turn would imply a widespread understanding not only of good practice in OER resource design, but the underlying reasons for these. OSIER 

Sector or subject discipline specific barriers

  • There were a number of issues highlighted that are of significant importance to healthcare education and practice in particular, including the specific issue of patient consent for healthcare professions, ‘life and death’ reliability and dealing with a culture of ‘closed systems’. This latter ‘cultural’ issue was highlighted not only in practice situations (eg the NHS), but also within HE institutions, despite the ideas of collaboration and sharing seeming to be better established.

However, it was acknowledged by some that this culture may be changing:  In our profession until quite recently everything was quite secret. Things seem to have changed and that’s not the way I work. If someone asks me for my communication skills materials, I say yes, and can I have yours too! PORSCHE

Lack of capacity

  • A significant number of respondents (interviews/feedback forms) acknowledged that staff and student digital capabilities were a significant issue in terms of developing the open release agenda. PORSCHE Evaluation report 
  • there is an important set of knowledge and skills required to support those developing OER, especially in relation to IPR, which the team were able to develop, drawing on central support teams when needed. Learning from WOeRK

What mechanisms support effective stakeholder engagement for the subject discipline/theme?

Practice change has been supported by a range of approaches - from strategic level input to sustainable approaches to support change in content and curriculum development.

Strategic level input

  • The involvement of curriculum staff and a pedagogy steering group also kept the resource on track:

“We’ve worked closely with the curriculum staff, and had regular strategic input from them. The pedagogy steering committee was also helpful in this respect.” (Project team member)

“It is important to make it a resource that students share.” (National Skills Academy)   SPACE

Feedback and review

  • The team have focussed on a few additional aspects of resource development during the DeSTRESS project including more extensive feedback from stakeholders which has been critical in the shaping and development stages of the project. The team have also looked more carefully at the development of links between the resources from the initial stages of development which saved time and effort when the resources were consolidated in the final month. DeSTRESS

Incentives

  • a flexible approach to engaging content developers. It was agreed that a set amount would be allocated (£2000 per 10 credit module), but that developers could be engaged through part-time contracts, as freelance consultants, or in the case of full-time staff, could be paid an honorarium, or additional hours for their work.   Learning from WOeRK

  • Full-time academic staff seemed to find it difficult to deliver content within the agreed timescales, with conflicting workload commitments and priorities. Those that might be best positioned to produce the content because of experience and expertise in most cases appeared least able to do so.  The most effective arrangement appeared to be with highly experienced external consultants or part-time staff working closely with an academic lead who maintained oversight of their work.  Without these team members, the project would not have been able to achieve its target number of assetsLearning from WOeRK 

Workshops, advice and guidance

  • Other colleagues are unclear about their institutional policies in relation to sharing and disseminating learning and teaching materials that they use as part of their practice. Events that explore concerns, outline legal responsibilities and train colleagues to produce materials they feel confident in sharing with their peers could potentially encourage greater distribution of OERS. (Partner progress report, 2011). SWAP

Networks and existing contacts

  • Existing contacts and networks were used extensively in the early part of the project to gain insights on interest and knowledge of OER engagement. This proved reasonably effective and the interest and awareness in ALTO became quite widespread with the head of Chelsea College pledging support and the CCW Graduate School (comprising half of the UAL colleges) aiming to publish content in ALTO. The ‘formal’ internal dissemination was left until quite late in the project when the software systems were in place and we would have something to show to people.  ALTO

Through student engagement

  • we decided that a good way to reach the staff might be through their students. In September of 2011 the project announced a competition for students to create work in any media or format to interpret the message of ALTO, with 3 prizes of £1000 each, judged by a prestigious jury. The competition is running from the early autumn until November 2011 when results would be announced. This style of competition format is commonly employed at the UAL often with the support of external sponsors and usually results in widespread interest and involvement. Students become involved and the competition brief becomes part of their practice-based work and is therefore discussed with staff. ALTO

How has OER release affected practice?

Collaborative practice has emerged as important and cross disciplinary approaches are really having an impact at an institutional level. Engaging with partners outside the academic sector has been challenging but has encouraged new partnerships and levels of understanding. Also of importance was the notion of reflective practitioners as engagement with OER release stimulated reconsideration of existing content development practices and particularly focussing on how  learning resources might be used in different contexts. Instead of developing resources for one (face to face context) staff began to consider different potential users and how to present materials in different ways for different contexts. Remote learners was a significant group for the Release strand as many projects were producing materials for non-traditional students.

  • Emerging practices that are challenging existing organisational systems include:
    • bringing together collaborative teams from across disciplines and across different modes of employment (i.e. full-time, part-time and consultancy staff)
    • beginning to involve employers as co-developers of learning opportunities
    • designing for learners with different (sometimes unknown) learning styles and resources, capabilities, and support
    • creating resources that are discoverable and accessible, in technical terms, from a wide variety of locations, platforms and interfaces
    • creating resources that are openly licensed, but of high value and quality
    • developing new business models, for example around free provision of content with paid-for services such as adapting content for specific settings and providing pedagogic support. Learning from WOeRK
  • Involving users (both teachers and students) in the development of the resource has been a critical element of the process. It has ensured curriculum relevance and resource useability (as evidenced above), raised awareness of the resource and increased the likelihood of its use going forward.

“I have learned a number of processes from the design workshop, we have done some of it but not all because of time frames. I would change how to write libraries and programming and would start from the beginning again. The way we approach things has changed – in terms of timescales and things – I have definitely learned some things. It has definitely changed the way I work and measure time, and how I structure my work. I think I have changed the process of the way I approach clients too.” (Project team member)

 “Well I think I have learned a lot. The resource is something that we could potentially re-use…we could use the methodology, extend the resource and re-purpose it, re-use assets, take the methodology to others and share with them. We need to learn from our mistakes.” (Project team member) SPACE 

  • There may also be a question about the extent to which lecturers will feel that this material can offer an enhancement to their teaching consistent with their own approach. Evidence from previous projects is that the more granular and less scaffolded material (e.g assessment questions) will be most popular in this respect, particular for more experienced lecturers.  DeSTRESS
  • One of the main aims of PORSCHE was to showcase OER in healthcare education in clinical and academic contexts. This aim was achieved to a limited extent due issues outside of the project team’s control. However, evidence from interviews show changes in content production practice within both HE and academic contexts. PORSCHE Evaluation Report
  • All interviewees, whether telephone, video, through event feedback forms or via the online survey, described learning something from their encounters with the PORSCHE project, most commonly with respect to the issues of copyright and consent. Those interviewees who were familiar with the OER agenda also felt that their commitment to sharing was reinforced through contact with the project.  PORSCHE Evaluation Report
  • The project met its aim to raise awareness of consent issues to a significant degree, with those interviewed indicating that they felt far more aware of consent issues, that policy change was required and acknowledging that this was a long-term goal within both cultures. Retrospectively clearing consent was seen to be prohibitive.

The consent commons is just too big an issue for us to tackle at this time… having a consent commons policy in place would require a lot of work to set up, and to manage that, and perhaps retrospectively go back to all our images and video content and apply it.

  • Slightly more participants mentioned the use of third party content compared to the development and release of openly available content. This in particular included the use of medical images and videos, for example from Youtube.
  • Participants in the interviews, workshops and at the e-learning in Health conference all identified a clear benefit in sharing practice and process with others, and having the opportunity to reflect on practice in their own context.
  •  However, interviews and feedback responses did highlight the fact (a potential barrier to engagement, see above) that moving from ignorance about, for example, copyright or consent issues to awareness can be accompanied by fear and that this needs to be carefully managed by those working to engage colleagues with this agenda.

 It was very scary to hear all the checks that need to be done, and you start to think ‘what’s the point?’ People might well be put off producing content at all, when we actually want more people to be doing this.

  • Many of those people reached and encouraged by the project are already change agents in their own organisation and therefore key to further practice change. The project’s online survey showed that PORSCHE workshop attendees had a greater adoption of good practice behaviours compared to non-attendees. There was also evidence that workshop attendees might be more critical of their institutional practices relating to open sharing (see project Final Report Appendix 11 for further information).
  • All interviewees had cascaded their learning to others, whether it be to immediate colleagues, or to a wider audience. A number were hoping to organise larger events to disseminate what they had learnt, whilst others were developing resources based on ideas taken from their engagement with PORSCHE: and that would be accessible to large numbers of staff. The PORSCHE project’s initial findings through their ‘behavioural dissemination’ model has extrapolated a potential reach of over 1500 novel individuals from an initial group of 115 (estimated) disseminators (see project Final Report Appendix 12 for further information), but there is potential for the spread to be much greater.
  • Specific project materials that had been actively used and embedded within participants’ own contexts were: model consent forms; the Risk-kit Toolkit; the Medivac Toolkit; and project workflows. There was also evidence of the project successfully embedding ‘best of’ OER resources from other developers/projects.
  • There was a perception from some interviewees that project communications were orientated towards HE and needed to be simplified for those in the NHS. PORSCHE Evaluation Report 

 

om new ideas ('freshen up my own materials')

 Personal interest and satisfaction

“Having seen what [x] and [y] have produced I'm going back t

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Comments (0)

You don't have permission to comment on this page.