OER and use of open data to develop transversal and citizenship skills

Abstract

Developing global citizens: Open Data as Open Educational Resources. To provide an innovative framework for the use of Open Data as Open Educational Resources for developing scientific and citizenship skills. In a global and multicultural society, people need understand the political processes, the socio-economical climate, to be able to relate with the problems of the society, to be capable to critically understand and information and assess the media. In our societies, the educational systems need to develop critical thinking skills to educate active citizens to engage and participate democratic discussions, in a tolerant, respectful, creative and knowledgeable manner by learning to construct knowledge by critically analysing information from various sources and formats, including data. Even if Open Data, defined by Open Knowledge International (2013)[1] as “data that can be freely used, re-used and redistributed by anyone – subject only, at most, to the requirement to attribute and sharealike” it is not traditionally considered as Open Educational Resources (OER), we believe that being capable of analysing and interpreting data is increasingly important and can be understood as key to the development of transversal skills, which are defined by UNESCO (2015)[2] as “critical and innovative thinking, inter-personal skills; intra-personal skills, and global citizenship”(p.4). If one of our goals as educators is to develop these transversal skills in students, towards enabling them to function as citizens, to actively participate in the discourse and debates of society, to think critically, to be tolerant, to understand diversity, understand migratory flows, to support equality and to respect and promote human rights, then we propose that Open Data can be a key enabler to achieve this targets in line with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals [3] to ensure inclusive and quality education for all and promote lifelong learning (G4); Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls (G5); Reduce inequality within and among countries (G10); Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts (G13) and Promote just, peaceful and inclusive societies (G16). Open Data is produced and used at various levels in research, governance, policymaking and civil society. In educational and academic contexts, Open Data can be used as an Open Educational Resource (OER) to help support the engagement of students and researchers in analysing and collaborating towards finding solutions for contemporary real-world problems, chiefly by embedding Open Data and Open Science principles in research-based, scenario-led activities. In this way, students can experience working with the same raw materials scientists and policy-makers use, but also, learn effective fact-checking abilities to critically interact with the media to promote inclusion, social justice, human rights and equality. [1] OKI (2013): Open Data Handbook http://opendatahandbook.org/guide/en/what-is-open-data/ [2] UNESCO. (2015). Transversal competencies in education Policy and Practice. (S. Strandberg, Ed.). Paris: UNESCO. Retrieved from http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0023/002319/231907E.pdf [3] United Nations Sustainable Development Goals: http://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/sustainable-development-goals/

Full text

OER AND USE OF OPEN DATA
TO DEVELOP TRANSVERSAL AND CITIZENSHIP SKILLS
Leo Havemann @leohavemann | l.havemann@bbk.ac.uk | Birkbeck, University of London
Javiera Atenas @jatenas | javiera.atenas@idatosabiertos.org | Latin American Initiative for Open Data
2nd World OER Congress Satellite, Ljubljana, Slovenia | September 19, 2017
Image: Christoph Scholtz, 2017 (CC BY-SA 2.0)

Introductions
Leo Havemann
@leohavemann
l.havemann@bbk.ac.uk
•Open Education
Researcher (OU UK)
•Learning Technologist,
Birkbeck, University of
London
•Advisory board, Open
Education Working
Group
Javiera Atenas
@jatenas
javiera.atenas@
idatosabiertos.org
•Latin American Initiative
for Open Data
•Co-coordinator, Open
Education Working
Group
education.okfn.org/o
pen-data-as-open-
educational-
resources-case-
studies-of-emerging-
practice

Why think about data?
•“A recent White House report on ‘big data’ concludes, ‘The
technological trajectory, however, is clear: more and more data
will be generated about individuals and will persist under the
control of others’ (White House, 2014: 9). Reading this
statement brought to mind a 2009 interview with Google
Chairperson Eric Schmidt …[who stated] , ‘If you have
something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you
shouldn’t be doing it in the first place, but if you really need that
kind of privacy, the reality is that search engines including
Google do retain this information for some time … It is possible
that that information could be made available to the authorities’
(Newman, 2009). What these two statements share is the
attribution of agency to ‘technology.’ ‘Big data’ is cast as the
inevitable consequence of a technological juggernaut with a life
of its own entirely outside the social. We are but bystanders.”
•(Zuboff, 2015)

Open Education/Open Data
•Are these opening movements ‘in
conversation’?
•What can Open Data do for Open
Education?
•And what can Open Education do for
Open Data?

Opening movements … siloed
conversations?
The idea of openness in
education has come to be closely
associated with technology-
enabled approaches, such as
Open Educational Resources
(OER), and Massive Open Online
Courses (MOOCs).
It has also been associated with
other related, parallel but ‘siloed’
opening movements for Open Data,
Open Access, Open Science etc.
More recently the term Open Educational Practices (OEP)
has emerged via attempts to critique and reformulate the
discourse around openness in education (Havemann, 2016).
© Julien Colomb, 2016:
https://www.meetup.com/Berlin-Open-Science-
Meetup/photos/26645056/445567759/

Open Educational Resources (OER)
A key strand of the drive
to open education is the
movement for Open
Educational Resources
(OER), which proposes
that the application of
open, permissive
licenses to teaching and
learning resources is a
means of widening
access to knowledge and
enhancing teaching
quality.

Open data
Availability and Access: the data must be available as a
whole and at no more than a reasonable reproduction cost.
Re-use and Redistribution: the data must be provided
under terms that permit re-use and redistribution, including
the intermixing with other datasets.
Universal Participation: everyone must be able to use,
re-use and redistribute. There should be no discrimination
against fields of endeavour or against persons or groups.
The Open Data Handbook defines Open Data as:
“data that can be freely used, re-used and
redistributed by anyone - subject only, at most,
to the requirement to attribute and sharealike.”
(Open Knowledge International, n.d.)

Digital and data divides
“The illusion of access promoted by computers
provokes a confusion between the presentation of
information and the capacity to use, sort and interpret it.”
(Brabazon, 2001)
•“as with the earlier discussion concerning the ‘digital
divide’ there would, in this context, appear to be some
confusion between movements to enhance citizen
‘access’ to data and the related issues concerning
enhancing citizen ‘use’ of this data”
•(Gurstein, 2011)

Using Open Data as OER
Many international
organisations,
governments, NGOs and
academic researchers
generate datasets, which are
often freely available
online and openly-licensed.
This data can be used in learning and teaching
(therefore becoming OER) to give students
authentic experiences of working with the same
raw data used by researchers and policy-makers
(Atenas, Havemann & Priego, 2015; Atenas, 2016).
(Bradshaw, n.d.)

Sources of Open Data
•International agencies and organisations
Word Bank ; United Nations ; EU
•National Governments and their agencies
UKOD; GermanyOD; USA
•Local governments
Sardinia ; London; Barcelona
•Non-governmental organisations
ODI; Monithon
•Academic institutions
and research centres

The practical value of Open Data
•Open data is an invaluable resource for scientific communities
•Supports scientific development and reproducibility
•Encourages more transparent research practices
•Can be used to model good practices in academia for
research and teaching

The civic value of Open Data
•Students construct knowledge by
critically analyzing information from
various sources, including data.
•We live in a “datafied” society, so
being capable of analysing and
interpreting data is becoming
increasingly important.
•Students need to become critical,
skeptical, socially engaged, global
citizens to avoid the influence of
fake news, hate ads and broken
democracy.
(Gertz, 2017)
When we are the consumers of free services,
we are the product.

Open Data for social participation
“All citizens should have equal opportunities and
multiple channels to access information, be
consulted and participate. Every reasonable effort
should be made to engage with as wide a variety of
people as possible” (OECD, 2009, p.17).

Transversal skills
Transversal skills are defined by UNESCO (2015) as:
“critical and innovative thinking, inter-personal skills; intra-
personal skills, and global citizenship” (p. 4).
•Lifelong and lifewide, not simply employability.
These include:
•Language and communiation
•Information, media
and data literacies
•Critical thinking
•Analytical skills
•Research capabilities
•Ethical practices
•Teamwork
•Citizenship
(European Union, 2011, p. 18)

Open Data for developing transversal skills

Open Data for developing transversal skills

Open Data for civic engagement

Open Data as OER at different levels

Open Data in learning and teaching
1. Focus: defining the research problems and their
relation to the environment.
2. Practicality: matching technical applications and
practices to expected solutions.
3. Expectations: setting realistic and achievable
expectations for data analysis.
4. Direction: seeking data portals which contain
appropriate information.
5. Training: providing training materials for the software
students will need to use to analyse the data.

Open Data in learning and teaching
6. Location: using global, local and scientific data which is
as granular as possible.
7. Modelling: developing model solutions to guide
students during the challenges and activities.
8. Collaboration: supporting students to work
collaboratively and at multidisciplinary level.
9. Communication: enabling students to communicate
their findings to local or wider communities.
10. Criticality: encouraging students to consider how data
are were collected and manipulated, by whom, and for
what purposes.

•The University of Nottingham used
open data in a postgraduate computer
science programming course to teach
students to code with networks, files
and data structures.
•They used Python, which is a free
open source community-based
programming language (Python
Software Foundation, 2017).
•Data were obtained from e-Book text
files sourced from Project Gutenberg
and City Council Carpark status data.
•The assignment combined conceptual
knowledge with authentic applications
for public and educational use.
•
Open Data for introductory programming
(Coughlan, 2015)

•The Scuola di OpenCoesione is a MOOC
designed for Italian High School students
to challenge them to:
1. find out how public money is spent
in a given area,
2. assess the progress and challenges
facing funded projects, and
3. monitor public investment.
•Data are obtained from the OpenCoesione
portal, the Italian National Institute of
Statistics and other public sources.
•Participants collaborate in teams on
projects involving open data analysis,
data journalism and creating infographics
related to real-life civic issues.
A Scuola di OpenCoesione
(Ciociola & Reggi, 2015)

Open data and knowledge societies
(Power, 2015)
•MSc students studying towards Information
Management or Information Technology
qualifications at the University of Bristol
use open datasets and websites to consider
the benefits of being able to make sense of
data for individuals, organisations and society.
•Website statistics and visualisation tools are used to help students
consider the role of information and knowledge management and
data literacy in knowledge societies and knowledge economies.
•Students are asked to interrogate and analyse trends and
developments using open data to deepen their understanding of
how data is used to provide information and deepen knowledge,
but also how it is produced, consumed and commodified.
•This case study has been shared internally as an exemplar of
practice at Sharing Approaches to Learning and Teaching (SALT)
meetings and Faculty forums.
•

Open Migration
•Open Data can be used to support learners to understand
socio-political phenomena, such as the refugee crisis.
•This Italian project used journalistic techniques, such as fact-
checking (Annenberg Public Policy Center, 2017) in civic and
data-led research and data-expeditions (School of Data, n.d.).
•Students engaged with migration data to challenge stereotypes
and influence public opinion and policy.
•The project trained students, researchers
and citizens to understand the real numbers
and issues for refugees in Italy in order to
support their integration into the community.
•Open Data was used in this project to create
a replicable pedagogical pathway to improve
media and data literacy.
(Atenas, Havemann, & Menapace, 2017).

Over to you
•How can we make more datasets openly available for use
as OER?
•How can we raise awareness that Open Data can be
used as OER?

References & resources
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Atenas, J., Havemann, L., & Menapace, A. (2017). Open Data and media literacies:
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