21.1 Educational development at otago polytechnic  (Page 8/13)

So far the Polytechnic has chosen not to duplicate the features on these popular media services ‘in house’ and is seeking to maximise the benefits of using external services. In so doing, the Polytechnic is developing a strong and authentic online presence that is distributed widely. Staff are also developing important literacies, transferable skills, and critical awareness of online communications that are relevant to life outside the Polytechnic, and to the Otago Community more generally.

The speed at which this change has taken effect in the Polytechnic has left some service areas unprepared, and is having both positive and negative effects on internal communication. So far the benefits are outweighing the disadvantages, and through continued staff development activities we expect that these disadvantages will diminish.

Comments

1. wayne mackintosh - november 29th, 2007 at 12:06 pm

Hi Leigh, Otago Polytechnic has established a global leadership role in the OER community and I’m very pleased to see your story receiving international recognition through sites lite Terra Incognita. Well done Otago Poly! You are providing us with the models we should replicate.

It’s a significant case study because it encompasses both “top-down” executive support through a new institution wide IP policy and “bottom-up” innovation involving at least 20 FTE staff working tirelessly in providing students with a rich learning experience using OERs.

A little feedback on the CC-BY and CC-BY-SA licensing on WikiEducator. As you know, your “good will” is well placed in the WikiEducator community.

There has been open discussion about the dual licensing topic. I’m happy to report that there is a consensus opinion among active WikiEducators, that as members of the free knowledge community, we should respect and support authors who use less restrictive licenses, including contributors who wish to dedicate their work to the public domain. Its now up to the Interim Advisory Board to implement practical ways to protect the choices of the CC-BY authors - this wouldn’t be too hard. This incorporation of CC-BY materials is a valuable addition to WikiEducator’s generic share-alike license.

Onto more important issues. Otago Poly has firsthand experience of institutional transformation and adoption of OERs incorporating peer-production technologies (as opposed to producer-consumer models) . Next year, the Commonwealth of Learning would like to start a FTEs4WikiEducator initiative, whereby we challenge educational institutions to allocate two full-time equivalent staff to OER content development in WIkiEd.

Based on your experience - what advice can you offer institutions who are going to go down this path? What are the lessons learned? If anything, what would you have done differently?

Otago Poly’s model is an important one and I’d like to figure out how we can replicate this model throughout the Commonwealth and further afield.

Great post Leigh. I’m off to post a front page news item over at WikiEd that an esteemed WikiEducator is over at Terra Incognito chatting about the Poly’s experiences.