Patrick Mcandrew

• PhD
• Professor at The Open University

Massive open online courses (MOOCs) are widely available and have become a common option for learners. However, their full potential cannot be realised if they are not accessible to all learners, including those with disabilities. It is, therefore, important to understand the different stakeholders and their requirements and perspectives in designi...

This paper reports the design of a four-component audit to evaluate the accessibility of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). The MOOC accessibility audit was designed as part of a research programme at The Open University (UK) that aimed to assess the current state of accessibility of MOOC platforms and resources, to uncover accessibility barriers...

New forms of data, data visualisation and human interaction with data are changing radically and rapidly. As a result, what it means to be data literate is also changing. In the big data era, people should not simply be passive recipients of data-based reports. They need to become active data explorers who can plan for, acquire, manage, analyse, an...

This series of reports explores new forms of teaching, learning, and assessment for an interactive world, to guide teachers and policy makers in productive innovation. This seventh report proposes ten innovations that are already in currency but have not yet had a profound influence on education. To produce the report, a group of academics at the I...

In this paper we consider the role of sharing evidence online in work in progress to develop a new teaching framework for distance and part-time students of The Open University. The work reported here looks at the motivation for applying evidence and how it can act to support the development of the framework, rather than the framework itself. The a...

This series of reports explores new forms of teaching, learning and assessment for an interactive world, to guide teachers and policy makers in productive innovation. This sixth report proposes ten innovations that are already in currency but have not yet had a profound influence on education. To produce it, a group of academics at the Institute of...

An effective open eLearning environment should consider the target learner's abilities, learning goals, where learning takes place, and which specific device(s) the learner uses. MOOC platforms struggle to take these factors into account and typically are not accessible, inhibiting access to environments that are intended to be open to all. A serie...

The outcome from the research being reported in this paper is the design of an accessibility audit to evaluate Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) for accessibility and to arrive at solutions and adaptations that can meet user needs. This accessibility audit includes expert-based heuristic evaluations and user-based evaluations of the MOOC platform...

Massive Online Open Courses (MOOCs) are making low cost learning opportunities available at large scale to diverse groups of learners. For that reason, MOOCs need to be accessible so that they can offer flexibility of learning and benefits to all. In order to direct efforts towards developing accessible MOOCs, it is important to understand the curr...

Editors' Commentary As advocates for OER describe its transformative potential, it is critical that these claims are scrutinized using empirical methods. In this chapter, the authors— all of whom are affiliated with the OER Research Hub at the Open University— provide an overview of their team's research on three types of OER users: informal learne...

The development of online distance learning and the early years of the recent MOOC phenomenon leads to a mix of lessons from experience and emergent findings from studies in new contexts that require further reflection and research. Seven issues are identified from this combination each of which require attention to allow evidence-based practice in...

The outcome from the research being reported in this paper is the design of an accessibility audit to evaluate Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) for accessibility and to arrive at solutions and adaptations that can meet user needs. This accessibility audit includes expert-based heuristic evaluations and user-based evaluations of the MOOC platform...

Massive Online Open Courses (MOOCs) have become an accepted way to make learning opportunities available at large scale and with low cost to the learner. However, only if these are made accessible will they be able to offer flexibility of learning and benefits to all, irrespective of disability. Experience in providing accessible online learning at...

This series of reports explores new forms of teaching, learning and assessment for an interactive world, to guide teachers and policy makers in productive innovation. This fifth report proposes ten innovations that are already in currency but have not yet had a profound influence on education. To produce it, a group of academics at the Institute of...

This insightful collection of essays explores the ways in which open education can democratise access to education for all. It is a rich resource that offers both research and case studies to relate the application of open technologies and approaches in education settings around the world. Global in perspective, this book argues strongly for the va...

A series of reports on Innovating Pedagogy were launched in 2012 to look at the trends that show how practitioners may engage in innovation in pedagogy. This paper looks at the latest set of trends, and highlights four 2015 trends that seem particularly rich for researchers to explore in the next five years.

It has been suggested that open educational resources (OER) can lower cost and lead to greater flexibility, however while there has been significant investment in opening up content there have been few studies looking at how these resources are perceived by those who might use them. This quantitative article contributes to fill a gap in our knowled...

Accessibility focuses on supporting people with disabilities – such as those related to auditory, cognitive, neurological, physical, speech, and vision requirements. Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) are no longer a novelty and the technologies associated with them should cater to all users irrespective of their accessibility requirements. In thi...

The fourth in a series of reports explores new forms of teaching, learning and assessment for an interactive world, to guide teachers and policy makers in productive innovation.

The OER Research Hub has been investigating the impact of OER, using eleven hypotheses, and a mixed methods approach to establish an evidence base. This paper explores the findings relating to teaching and learning. The findings reveal a set of direct impacts, including an increase in factors relating to student performance, increased reflection on...

The true power of comparative research around the impact and use of open educational resources is only just being realised, largely through the work done by the Hewlett‐funded OER Research Hub, based at The Open University (UK). Since late 2012, the project has used a combination of surveys, interviews and focus groups to gather data about the use...

The area of learning has a justifiable claim to be a special case in how it can be enhanced or supported by technology. In areas such as commerce and web design the aim is usually to ensure efficiency and support specific actions such as purchasing or accessing information as quickly and easily as possible. Working with technology for the purpose o...

The design of learning materials and researching their efficacy involves the application of both theoretical learning principles and ways of working or practices to move towards evidence based improvement. This paper abstracts 4 categories from our on-going work of educational technology research which we have found to be important in considering w...

Aim. This article presents a model of how gaming involvement and informal learning come together in practice. Method. Based on a series of interviews, case studies, and a wider survey, the Gaming Involvement and Informal Learning (GIIL) framework indicates how involvement with a variety of gaming practices can lead to a range of different learning...

Game developers have to ensure their games are appealing to, and playable by, a range of people. However, while there has been interest in the game-play experience, we know little about how learning relates to player involvement. This is despite challenge being an integral part of game play, providing players with potential opportunities to learn....

Education can be dramatically enhanced by social networks, a report from The Open University claims. The so-called ‘network effect’ comes from many thousands of people learning from each other, but it needs careful management to reach its full potential. The movement of education from the classroom and onto social networks is one of the key trends...

This paper discusses learning at scale from the perspective of two UK Universities engaging in technology enhanced learning. Three case studies are used to illustrate ways in which scale has been achieved. There is diversity in how scale is supported but also common factors. Openness and choice appear as enablers in all cases.

Support for nontraditional students, team-based quality control, and assessment design are critical.

The Open University has published the second in its influential series of Innovating Pedagogy reports that explore new forms of teaching, learning and assessment, to guide educators and policy makers. The 2013 report updates four previous areas of innovation and introduces six new ones: Crowd Learning, Learning from Gaming, Maker Culture, Geo-Learn...

Open courses have received a lot of attention in the last two years; however, the question of whether they serve learners has yet to be determined. This paper explores the challenges and potential in assessing the impact of open educational initiatives, particularly those that produce and share Open Educational Resources (OER). We use a collaborati...

Open Educational Resources (OER) – that is, teaching, learning and research materials that their owners make free to others to use, revise and share – offer a powerful means of expanding the reach and effectiveness of worldwide education. Those resources can be full courses, course materials, modules, textbooks, streaming videos, software, and othe...

In this paper we analyse the remixing and reuse of online learning materials offered as Open Educational Resources (OER). We explore the practices that developed as a set of course materials were released as OER from the UK, remixed for a US context by a cross-organisational, cross-cultural team, and then reused in a broad range of educational sett...

How can we reach more learners, more effectively, and with greater impact? Education changes lives and societies, but can we sustain the current model? New models and new technologies allow us to rethink many of the premises of education—location and time, credits and credentials, knowledge creation and sharing. Game Changers: Education and Informa...

Online resources for education offer opportunities for those with disabilities but also raise challenges on how to best adjust resources to accommodate accessibility. Automated reconfiguration could in principle remove the need for expensive and time-consuming discussions about adaptation. On the other hand, human-based systems provide much needed...

Normal 0 false false false EN-US JA X-NONE This issue focusses on a perspective article by Sir John Daniel. Sir John has a long history of involvement with the Open University, the UK home of JIME. Indeed as he points out in his biography (Daniel, 2012), he first visited the Institute of Educational Technology at The Open University back in 1972. T...

The Open Educational Resources (OER) movement has built up a record of experience and achievements since it was formed 10 years ago as an identifiable approach to sharing online learning materials. In its initial phase, much activity was driven by ideals and interest in finding new ways to release content, with less direct research and reflection o...

This new series of reports explores new forms of teaching, learning and assessment for an interactive world, to guide teachers and policy makers in productive innovation. The first report proposes ten innovations that are already in currency but have not yet had a profound influence on education. You can see a summary of each innovation at http://...

The availability of community building tools and open educational resources (OER) affords the creation of new and innovative learning spaces. However in much of the work on OER the focus has been on providing content, rather than on how tools can be used in conjunction with available content to create a shared space that could improve the impact of...

The release of free resources by the education sector has led to reconsideration of how the open approach implied by Open Educational Resources (OER) impacts on the educator and the learner. However this work has tended to consider the replication of standard campus based approaches and the characteristics of content that will encourage other insti...

The process of developing innovative mobile approaches to informal and formal learning is challenging, not least in needing to satisfy stakeholders with diverse interests in the technology, the pedagogy and the overall system. Some approaches to evaluation may focus on examining the nature and quality of learning that occurs, while other methods ma...

Open educational resources (OER) raise many similar issues for education to those that have surrounded Learning Objects (LO). However the greater use and availability of digital technologies and open licensing seems to be enabling OER to have wider acceptance into individual and institutional teaching practice. While the need for appropriate design...

Increased interest in more open approaches to learning, in particular Open Educational Resources is reflected in the programmes of international organisations, national initiatives and the actions of individual institutions. However, while some see OER as an indicator of the future of learning, others are much more sceptical and doubt their long-te...

Advances in Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) provide real opportunities for improving access, transfer and sharing of knowledge and information. One outcome from ICT is the Open Educational Resources (OER) movement, which expanded during the last decade. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) OpenCourseWare (OCW) initiative...

Open Educational Resources (OER) are available globally in many OER repositories. Since The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) (http://web.mit.edu/) OpenCourseWare (OCW) initiative began, seven years have elapsed. Therefore it is time to consider and evaluate what has worked, why and how we can maximise on the design and redesign of OER fo...

As the world becomes more open, universities have the opportunity to embrace openness in how they carry out their operations, teaching, and research. Open educational resources can provide the catalyst for different forms of learning, linking formal and informal aspects and splitting up the functions of content, support, assessment, and accreditati...

Recent advances in Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) enable educational and cultural institutions to rethink and experiment with their conduct of learning using digital social media and networking tools. Meanwhile, several well-known – yet distinct – initiatives within the OER world continue to purport a mission of education as a ‘p...

Designing effective CSCL processes is a complex task that can be supported by existing good practices formulated as pedagogical patterns. From a cultural historical activity theory (CHAT) perspective previous research has shown that patterns served as Mediating Artefacts (MA) helping practitioners to make informed decisions and choices, being much...

In this paper we will look at the cultural messages that are contained in OER in the context of the variety of material that is on offer and the diversity of those involved in the field. This will then lead to a case study of an organisation that has embraced the opportunities that are offered to discuss a succesfull experience of OER provision and...

This paper describes how digital talking books (DTBs) with embedded functionality for learners can be generated from content structured according to the OU OpenLearn schema. It includes examples showing how a software transformation developed from open source components can be used to remix OpenLearn content, and discusses issues concerning the gen...

Two small studies, one an eye-tracking study and the other a remote observation study, have been conducted to investigate ways to identify two kinds of online learner interactions: users flicking through the web pages in "browsing" action, and users engaging with the content of a page in "learning" action. The video data from four participants of t...

Open Educational Resources were initially seen as a way to exchange and exploit content. For example, the MIT OCW material can be adapted as a curriculum plan and set of resources for use in another institution. What has also emerged is that there is also direct use of the material by learners. OpenLearn has a configuration that more clearly reflec...

This chapter examines the nature of emergent trends in methods being used to develop and deliver e-learning programmes by higher educational institutions for a global market. As a starting point global e-learning programmes that have been involved in large-scale failure for economic reasons are analysed and the reasons behind their lack of success...

The web 2.0 practices of user participation and experimentation have created models for social networking that influence the way people communicate and interact online. This chapter describes an initiative, OLnet, that is creating a technical environment based on web 2.0 principles to support the sharing of experiences around the design and use of...

The adoption of Open Educational Resources (OER) within teaching practice is currently under researched. Although many OER are freely available worldwide, little is known about who is actually reusing OER [1] and [2], and how they are using them. The Open University's OpenLearn initiative has been very successful in attracting over three million vi...

Higher Education Institutions are encouraged to share their course materials for the benefit of academics and learners worldwide. Open Educational Resources (OER) are one approach to releasing stored learning materials from closed systems into open systems. An expectation of the approach is to find new learners but also to allow two-way exchange of...

This report takes the experience of OpenLearn over its two-years of operation to reflect on what it means to offer free resources and the issues that we have been able to explore and learn from. The structure of the document is: (1) The OpenLearn initiative - an overview (2) OpenLearn research methods (3) Designing for Open Content (4) Types of use...

Open Educational Resources (OER) give an openly available set of content and tools that in principle provide a basis for formal and informal communication and collaboration between groups of individuals around teaching and/or learning. In practice, most communication and collaboration around OER appears to be asynchronous, loosely connected and not...

In spite of high expectations and the support given by prestigious funding and educational institutions, Open Educational Resources (OER) have not been adopted widely by teachers and learners in practice. From a cultural historical activity theory perspective, we argue that Mediating Artefacts (MA) such as OER learning design visual representations...

http://oro.open.ac.uk/21131/1/olnet_workshop_abstract_final.pdf

Abstract There has been increasing interest in informal learning in recent years alongside interest in how such learning can be supported by technology. However, relatively little is known about the extent to which adults make use of their own mobile devices to support informal learning. In this study, a survey was used to investigate whether, and...

This special issue of the Journal of Interactive Media in Education (JIME) builds from selected papers from the OpenLearn2007 conference [1] where researchers were invited to report on their research across themes of software and tools, user experience, sustainability and the research agenda in open content in education. The papers published in thi...

Web 2.0 tools and social software are changing the way in which formal and informal learners expect to work with learning resources. In response, educational providers may open up access to existing courses by providing them as free to use Open Educational Resources (OERs). The OpenLearn initiative of The Open University established a "LearningSpac...

This research explores digital technologies such as a 'non-intrusive' eye-tracking device, remote desktop sharing tool, screen capture software, digital video cameras, webcams, etc., to find out whether integrated analysis of the data from these technologies can provide information of 'learning' interactions in the context of OpenLearn. The data fr...

Open educational resources are defined as technology-enabled educational resources that are openly available for consultation, use and adaptation by users for non-commercial purposes (UNESCO, 2002). OpenLearn is one of the largest of such initiatives and is committed to the provision of open educational resources for all. It is being developed by T...

Open Educational Resources (OERs) are freely available worldwide. Though sustainability (Downes, 2006) and production issues (Ferreira and Heap, 2006) have been discussed, more research is needed into how adopting OERs impacts on organisations. This paper will first report on how academics and teachers in ten institutions/organisations based nation...

The aim of the research discussed in this paper is to investigate what changes are required to internal procedures within organisations (institutions and other bodies (those not associated with educational establishments)) to enable them to adopt these standalone OERs as part of their curriculum and assessment strategy.

This paper looks at how the concept of reusability has gained currency in e-learning. Initial attention was focused on reuse of content, but recently attention has focused on reusable software tools and reusable activity structures. The former has led to the proposal of service-oriented architectures, and the latter has seen the development of the...

Informal evidence supports an argument that using mobile devices for informal learning can be motivating. This paper will consider evidence from the literature in one particular area of mobile learning – informal science learning and also present a brief study of how people use mobile devices in their informal learning. Finally it will briefly revi...

The article examines the nexus between higher education and IT, and discusses emergent trends in methods being used to develop and deliver e-learning programmes for a global market. Various design approaches that draw on learning objects, learning design, and learning patterns currently being used to produce more flexible online courses are analyse...

In this paper, we examine emerging ways to describe and structure learning material, learning tasks and learning situations. In particular, we consider three different approaches, looking at common issues and differences in emphasis. These approaches are: learning patterns, inspired by the architectural patterns of Alexander; learning design, as de...

This paper examines the contention that learning environments which use IMS Learning Designs can be created by plugging in different components, using generic service descriptions to create the interface between the Learning Design (LD) and the specific tools. There is an alternative viewpoint which claims that generic service descriptions cannot p...

Commentary on: Chapter 19: The Edubox Learning Design Player. (Tattersall, Vogten & Hermans, 2005) Abstract: The EduBox system as described in Tattersall, Vogten and Hermans (2005) was developed at the Open University of the Netherlands in order first to support the use of EML as a formal way to describe its courses, and then redeveloped to suppor...

This paper considers situations for which detailed metadata descriptions of learning resources are necessary, and focuses on human generation of such metadata. It describes a model which facilitates human production of good quality metadata by the development and use of structured vocabularies. Using examples, this model is applied to single and mu...

Drawing on evidence from lesson observations, teacher interviews and project reports, this paper examines the pedagogical perspectives and strategies of teachers working to incorporate use of Internet resources and associated ICT tools into humanities, ...

LD is an exciting concept that enables us to engage with ways to describe educational design and material in a new way. The consequences of a full LD implementation could mean entirely new ways of working with separation of design, content and presentation with benefits for sharing and reuse. What the initial study at The Open University has shown...

Provides overview of the outcomes from the Becta funded Evaluation of Tablet PCs in schools

Knowledge Management (KM) and knowledge sharing are important factors that support lifelong learning, and enable people to continue developing throughout their careers. The concept of a Community of Practice (Wenger, 2000) is attractive in drawing together people whose work shares similar aspects, and consideration is given here to how technology c...

The paper examines how to address the need for a production process for e-learning resources to include human generated metadata, and considers how users will exploit this metadata. It identifies situations in which human production of metadata is unavoidable, and examines fundamental problems concerned with human metadata generation such as motiva...

Introduction, Alastair Irons and Sylvia Alexander 1. Current Issues, Alastair Irons and Sylvia Alexander Part 1. Teaching and the support of learning 2. Motivating computing students, Peggy Gregory and Tony Jenkins 3. The role of practical skills in computing education, Fintan Culwin 4. Learning and teaching with computers, Ian Benest 5. Accessibil...

In this paper we consider an initial implementation of a system for managing and using IMS Learning Design (LD) to represent online learning activities. LD has been suggested (Koper & Olivier, 2004) as a flexible way to represent and encode learning materials, especially suited to online and web-based learning while neutral to the pedagogy that is...

In this paper we consider the future research direction for e-learning in relation to the needs of higher education. E-learning is recognised as a relevant method for the provision of learning across all areas of society and is considered of strategic importance at government level (HEFCE, 2003; DfES, 2003). In setting such strategies there should...

Multimedia presents a number of challenges and opportunities which must be addressed if it is to be used effectively in an educational context. Engineering education can greatly benefit, if these challenges and opportunities are met. This paper describes ...

The paper argues that, for e-learning to be successful, academics need to remain close to the capabilities of the media, as they must design the learning experience to help students engage with the knowledge and skills they are teaching. This means that the teaching tools we create for academics must embody the experience of what works for the lear...

This article describes the development of a task-based framework for providing learning within the workplace using networked multimedia. A philosophy is adopted for the framework that builds on the recognition that tasks must reflect the social process of learning as considered by Vygotsky (1978). This takes into account the role of dialogue in the...

MIRADOR aims to create tailored descriptions which assist users in selecting relevant resources on the Web. In this paper, we distinguish between the processes of searching with a query and selection among the results of the query, and we describe a user model for metadata which supports selection. We outline how we may combine the user model with...