I had another meeting with Leigh Blackall (Blogroll) regarding development of our programme. We started talking about a couple of long-term projects that I’ve got in mind (collaborative development of global learning outcomes for massage therapy, and open learning resources using a wiki-media or something similar), then moved on to focus more on issues relating to the present development – the use of Otago Polytechnic’s Community Learning Centres, copyright & open-development, staff development that’s needed for the move to blended delivery, and an interesting testing option.
Community Learning Centres (CLCs)
With the move to online and distance delivery, I’m aware that we will need to have significant supports in place for some of our students. We’re is lucky to have the resource of Otago Polytechnic’s CLCs in this. These centres exist in key locations throughout Otago, and their staff have experience in supporting students in their self-directed computer learning (with Blackboard, MS products, and to some degree wikis, blogs, and related media). However we will need to provide our students with an orientation to our programme, and to the software which we are planning to utilise in the programme. This will need to be facilitated by a combination of staff in the CLCs, and our teaching staff in an online capacity. Currently this type of scenario is not supported by the CLCs (although apparently there is a plan to provide EFTs-based funding for similar scenarios – I’m still waiting to hear back on this). However, I’m aware that there’s a need to make this a fairly big priority. I consider it essential to have this as a solid base for the programme.
Copyright & Open Source
Leigh’s main focus is moving education towards an open-access model. He’s interested in the use of wikis and other open community-learning environments in education. While I am fairly enthusiastic about this, I don’t see it as being particularly realistic for our programme at present. One of the main problems is that massage is a fairly specialised area, and there are not many quality open-content resources out there relative to education or many other fields. This means that as educators we are still often placed in the position of needing to use copyrighted content. I can see that we can move towards a completely open-access course structure, and I do intend to do this, but I think in the meantime we don’t really have the time to search for the specialised open-source resouces that we need (particularly in areas such as anatomy where it’s important that the images that our students engage with provide them with a really 3D sense of the tissues of the body). Again there are options (see my last post on the Anatomy museum – Health Info Island – Second Life), but they all take more time than we have at the moment. For the present it seems wise to stay with a password protected learning management system (i.e. Blackboard) so that we can stay within the boundaries of our copyright laws.
Staff Development
Online facilitation is new for most staff in the massage department. We will need some experience before we get going with it next year. I intend to enrol & will strongly suggest that other staff members enrol in a course which is run by Brownwyn Hegarty of Otago Polytechnic designed to do just this. (Just as soon as I get through the next 2 weeks)
Finally Leigh introduced me to a piece of software that looks useful for creating online tests that will sit outside of a learning management system, thus being more inline with the open-source ethos that he’s a big proponent of. Haven’t had a chance to look at it yet, but I’ll keep you posted.
An exploration of massage therapy training options 
4 comments
Comments feed for this article
July 11, 2007 at 3:04 am
leighblackall
Hi Dave,
I guess if your programme relies on content provided by publishers and others who would not consider open licensing then remaining in a closed environment is necessary. However, if you are considering the development of content yourself (even on a small basis) perhaps we can start by developing that in the open and with permissive copyrights. As you know, OP has drafted an IP policy that sees OP content defaulting to a Creative Commons Attribution license, so we are capable of developing new content in this way. We could also employ someone under a project plan to assist us in finding content that has more permissive publishing rights, as well as make contact with the publishers of the content you are using now and try and negotiate permission to openly publish. All just little steps that we could start now, employing agents to do it for you, so as to not strain your time too much.
This process has been applied to these OP projects so far.
July 11, 2007 at 3:35 am
davidmcquillan
Hi Leigh,
We do actually create a fair bit of content (and I’d be happy to put this out there) but it’s useful to be able to use embed images within our textual information, and often the images that we can use are out of copyrighted textbooks.
I’m definately open to the idea of sourcing appropriate material, but my main concern is that I don’t want to be commited to being completely open, and then feeling restricted because we can’t find the images that we need to support our teaching. Textbooks are one way around this, but you can’t expect the students to pay out for more than a couple of texts.
July 11, 2007 at 4:04 am
leighblackall
I think you ARE wise to keep using the closed environment given your circumstances. If we can find a way to work slowly towards a more flexible version..
hmm, yes – the other programmes face this problem also… If its feesable to have two versions. The restricted version, and the free version. The free version is on a wiki for development into a worth while resource, while the restricted one you continue to use until the free version is compatible.. In your case I’d imagine they’re word docs. Course Genied into blackboard, then copy pasted (where appropriate) into Wikieducator… All of this could be included in the project plan and application, witha rationale for the open development process that includes resources to do it..
July 12, 2007 at 3:53 am
mackiwg
Hi Dave,
Wayne here from WikiEducator at the Commonwealth of Learning.
You’re absolutely right! The move to open distance learning for traditional face-to-face institutions does require careful thinking about the provision of student support services. (I can say this given that I have been involved with distance education for two decades and have also had the privilege of leading the establishment of flexible and distance education at the University of Auckland as the founding director of the Centre for Flexible and Distance Learning, before relocating to Canada.)
Unlike the single mode distance education (DE) providers like the Open Poly of New Zealand or the British Open University or Unisa – traditional campus based institutions, sadly, do not always recognise the unique requirements for the design and development of high quality DE learning materials or the pre-requisites for student support. So I’m very impressed with Otago Poly’s thinking in this area. Well done!
The barrier to getting this right is cost. Conventional institutions embarking on DE projects are typically not designed or financed properly for DE operations. (I can attest to this from my experience @ Auckland Uni).
Herein lies the value proposition for free content initiatives. The most significant cost factor in DE is the academic time required for the authoring of high quality learning materials (in addition to prescribed texts and handouts you would typically use in the classroom). Therefore, if institutions can share this cost by developing free content resources – then we’re onto a win-win scenario. I wouldn’t be too concerned about so-called competition among institutions who engage in collaborative development of free content because from my own experience, students don’t choose institutions based on the sources of the content used in the teaching.
I take your point that there may not be many free content resources available in your area of specialisation — all the more reason to collaborate with other institutions in developing high quality free content materials for DE delivery. This way we can save costs and time – everyone wins!
We must take this one step at a time. Perhaps you could develop one free content lecture, another institution can develop the next lesson. Pretty soon you will have an entire course. The cool thing about free content resource is that you can adapt and modify them for your own context and teaching style.
My suggestion is to start finding informal partnerships with other institutions that teach your area of specialisation and who are keen to move into the distance education arena.
Remember – that when you give knowledge away, you still have it for yourself to use!
Keeping course content within your learning management system is a non-issue for me. There is no reason why you can’t include free content within your LMS, in the same way you incorporate closed content resources.
Most free content licenses like CC-BY or CC-BY-SA are infact copyright licenses and the authors do not give up their intellectual property rights. The simply license free use of the materials and the rights for other teachers to modify and adapt the materials for their own use. In the same way you receive these benefits from other free content resources.
Apology for the long-winded response. You are establishing a leadership role in the free content movement and I hope my reflections will give you the confidence to continue.
We need all the help we can get in building a free curriculum for all sectors by 2015!
Chat to you soon.
Wayne