This problem can be overcome by adapting or contextualising the resource, putting a ‘pedagogic wrapper’ around the resource to contextualise it and advise the students how to approach it (see section 5.7.2). These two log entries by W203 illustrate such solutions: Firstly, possibly rather too advanced, and the bit that interests me is embedded in a larger pedagogic fit (26 classes/lectures!) that doesn’t fit my teaching objectives or resources (time, principally). Would need to highlight or extract relevant section; and still would, I expect, need considerable class time to supplement it. A clear overview, and at an appropriate level for the class I’d teach, and the purposes of the class: which seems to be at reference book entry level! But might save me time fulfilling this function, as I currently have to do. This text would then be used as a prelude to attempt to apply the theory to actual texts.
Finally, the resources must be appropriate to students’ needs, as shown in participants’ interest in animations and other graphical representations: ‘I tend towards animations because they are very powerful in terms of their ability to teach dynamic situations’ (W109, in focus group). Student-related cultural, geographical and logistical factors came into play in W103’s searches: she was designing distance learning sessions for international students from several countries who had little access to material in academic repositories – a situation to which OER should, in principle, provide an ideal solution.
5.6.2 Relevance of content The relevance of the content of learning resources also scored highly in the list of decisionmaking factors. Subject-matter – which also includes discipline differences – could be a makeor-break factor. Contrast these two log entries: Good content and easy to extrapolate from this particular example to examples which my students will know e.g. ref to Gettysburg. (W103) Turned out it was historical not chemical analysis of Napoleonic painting. (W106)
In another example, W202 told her focus group of an occasion when she showed her healthcare students an explanatory video on statistics, which failed to meet the required purpose because the students were unable to transfer the examples used in the video – analysing data about doughnuts – to their own domain: The only difference was we weren’t talking about patients, we were talking about doughnuts and that blew their minds. And you sit and you go, actually, you can’t do those jumps, that jump was just too much. I didn’t use it again.
National and cultural differences were also prominent: one resource was rejected because it was in Spanish (W101), others because they were US-based (W105) or, surprisingly, too British (‘I want materials for US students’: W103). Resources scored well where they had contemporary relevance, as shown in one of W205’s log entries: ‘These videos [on YouTube] could be used to explore the ethics behind the Vioxx situation in an online learning activity. The benefits of this will be to bring ethical considerations into real world situations.’
5.6.3 Provenance Unsurprisingly – in view of the survey data reported in Table 5.5 on page 30 – the provenance of resources was not a major consideration for participants. However, faith was expressed in materials emanating from universities with strong research and teaching reputations: ‘if it comes from a Russell Group university department you think, well, that will be all right’ (W103) or from research data: ‘Gives a prospective view about waterbirth from a research point of view, from the medics and the users’ (W108, log entry). Other institutions also carry weight: ‘I have used BBC material before and found it of good quality’ (W201, log entry).
OER Impact Study Research Report July 2011
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