File:POERUP D4.3UKE.pdf

Executive Summary

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

Higher Education

1. The UK government, working with the Devolved Administrations and key foundations, should set up a competitive innovation fund to develop one new undergraduate or Foundation degree programme each year with a focus on low-cost online education UK-wide around a core proposition of open content.
   • The UK Open University should not be eligible to bid but should play a key role on the Steering Group for this fund, building on the knowledge it has gained from FutureLearn.
2. The funding councils and Quality Assurance Agency (QAA), leveraging on the research done by the Flexible Learning research programme carried out by the Higher Education Academy, should encourage universities to improve and proceduralise their activity on APL (Accreditation of Prior Learning)
   • and specifically the ability to accredit knowledge and competences developed through online study and informal learning (including but not restricted to OER and MOOCs).
3. BIS and the Devolved Administrations should aim to build on the success of Open University Validation Services and the members of the Council of Validating Universities and consider the benefits of setting up an Open Accreditor,
   • initially focussing on qualifications in the ISCED 5B area as this is most correlated with high-level skills for business and industry.
     • Particular attention should be given to students who have gained qualifications relevant to HE APL that are gained via “badges” from micro-providers of HE
     • and approved providers from other domains (adult, informal HE/MOOCs, FE, commercial training, etc).
4. The Quality Assurance Agency (QAA), within the framework of ENQA, should:
   • further develop its understanding of new modes of learning (including online, distance, OER and MOOCs) and how they impact quality assurance and recognition,
     • by a series of workshops, consultations and studies building on its existing events and documents on this topic;
   • work with Jisc to advance discussion on copyright;
   • and in 2015 produce a position paper on the effects of these new modes on quality assurance and recognition.

Colleges

1. Create an innovation fund for
   • the development of online learning resources
   • and assembling/ creating pathways to credentials.
2. Foster work into standardised syllabi across England (and ideally the UK) for technical and vocational training where this is appropriate for England-wide action,
   • and in the light of a successful outcome to such initiatives, foster the developments of common bases of OER material to support these standards,
     • including relevant open repositories
     • and (ideally jointly with publishers) open textbooks.
3. Establish (and adequately fund) a professional development programme to help 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.
4. Develop incentive schemes for teachers and trainers engaged in online professional development of their pedagogic skills including online learning.
5. Fund research into the verifiable benefits of OER,
   • with greater efforts to integrate such analyses with its ongoing research on distance learning, on-campus online learning, and pedagogy.

Schools

1. Entities should promote to educational users (leaders, practitioners, students and guardians) the availability and accessibility of open resources created through EU cultural sector programmes and their domestic cultural sector programmes.
   • Actors: OER enthusiasts among teachers, teacher trainers and researchers
2. Entities should seek to exploit the considerable investment in Repositories both nationally and at EU level.
   • Actors: School heads, teachers; publishers, social entrepreneurs (freemium models?)
3. Entities should promote to schools (especially publicly-funded schools) the benefits of making resources available under an appropriate open license.
   • Actors: OER enthusiasts among teachers, teacher trainers and researchers
4. Entities should ensure that budgets for digital educational resources are flexible enough to support the development (and maintenance) of openly licensed materials.
   • Actors: School heads, local authorities and similar groupings
5. Entities should ensure that any public outputs from their respective national research and teaching development programmes are made available as open resources under an appropriate license (in particular a Creative Commons open license).
   • Actors: Research councils, DfE, JISC, HEA, OFSTED, etc
6. Entities must require (within reasonable expectation) OER to meet (disability) accessibility standards and ensure that accessibility is a central tenet of all OER programmes and initiatives.
   • Actually a legal requirement!
7. Entities should ensure that their Quality Assurance or materials approval processes permit that OER are allowed to be included on approved instructional materials lists, subject to fulfilling relevant criteria.
   • Actors: OFSTED, local authorities
8. Entities should continue their focus on improving the ICT in education infrastructure (and levelling out disparities of access) so that they are able to exploit potential pedagogical and financial advantages of OER.
   • Actors: Government and local authorities should be doing this
9. Entities should develop their understanding of how new modes of learning (including online, distance, OER and MOOCs) impact on quality assurance and recognition
   • Actors: OFSTED, OFQUAL, researchers
10. Entities should fund research into the verifiable benefits and disadvantages of OER, with greater efforts to integrate such analyses with its ongoing research on online learning, and pedagogy.
    • Actors: researchers, Research Councils (ESRC)
11. Entities should foster research into potentially sustainable business models for OER, integrating this with their ongoing research on distance learning, on-campus online learning, and pedagogy.
    • Actors: researchers, Research Councils (ESRC), EU, examination boards