OER Steering Group Meeting – Meeting-3
Tuesday 10thNovember2009, 12:00-14:00
Northcote House, Ted Wragg room (Committee Room B)
Progress Report on Open Exeter
1.0 Introduction
The following is a brief report on the progress of the JISC-funded project on Open Educational Resources (OER). The project, called ‘Open Exeter’ runs for one year from 1st May 2009 to 30thApril 2010.
This is the 3rdprogress report. By way of preparation, you may also find it useful to peruse the 1stand 2ndprogress reports and their subsequent minutes, available from:
The format of this report will follow that for the previous two reports.
2.0PreliminaryOutputs
An interim report had to be submitted to JISC by 10th November. It is not regarded as a ‘public’ document by JISC and so will not appear on their website. However, it will be made available online to Steering Group members after it has been submitted to the JISC.
3.0 Project Progress
The progress within Open Exeter will be outlined through each of the workpackages.
3.1 Staff Recruitment (WP-0)
Ian Wellaway, one of our Educational Technologists left on 23/10/2009 for a new post in BISS in Academic Services. Olivia Dunn, our project administrator left on 28/10/2009 for a new career, pursuing her musical interests. Both have made immense contributions to the project.
We have filled the Educational Technology Post with James Peard, a Graduate Placement Student as part of the University’s Business Partnership Program. He is well known to the staff within Education Enhancement as he is currently working on another externally funded project. We anticipate the staff costs will be similar but we will be able to employ the replacement for considerably more than the current 50%FTE.
Regarding replacing our administrator, the project is now at a stage where we no longer require the same amount of support. We have therefore decided to ‘second’ the equivalent of an hour a day, five days a week froman existing administrative member of staff in Education Enhancement.
The money saved from reducing the administrative support costs will be used to employ Sue Rodway-Dyerto undertake an evaluation of the project overall and in particular of our OER staff development programmes between Jan-April 2010. Sue is currently completing work as consultant on another externally funded project.
All these modifications to our original staff budgeting arrangements have been approved by JISC. They are also enthusiastic about the staff development evaluation, which is an extension to our original project plan.
The above addresses the Action for this workpackage in the minutes for meeting-2.
3.2 Project Management (WP-1)
At the previous meeting, it was agreed that this Steering Group would focus on ‘life after the project’ and identify and take forward recommendations to the University regarding how to promote the long term sustainability of the OER agenda. Potential areas that need to be addressed are raised under WP-11 in this report.
3.3 Review of Current Practice / Challenges (WP-2)
The internal blog at established at the request of this Steering Group to enable contributors to give vent to their feelings in a closed (i.e. Exeter-only) forum has had some contributions. Currently, the traffic has been minimal but the comments have been quite forceful and thought provoking.
An Abstract has been submitted to the Open Educational Resources 2010 conference entitled ‘The challenge of OER to academic practice’. If this, and the subsequent paper that will have to be written is accepted, then it will be a major deliverable for this workpackage. The ambition is to draw upon the material in the internal blog and also the many other encounters that have taken place when liaising with academics. The paper will be authored by our educational technologists.
Comment: More blog participation please!
The above broadly addresses the Action for this workpackage in the minutes for meeting-2.
3.4 Quality Enhancement (WP-3)
With apologies, the Action placed upon Tom to write a concept paper for the proposed editorial panels has not yet been done. This is the workpackage in which, apart from having valuable discussions, there has yet to be any meaningful activity, i.e. no panel has yet been formed to conduct any business. However, the minutes from meeting-2 did discuss the related matter of ‘incentivising’ academics to contribute material. This discussion is now taking place elsewhere:
- The OER JISC project community. We are discussing this issue by email and have badged is as ‘reward and recognition’. By popular request it formed part of the ‘all-strands’ programme meeting that Tom and Matt attended in London on 20/10/2009. Proposals included:
- acknowledgement in much the same way as for contributions to the RAE/REF
- enabling contributors to the repository to create a personal profile page which lists all the items they have deposited, which can show how many people have viewed their resources, as a way of showcasing themselves and their work
- identify OER contributions as part of annual PDR objectives
- regard OER contributions explicitly as contributing to the UK Professional Standards Framework, towards Academy fellowship, orindeed fellowship of other professional organisations that are relevant to an academic’s career profile.
Some of the above require changes at a national level for them to become effective.
- Quality Standards Group. Tom was actioned under Item 4.AOB in the minutes for meeting-2 to ask if the Quality Standard Group within Academic Services wished to be engaged with the quality issues arising from the OER project. They have declined but proposed the Education Planning and Communication Group as a possible pathway.
- QA/QE SIG. See This Quality Assurance / Quality Enhancement Special Interest Group was set up over a year ago to ‘to share, aggregate, and synthesise practice in using technology to enhance the quality of learning’. Tom was one of the inaugural steering group members but resigned several months ago when the OER project began. However, Tom has re-engaged with the group and indicated that quality issues with respect to OER should form part of their brief.
Comment: The Chair may wish to have a discussion here or take as part of Agenda item-4. It links also with actions on Richard Lamming in WP10 and Richard and Sue Burkill in Item4.AOB in the minutes for meeting-2.
3.5 Identification of Material’s Provenance (WP-4)
There is nothing new to add since the previous report, although there is much regular activity. It is worth stressing, however, that it currently lies at the heart of academic engagement with this project, along with WP-5.
3.6 Licensing & Clearing (WP-5)
On 17/9/2009 Anna Howell, educational technologist, attended a course in London on Copyright Clearance for Print, Broadcast and Multimedia. The course was run by the British Universities Film and Video Council. It was led by the Open University’s Rights Department. It proved to be a useful course and the experience gained will be invaluable to the team. Drawing from Ann’s blog entry of 19th September, Anna raised the challenging question regarding whether Universities other than the OU have a dedicated ‘rights department’ – or something like it. Disappointingly, there have not been any responses.
Comment: An opportunity to discuss this topic is available under Agenda item-4.
We have been making full use of the JiscLegal service. Partly in consequence, Jackie Milne from JISCLegalcame from Strathclyde (!) to Exeter on 22/10/2009 to record an interview with Anna regarding our experiences with IPR issues. Excerpts from the interview werebroadcast on 5/11/09 in a JISCLegal webcast called ‘OER - Legal Matterswebinar in early November. See: and note OER in practice - An interview with Anna Howell, Educational Technologist at the University of Exeter. With congratulations to Anna, this activity has helped position Exeter as a significant contributor to the JISC / HEA funded OER programme.
There is one particular IPR issue that is greatly exercising the project team and it concerns the extent (if at all) that small extracts of verbatim quotes can be included as part of e.g. literature analysis. Although (frustratingly), so many IPR issues appear to only have resolution on a case by case basis, Rachael Morgan advised that this question was sufficiently generic to ask Eversheds, our University solicitors, for a practical ruling. Rachel’s communication with Evershed’s is contained below:
We have decided to take a cautious approach in terms of checking the provenance of and using the material that academics provide us to put on the site, but there needs to be a balance between trying to avoid risk of copyright infringement and litigation, and actually killing the project because the material is so heavily redacted.
The team who are leading the way on this project have now asked for some advice on the following:
- What should they be doing to minimize the risk of litigation? We are already checking with academics that they own or have the right to use the copyright material they submit. There is also concern that this work will fall outside the non-commercial/private study exemption, even though there is no charge to view the material, so for example, instead of regurgitating chunks of poetry, etc, the technicians are replacing that with links to websites, where the text is displayed as open source – where they can’t locate a ‘free use’ site for a particular piece, it is being cut out, which sometimes has drastic repercussions on the sense and context of the piece. The team is putting together a risk register, to act as an audit trail, to state risks identified and the action contemplated. This should help, if there were a claim, to identify with our insurers what we did to minimize the risk of the claim (we would try to cover costs through professional indemnity insurance, as we have no specific insurance coverage for IP claims). The team are however questioning the merits of a risk register, concerned that this will flag up the risk, and the fact that we decided to do it anyway. Please advise on the merits of a risk register and what else we could be doing to minimize the risk of copyright infringement claims.
- Would you be able to give any advice on what guidance we could give to academics preparing materials for this project, particularly relating to how ‘substantial use’ exemption may be used?
As of 3/11/2009, we are waiting for a reply.
Comment: Detailed discussion of this issue could be covered under Agenda item-4. Related, Paul Hurst, the University’s Insurance Controller Finance Services will attend meeting-3 and will be able to speak to the issues raised here.
On 13/10/2009, several members of the project team participated in a JISC Legal Elluminate workshop called ‘IPR for OER’. The recording is available at :
As of 3/11/2009, we now have 113 credit equivalents of material that has been cleared and another 357credits in the pipeline. Equivalent figures at the time of the September report were 43 and 322 respectively. Taking an entirely hypothetical worst case scenario, if all academic cooperation was withdrawn for the material that is still being processed, then we consider that we could rescue about 285 credits of those still being processed, giving a grand total of just over 390 credits. So we are confident we will meet the required minimum of 360 credits. Please note, however, that they still need to be considered as part of WP-3, i.e. quality enhancement. Full details of progress can be found at:
(N.B. if you wish to print this spreadsheet, you will need to turn on background printing for the colours in your chosen browser). This spreadsheet is updated every Wednesday. In addition, we now have just obtained some material from SeCam, which is not one of the original three Schools factored into the project.
3.7 Interoperability (WP-6)
This workpackage (see: will be activated when WP-7 is completed. By way of preparation, on 4/11/2009, Mike Highfield (E-Developer, Education Enhancement Unit; Academic Services provided a brief overview of the RELOAD tool that the project will use for the packaging of the material.
On 20/10/2009 Tom and Matt had a conference call with John Robertson from CETIS (Centre for Educational Technology and Interoperability Standards). This JISC service is providing technical support to the OER programme. Details of the standards Open Exeter is employing are recorded at:
3.8 Metadata (WP-7)
The project is indebted to the considerable amount of work and expertise from Ahmed Abu-Zayed. In consultation with the project team, he has mapped how Dublin Core, which is the metadata schema used by DSpace, (which is the software that will be used for our institutional repository)will parse to LOM, which is now regarded as a more suitable international standard. The project has also drawn upon Ahmed’s expertise in determining what tags should be used when entering the metadata descriptors. Input from John Roberston at CETIS was also much valued. Our final decisions are recorded at:
In summary, a balance had to be struck between the amount of description that should accompany the material (data about data) and the time and complexity taken to input that information. This dilemma also impacts upon the ease with which the material can be found when undertaking online searches. Our approach is more detailed than that required by OpenJorum but only requires information that is readily available in a standard course descriptor.
BISS has now picked up the baton and will do the following:
- Add Dublin Core Terms schemato the DSpace registry and investigate the implications of using the Terms rather than Elements/Qualifiers.
- Subscribe to the Handle System and the installation into DSpace.
- Determine the structure and the name of the repository.
- Structure the repository onto DSpace.
- Revise the final version of the mapping.
- Create the submission form.
Comment: All questions to Ahmed please!
3.9 Delivery Platforms (WP-8)
With thanks to Bill Edmunds in Enterprise Systems, Information & Computing Systems, Academic Services, the server details, as outlined in previous reports, is now ready and waiting. WP-7 needs to be completed then material processed as required under WP-6 can be uploaded.
Exeter was selected by Jorum, the JISC-funded repository service, to test their new interface. This took place during the week beginning 19/10/2009. Note that as well as depositing materials into Open Exeter, it is a requirement of the programme to deposit materials into OpenJorum. It will formally be available for use from January 2010.
On 17/9/2009, several members of the team participated in aJorum Elluminate session for the UKOER Programme. The recording is available at :
3.10 Tracking (WP-9)
Valuable experience has been gained in an unrelated project (see: in the use of Cloudworks, which will be employed in the OER project as a ‘pedagogic wrapper’ (see:
As previously advertised, on the 17/11/2009 the Open University will be giving a staff development workshop at Exeter on the implications of OER upon course design and delivery and the associated use of Cloudworks. This workshop formally initiates the developmental phase of the project, which will acquire greater importance in the coming months. We have a good mix of academics and academic support staff attending. We also have on recent graduate, currently temporarily employed within Education Enhancement.
3.11 Training Materials/Dissemination (WP-10)
The external blog continues to be updated on a weekly basis and it provides a rich source of information upon which subsequent reflection and evaluation can be drawn, as well as informing both internal and external audiences about our activities and progress. The major addition to our website is the metadata mapping, as described for WP-7.
In the minutes for meeting-2 under this Workpackage, Tom was actioned to invite Lou McGill to meeting-3. Unfortunately, Lou is unable to attend this meeting but is willing in principle to visit Exeter at some future date. Lou is the Institutional strand contact on JISC’s OER synthesis and evaluation team.
Tom and Matt have had a paper accepted by the Australian Society for Computers in Learning in Tertiary Education (ascilite). When the proceedings are published on 23/11/2009 the full reference will be:
Browne, T. J. and Newcombe, M. (2009). Open Educational Resources – a new creative space. In Same places, different spaces. Proceedings ascilite Auckland 2009.
Ascilite is a very prestigious organisation and conference. The peer review process was very rigorous. Both Tom and Matt will attend the conference, funded fully by the project. JISC are pleased because the paper profiles the JISC OER programme and within an international setting. It also profiles the University and Open Exeter and positions OER as a new ‘learning space’. This is because learning spaces is a dominant theme of the conference. As such, it is anticipated, particularly in our current context e.g. with the many Forum developments, that the conference will prove to be of great interest and benefit to the University.
3.12 Ongoing and final evaluation (WP-11)
As noted in the first report, there are broadly two projects themes, though they are closely coupled, namely:‘telling the story’, and making available a minimum of 360 credits of material.The ‘story’ is being captured in both our public and private blogs.
Looking further ahead, there is a third theme, which quoting from a comment made by Sue Burkill at meeting-2 could be labeled ‘the future is now’. For the OER agenda to have a sustainable future at Exeter, consideration needs to be given to how the University responds to a number of important challenges. These are the subject of Agenda item-4.
Comment: In summary, these challenges include:
- Promotion of OER in relation to Exeter’s mission
- Inclusion within relevant strategies
- Management of risk in relation to IPR.
- Means of conducting IPR clearance after the project
- Having a risk register?
Reward and recognition
Staff development, ad hoc and / or integrated into accredited programmes
Quality enhancement protocols
4.0 Other Activities
- Tom, Matt, Anna, Richardand James continue to meet every Wednesday a.m. to review progress in the previous week and to plan for the coming week.
- For the all-strands meeting in London noted under WP-3, all projects were asked to produce a poster advertising their work. Anna, with help from Olivia produced our poster. We were told that it would have won first prize had she not been so aware/honest as to flag that the clearance on the images she used was limited to offline-use only. She narrowly missed out on the prize of a box of chocolates but at least her conscience is clear.
5.0 Budget
With the agreement of JISC, some redistribution of money within the budget has taken place. Full details are given in the Interim Report submitted to JISC but are also included here.
Confirmed and approved budget details in project plan submitted to JISC, May ‘09