#280 Poster

Monday 16 April 15:00 - 17:15 Bar/Conservatory

Engaging; Employers, Professional Bodies and OER

Mark Fowler & Viv Rolfe, De Montfort University, UK

Conference Theme: Collaboration

Summary: The contribution of partners from outside the HE sector is essential if OER are to be sustainable and fit-for-purpose.

Abstract: Open Educational Resources (OER) have the capacity to deliver the flexibility in materials and delivery required to meet the challenges presented by the current HE landscape, particularly in the UK whilst allowing individuals to tailor their learning experience to their requirements.
One of the key issues associated with OER is engaging those outside the HE sector to ensure that open educational resources are fit-for-purpose, accurate and sustainable; especially in rapidly developing professional areas. Potential “partners” for OER development outside the classical HE sector range from commercial organisations through other public sector organisations through to professional bodies and employer consortia. How best to engage with these partners is one aspect that has been investigated as part of the SCOOTER (Sickle Cell Open, Online Topics and Educational Resources) and HALS (Health and Life Science open educational resources) OER projects.
The attitude and both level and type of engagement of potential partner organisations, identified from a “long-list”, to involvement in OER collaboration with an HEI varied considerably and depended on a variety of factors, such as organisational attitude, perceived need and benefits to the partner, infrastructure support and crucially the nature of the contact and the willingness of individuals to engage and deliver. The nature of the input from partners varied from providing “complete” materials for conversion to OER through production of new materials and updating existing materials to quality control of OER material.
This poster examines the contribution that partner organisations outside HE can make to OER and their attitude to such developments.