File:POERUP D4.3.1UKS Country Option Pack Scotland.pdf

Executive Summary

This report is Deliverable 3.4UKS, Options Brief Pack – Scotland. It makes the following recommendations:

Higher Education

1. SFC should set up an innovation fund to support one new online initiative each year within an overall commitment to opening up education.

2. QAA Scotland should continue to develop its understanding of new modes of learning (including online, distance, OER and MOOCs) and how they impact quality assurance and recognition; engage in debates on copyright within the Scotland legal context; consider the effects of these new modes on quality assurance and recognition as they impact on Scotland’s HEIs; and ensure that there continues to be no implicit non-evidence-based bias against these new modes when accrediting new providers (if relevant in the Scotland context) and inspecting institutions/programmes.

3. SFC, QAA Scotland and Universities Scotland should contribute to the debate about a more flexible approach to measuring credit ratings of modules, less based on study times, drawing on the Welsh experience with credit transfer, WBL, flexible learning and APL (both APCL and APEL): leading to the development of a Bologna-bis framework based primarily on competences gained not duration of study.

4. SFC should recommend to universities that they should work to improve and proceduralise their activity on APL (Accreditation of Prior Learning, in its various sub modes) and in particular to accredit knowledge and competences developed through all kinds of online study, informal and work-based learning, including but not restricted to OER and MOOCs, within agreed limits.

5. SFC should consider whether the specific Scottish context needs an Open Accreditor to assist small and specialist institutions to handle APL for students entering these institutions and seeking to accredit prior study.

6. Universities Scotland should consider whether there are programmes or specific teaching situations (e.g. first year studies, pre-university studies) where a common approach to provision makes sense, and in the light of a successful outcome to such initiatives, foster the developments of common bases of OER material to support such provision.

7. Scotland’s funding bodies should ensure that any public outputs from their funded programmes are made available as open resources under an appropriate license.

8. SFC should fund research into the cost basis for university teaching in both traditional and non-traditional modes and consider the implications of the results on its approach to funding.

9. Universities Scotland should adopt a standard license for all openly available educational material.

10. SFC and Universities Scotland should mount an initiative to upgrade the level of knowledge of university staff on IPR issues, perhaps as part of some wider initiative e.g. on MOOCs so as to give context and applicability for the knowledge.

11. SFC and Universities Scotland should encourage Scottish institutions to keep their continuous professional development programmes up to date in terms of newer modes of teaching and learning, including not only campus-based online learning but distance learning, OER, MOOCs and other forms of open educational practice, and to move such programmes online and increasingly open and collaborative between institutions.

12. SFC should encourage institutions to consider the use of incentive schemes (and reconsider the issue of non-incentives) for academics engaged in online professional development of their pedagogic skills including online learning.

13. SFC and related bodies should fund research into the benefits of OER in the Scottish HE context, with greater efforts to integrate this with ongoing research on distance learning, on-campus online learning, and pedagogy, and with wider research on OER in and beyond Scotland.

Colleges – recommendations to SFC and College Development Network

1 Mount a campaign to educate lecturers, teachers and trainers on IPR issues.

2 Promote to educational users (leaders, practitioners, students and guardians) the availability and accessibility of open resources created through the European Commission’s cultural sector programmes and national cultural sector programmes, to make these available across the country.

3 Ensure that college budgets for digital educational resources are flexible enough to support the development (and maintenance) of openly licensed materials.

4 Sustain the development of Re:Source and continue to develop the OER communities in it.

5 Consider establishing a specialist OER function to undertake a cost-benefit analysis to assess the potential savings (or otherwise) which might be achieved through implementing an OER strategy.

6 Through Re:Source, establish a national quality assurance standard for OER content produced in the country.

7 Require (within reasonable expectation) OER to meet (disability) accessibility standards and ensure that accessibility is a central tenet of all OER programmes and initiatives.

8 Re:Source to consider establishing and funding an OER evaluation and adoption panel. (This panel should include lead teachers, content experts and accessibility experts.)

9 Education Scotland, through the Inspectorate1, should continue to develop its understanding of new modes of learning (including online, distance, OER and MOOCs) and how they impact quality assurance and recognition; engage in debates on copyright within the Scotland legal context; consider the effects of these new modes on quality assurance and recognition as they impact on Scotland’s HEIs; and ensure that there continues to be no implicit non-evidence-based bias against these new modes when accrediting new providers (if relevant in the Scotland context) and inspecting institutions/programmes.

10 Establish (and adequately fund) a professional development programme to help lecturers, teachers and administrators understand the benefits and uses of OER and open licensing. This would support teacher / trainer / lecturer CPD on the creation, use and re-use of OER, with coverage of distance learning, MOOCs and other forms of open educational practice, and also IPR issues.

11 Develop incentive schemes for lecturers, teachers and trainers engaged in online professional development of their pedagogic skills including online learning.

12 Foster research into the benefits of OER and sustainable business models, integrating this with ongoing research on distance learning, in-college online learning, and pedagogy.

13 Support educational institutions in developing new business and educational models and launch research and policy experimentations to test innovative pedagogical approaches, curriculum development and skills assessment.

14 SFC should set up an innovation fund to support one new online initiative each year within an overall commitment to opening up education.

Schools

1 Education Scotland should promote (within the context of their sovereign educational aims and objectives) to educational users (leaders, practitioners, students and guardians) the availability and accessibility of open resources created through their respective cultural sector programmes.

2 Education Scotland should promote to Local authorities and schools the benefits of making resources available under an appropriate open license.

3 Education Scotland and Local authorities should ensure that budgets for digital educational resources are flexible enough to support the development (and maintenance) of openly licensed materials.

4 Local authorities should ensure that any public outputs from their teachers and schools are made available as open resources under an appropriate license. (e.g. a Creative Commons open license- see http://creativecommons.org/licenses ).

5 Education Scotland and Local authorities should require (within reasonable expectation) OER to meet (disability) accessibility standards and ensure that accessibility is a central tenet of all OER programmes and initiatives.

6 Education Scotland and Local authorities could consider establishing a specialist OER function/post to undertake an in-country cost-benefit analysis to assess the potential savings (or otherwise) which might be achieved through implementing an OER strategy.

7 Education Scotland and Local authorities should establish (and adequately fund) a professional development programme to help teachers and administrators understand the benefits and uses of OER and open licensing.

8 Education Scotland and Local authorities should set up an innovation fund to support one new online initiative each year within an overall commitment to opening up education.