[Oer-community] In response to Vladimir's suggestion
Senishch Alona
alona.senishch at aalto.fi
Thu Nov 15 00:09:26 MST 2012
Dear Vladimir and Everyone:
This is exactly what I had in mind when speaking about the "search engine" option, but Vladimir found the right words. Thanks! Great suggestion and very much needed!
Cheers,
Alona
________________________________________
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Today's Topics:
1. Re: A reflection (Susan D'Antoni)
2. Re: A reflection (chenqing)
3. Re: A reflection (Fred M Beshears)
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Message: 1
Date: Wed, 14 Nov 2012 18:27:14 -0500
From: "Susan D'Antoni" <susandantoni at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [Oer-community] A reflection
To: oer-community <oer-community at athabascau.ca>
Message-ID:
<CACcByEysdyOEYBkJ42-F5EjzZwb67-6ZK_3JOm35k_tQ_xh9gA at mail.gmail.com>
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Dear Mark and Helen,
Yourcomments are exactly why we started this discussion with an exploration
of what use a map of the global OER landscape would be? The points in my
previous message were of course trying to find threads from the messages
over the past days.
The main problem that was the premise for organizing this discussion was
simple. How do you know which institutions have OER activities around the
world? It has become a large number. But do we need to know where OER
institutional initiatives are? And if we do, can we find that information
somewhere already?
Best,
Susan
On Wed, Nov 14, 2012 at 6:07 PM, Mark Bullen <mbullen at col.org> wrote:
> Helen:
> I'm glad you asked that question because I have also been struggling to
> understand what the practical outcome of an OER map would be, how it
> would advance the "movement" and how it would help practitioners - the
> teachers who are trying to locate, evaluate and integrate OER into their
> teaching. The benefits that Susan lists all make sense to me but I guess
> I don't fully understand what the map would actually be. Is it, for
> example, intended to be a kind of meta-repository? I share your concern
> about investing a lot of energy in trying to devise technical solutions
> without a clear identification of the problem.
>
> Mark.
>
>
> Mark Bullen, Ph.D.
> Education Specialist - eLearning
> Commonwealth of Learning
> 1055 West Hastings, Suite 1200
> Vancouver, BC, V6E 2E9
> CANADA
> 1 604 775 8261
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: oer-community-bounces at athabascau.ca
> [mailto:oer-community-bounces at athabascau.ca] On Behalf Of Lentell, Helen
> M.
> Sent: Wednesday, November 14, 2012 1:57 PM
> To: oer-community
> Subject: Re: [Oer-community] A reflection
>
> Dear Colleagues
>
> Interesting conversation. But I am reminded of a comment made some years
> ago in the distance learning community, it was this: if technology is
> the answer what is the question? Following on from this: if mapping
> OERs is the answer what is the educational problem we are trying to
> address?
>
> Best wishes
>
> Helen
>
> Helen Lentell
> University Fellow in Distance Learning
> Centre for Labour Market Studies
> Ken Edwards Building
> University Road
> Leicester LE1 7RH
> UK
>
> helen.lentell at le.ac.uk
> ________________________________________
> From: oer-community-bounces at athabascau.ca
> [oer-community-bounces at athabascau.ca] On Behalf Of Susan D'Antoni
> [susandantoni at gmail.com]
> Sent: 14 November 2012 17:10
> To: oer-community at athabascau.ca
> Subject: [Oer-community] A reflection
>
> Dear Colleagues,
>
> This has been a most energetic start to our discussion of mapping the
> landscape of OER initiatives. To see this OER community spring into
> action again is such a pleasure after being in contact with many of you
> since 2005.
>
> And like our colleague, Saul Fisher, I too was at the 2002 meeting at
> UNESCO when the Term Open Educational Resources came into being and like
> him "find the progress in OER over the decade "beyond my wildest hopes".
>
> Maps are "powerful representations for creating, representing and
> visualizing open knowledge" (Ale Okada) but no, there has been no
> decision taken anywhere that we will create an OER world map (Sandra
> Schosn concern).
>
> In the discussion so far, there have been a number of points made about
> the potential benefits of a visual map of the OER landscape - such as -
>
> * serve as a gateway
> * make more initiatives visible beyond the well-known ones
> * identify initiatives operating in different languages
> * help find OER
> * identify the OER community
> * foster new collaboration and cooperative efforts
>
> But there have been some concerns expressed - such as -
>
> * it is a big task so it needs to be a simple map
> * it needs to be self sustaining
> * It is tempting to collect too much data
> * it needs to be carefully structured and organized
> * we need to define or classify initiatives
>
> The point about sustainability and the need to keep it simple are good
> points to bear in mind. I had the privilege (because I was not trained
> as a statistician) of working at Statistics Canada, a fine statistical
> agency. I learned a lot, but one thing that stuck with me was the
> extremely high cost of collecting information and the importance of
> "essential" data, not "nice to have". It truly is a temptation to want
> more and morre information. But if we aimed to describe the global OER
> landscape, then the amount of information to begin building an OER world
> map might best be what we consider absolutely essential. Discipline!
>
> Let's keep the two lists of pros and concerns in mind as we continue
> this train of discussion. Then let's move on to considering what
> essential information might be for an initial mapping exercise.
>
> Lovely conversation,
>
> Susan
>
> _______________________________________________
> Oer-community mailing list
> Oer-community at athabascau.ca
> https://deimos.cs.athabascau.ca/mailman/listinfo/oer-community
>
> _______________________________________________
> Oer-community mailing list
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>
--
Susan D'Antoni
Advisor to the President
International OER Initiatives
Athabasca University
Canada
tel 613 232 6496
skype iiepsusan
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Message: 2
Date: Thu, 15 Nov 2012 09:11:03 +0800 (CST)
From: chenqing <qingchen68 at 163.com>
Subject: Re: [Oer-community] A reflection
To: oer-community <oer-community at athabascau.ca>
Message-ID: <6de0b08b.17d0.13b019e81f7.Coremail.qingchen68 at 163.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="gbk"
Dear Susan, Helen and Mark,
Glad to join the lovely conversation. I think the outcome of the discussion can be a series of concept maps, which include not only the distribution map of OER initiatives but also maps of OCW, OER dipositories, OER research topics, etc.
Cheers
Qing Chen
At 2012-11-15 07:07:57,"Mark Bullen" <mbullen at col.org> wrote: >Helen: >I'm glad you asked that question because I have also been struggling to >understand what the practical outcome of an OER map would be, how it >would advance the "movement" and how it would help practitioners - the >teachers who are trying to locate, evaluate and integrate OER into their >teaching. The benefits that Susan lists all make sense to me but I guess >I don't fully understand what the map would actually be. Is it, for >example, intended to be a kind of meta-repository? I share your concern >about investing a lot of energy in trying to devise technical solutions >without a clear identification of the problem. > >Mark. > > >Mark Bullen, Ph.D. >Education Specialist - eLearning >Commonwealth of Learning >1055 West Hastings, Suite 1200 >Vancouver, BC, V6E 2E9 >CANADA >1 604 775 8261 > >-----Original Message----- >From: oer-community-bounces at athabascau.ca >[mailto:oer-community-bounces at athabascau.ca] On Behalf Of Lentell, Helen >M. >
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Message: 3
Date: Wed, 14 Nov 2012 17:32:32 -0800
From: Fred M Beshears <fredbeshears at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [Oer-community] A reflection
To: oer-community <oer-community at athabascau.ca>
Message-ID:
<CAP3y+xNJQQckcTsWmOjOsqKun7r5zN7hdwv1FnAKF1sq+5Bi3g at mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
Susan,
I believe the project you have in mind is a geographic map that shows
the headquarters of organizations that have formal ORE development
initiatives.
Is this definition correct?
Also, it seems as if there is a fair amount of interest in a far more
ambitious undertaking: giving would be users of OER a way to search
for useful resources. This, of course, is very different from what
you're proposing (I think), and much more labor intensive.
Of course, there is at least one OER meta data initiatives underway already:
Learning Resource Metadata Initiative (LRMI)
see: http://wiki.creativecommons.org/LRMI/FAQ
And there may be other OER metadata initiatives that I'm unaware of.
In any event, OER meta data could in theory be used to produce a
geographic map showing the headquarters of the organizations who
produced the resources. Of course, to do so it would certainly be
useful to have a list of the organizations along with some sort of
institutional code for each so developers and meta data librarians
could tag OERs with that institutional code.
Also, some people may be aware of older metadata and learning
technology initiatives such as:
IMS Global (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IMS_Global)
IEEE (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learning_object_metadata)
ISO (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO/IEC_JTC1/SC36
The IEEE/LOM standard could, I believe, work for Educational Resources
whether they are open or not. So, I need to do some research to
understand why there's a need for a separate LRMI metadata spec
initiative.
For now, here's what the LRMI FAQ says about these older initiatives.
------------------------------
"LRMI aims to establish a common metadata schema to identify learning
resources that will complement learning standards, for example those
encoded in the Achievement Standards Network, including Common Core
State Standards for K12 (US), as well as all other online learning
vehicles. Interoperability is a key precept of LRMI. While simplicity
is necessary for mass adoption and search engine implementation,
mixing with and mapping to other vocabularies will be possible -- for
example by mirroring the semantics of existing education matadata
vocabularies (e.g., Learning Object Metadata) to the extent possible,
so that explicit equivalences and refinements may be established,
protecting existing investments in educational metadata made by
publishers and curators of learning resources and by institutions to
date.
Additionally, LRMI will begin by examining lessons from previous
initiatives and real online descriptions of educational resources,
whether machine-readable or not. In this, we aim to utilize the
technology-agnostic aspects of the microformats process, described at
http://microformats.org/wiki/process."
--------------------------
In the spirit of full disclosure, I was UC Berkeley's rep to IMS
Global for many years, so my views are probably biased.
Best,
Fred
On Wed, Nov 14, 2012 at 3:27 PM, Susan D'Antoni <susandantoni at gmail.com> wrote:
> Dear Mark and Helen,
>
> Yourcomments are exactly why we started this discussion with an exploration
> of what use a map of the global OER landscape would be? The points in my
> previous message were of course trying to find threads from the messages
> over the past days.
>
> The main problem that was the premise for organizing this discussion was
> simple. How do you know which institutions have OER activities around the
> world? It has become a large number. But do we need to know where OER
> institutional initiatives are? And if we do, can we find that information
> somewhere already?
>
> Best,
>
> Susan
>
>
------------------------------
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