Cover Sheet for Proposals Name of Initiative: Higher Education Academy/JISC Open Educational

Cover Sheet for Proposals
(All sections must be completed)
Name of Initiative:
Higher Education Academy/JISC Open Educational
Resources Programme Phase 2
Name of Lead Institution:
Subject Centre for Social Policy and Social Work
(SWAP), University of Southampton
Name of Proposed Project:
SWAP OER Project
Name(s) of Project Partners(s)
(except commercial sector – see
below)
The Social Care Institute of Excellence (SCIE); the
Institute for Research and Innovation in Social Services
(IRISS); the Centre of Excellence in Interdisciplinary
Mental Health (CEIMH), University of Birmingham; the
Centre for Human Service Technology (CHST),
University of Southampton
This project involves one or
Name(s) of any commercial partner company (ies)
more commercial sector partners
NO (delete as appropriate)
Full Contact Details for Primary Contact:
Name: Helen Bulpitt
Position: Deputy Director of SWAP
Email: [email protected]
Tel: 023 8059 2523
Fax: 023 8059 2779
Address: Subject Centre for Social Policy and Social Work (SWAP), Room 4125, Murray
Building, School of Social Sciences, University of Southampton, Southampton SO17 1BJ
Length of
Project:
12 months
Project Start
Date:
31st August 2010
Total Funding Requested:
Project End
Date:
31st August 2011
£250,000
Funding requested broken down across Financial Years (April-March)
April 10 – March 11
April 11 – March 12
£229,167
£20,833
Total Institutional Contributions:
£245,658
Outline Project Description
This project will bring together, through the development of a dedicated repository, existing
high quality digital materials that can be used for technology enhanced learning in social
work and social policy. These resources will be available for higher education and the
workplace in the UK and internationally. The project will evaluate the use and reuse of open
educational resources, and encourage the further sharing of learning resources through
collaboration with a range of institutional and work-based partners.
YES
I have looked at the example FOI form at Appendix A and
included an FOI form in this bid
YES
I have read the Funding Call and associated Terms and
Conditions of Grant at Appendix B
Open Education Resources for Social Work and Social Policy
Appropriateness and Fit to Programme Objectives and Overall Value to the JISC and
Academy Communities
1. Introduction
1.1 This project is a consortium led by the Social Policy and Social Work Subject Centre (SWAP)
with the Social Care Institute of Excellence (SCIE)1, the Institute for Research and Innovation in
Social Services (IRISS)2, the Centre of Excellence in Interdisciplinary Mental Health (CEIMH) and
the Centre for Human Service Technology (CHST), University of Southampton which and shares a
Director with SWAP.
1.2 This project will also partner with the School of Electronics and Computer Science (ECS) at the
University of Southampton, which has developed EdShare, an open access educationally focused
repository, and the Library of the University of Southampton which has a lengthy record of
collaboration with ECS and academic schools as well as previous OER projects (e.g. HumBox see
section 8 below).
2. Aims
2.1 The aims of this project are to bring together existing high quality digital materials that can be
used for technology enhanced learning in social work and social policy to be available for higher
education and the workplace in the UK and internationally; to evaluate the use and reuse of open
educational resources; and to encourage the further sharing of learning resources.
2.2 This project is particularly addressing the sector priority area 18.e of the bid document:
'Distinctive subjects, where a low volume of provision exists currently and a convincing argument
could be made for the benefits to cognate disciplines'.
2.3 This project will also address sector priority area 18.d of the bid document: 'Resources
optimised for work-place or work-related learning'.
3. The need for open education resources in social work and social policy
3.1 Although social work and social policy communities demonstrate willingness to collaborate on
the sharing of best practice in many areas of learning and teaching, as evidenced by the subject
communities’ engagement in collaborative activities over the last 10 years (www.swap.ac.uk); the
sector lags behind other disciplines and professions in terms of embedding technology enhanced
learning into both qualifying and post qualifying education and training. Equally, the idea that
curriculum development can draw on pedagogically driven open educational resources is still seen
as innovative and challenging and requires work to enable culture shift (Waldman & Rafferty,
20083, Rafferty & Steyaert, 20094). At present, educators and trainers lack an effective way of
sharing, finding and reusing these materials.
3.2 The E-supported Learning and Teaching Enhancement Project (JISC DeL II, 2007) found use
was being made of VLEs but mainly for replacing paper. There is a particular driver to engage with
this OER project as the Government's Social Work Reform Board is working to create a new
framework for qualifying and post qualifying education in England; SWAP is currently engaged in
the development work with government bodies and other stakeholders on the nature and content
of the curriculum and its delivery (DCSF, 2010)5. The subject centre has been asked to provide
guidance for HEIs once the curriculum framework is set, which will be within the lifetime of this
project. Consultation on the new framework will be taking place between September and
December 2010 with a view to implementation in September 2011. Provision of the repository as a
resource for the redevelopment of curricula would be extremely timely. The provision of resources
1
SCIE is an independent charity, funded by the Department of Health and the devolved administrations in Wales and
Northern Ireland. SCIE identifies and disseminates the knowledge base for good practice in all aspects of social care
throughout the United Kingdom. http://www.scie.org.uk
2
IRISS is an independent charity, limited by guarantee; its mission is to promote positive outcomes for the people who
use Scotland’s social services by enhancing the capacity and capability of the social services workforce to access and
make use of knowledge & research for service innovation & improvement. http://www.iriss.org.uk/
3
Waldman, J. & Rafferty, J. (Eds.) (2008) Technology enhanced learning and teaching in social work education, The
International Journal of Social Work Education. 27/8. Routledge
4
Rafferty, J. & Steyaert, J. (Eds.) (2009) Social work in the digital age, British Journal of Social Work, 39/4, Oxford Press
5
Department of Education & Department of Health (2010), Building a Safe and Confident Future: Implementing the
recommendations of the Social Work Taskforce, Social Work Reform Board, accessed on 17/06/10
at http://www.dcsf.gov.uk/swtf/
that are maximised for re-use and re-purposing would enable the repository to retain its currency
for any future curriculum developments.
3.3 There is an expansion of work-based qualifying and post qualifying learning within social work
education, with many HEIs now running work-based learning programmes. The undergraduate and
postgraduate routes to the social work qualification engage employers in the design of the
programmes, both in providing student placements within the degree and also through HEI
partnerships with employers in providing post qualifying training. Through the Social Work Reform
Board (Rafferty is a member) a compact has been developed between UUK and the Association of
Directors of Adult Services and the Association of Directors of Children's Services to ensure high
level engagement in employer and employee learning. Having established support for this OER
project from the regulatory body for social work, the General Social Care Council (GSCC: see letter
of support) and collaborating with two providers of resources to the workplace (SCIE and IRISS),
this project has the potential to provide a valuable resource for employers, practitioners and
students on placement.
3.4 The text above focuses on social work education, yet one of the underpinning knowledge
bases for social work is social policy and we have identified resources which provide learning
materials for the main domains of knowledge within social policy, such as the "Spoken Word" BBC
archive on the Welfare State which Glasgow Caledonian University have developed in partnership
with SWAP and the BBC and would be available as OER. SCIE as a consortia partner in the bid
holds learning resources in social welfare law and legislation which would be of use to students of
social policy. The project would also call on learning resources from cognate OER projects,
particularly sociology and the health professions in order to maximise cross disciplinary and
interdisciplinary learning opportunities, in support of changing curricula and professional practice.
4. Addressing the need
4.1 This project will address this lack of shared and accessible resources in social work and social
policy by collecting a broad range of diverse learning resources for both HEI and work based
learning.
4.2 It will also address the lack of an embedded culture of sharing technology based resources
with an active programme of education, awareness raising, peer review and dissemination. Central
to these activities will be the provision of a community repository for the social work and social
policy community (adapted from HumBox, an existing repository developed for the Humanities in
OER phase 1) which will raise the status, accessibility and shared ownership of open educational
resources in the community as a whole.
5. Objectives
5.1 To identify and make openly available existing social work and social policy learning resources
5.2 To bring together digital educational resources from social work and social policy disciplines in
open access repositories. These resources will include topic modules, videos and podcasts,
helpsheets, information sheets, Powerpoint presentations, guides, learning objects, etc.
5.3 To provide a trusted and sustainable community repository
5.4 To increase awareness of the OER approach in social work and social policy education and
practice and to promote the culture of shared, open educational resources across the social work
and social policy disciplines and employers fostering an increased awareness of and commitment
to sharing resources
5.5 To explore the use and reuse of resources
5.6 To build a community of practice
5.7 To disseminate findings and share good practice with the education and practice communities
6. Benefits and value to the social work and social policy communities
6.1 The repository will provide:
• access to a substantial collection of reusable learning materials in the fields of social work
and social policy in a dedicated repository
• encouragement and support to the social work and social policy communities to share their
own learning resources
• an invitation to showcase good practice in learning materials design
• an active forum for practitioners and academics to develop and share expertise and skill in
creating and using open educational resources
• a focal point for engagement and innovation.
Quality of Proposal and Robustness of Work plan
7. Work plan The project will be built around two core work packages with a third work package
underpinning the other two.
7.1 Work package one: Developing the new repository in collaboration with ECS (see section
below)
7.1.1 Collecting, collating and repurposing (where necessary) partners' resources and uploading to
the new repository, name to be confirmed. An advantage of using the EdShare repository as the
platform is that it already feeds directly into JorumOpen, meeting the requirement for more than
one repository. Much of the contribution of the project partners will be in support of this work
package. Their funding will enable them to bring their designated resources to be readily uploaded
to the repository. Co-ordination of the shared standards and shared licensing will be undertaken at
the subject centre in collaboration with staff in the University Library, but the actual work will be
undertaken by the partners as they release and share their resources.
7.1.2 An initial identification of suitable resources has been undertaken by the project
partners. These include:
• 44 items from CEIMH in the form of high quality video triggers based around
interdisciplinary mental health issues
• 15 learning resources from IRISS which include, among other things, an audio and video
based introduction to human rights and a multimedia learning object familiarising students
with the framework, key principles and statutes surrounding social work intervention with
families and adult offenders
• A comparable number of resources from SCIE (exact quantity to be confirmed)
• 100+ learning resources hosted on SWAP’s website
• Substantial modules on research mindedness and child welfare from CHST
These resources will form the initial quantity of resources to be made available to the
community. These are all high quality resources, suitable for multiple learning and teaching
purposes and it is estimated that together they comprise a minimum of 360 credits of resources.
7.1.3 The project intends to invite contributions from new collaborators at various stages of
experience in developing OER resources and so it is harder to estimate the quantity that will be
offered. The project aims to generate at least a further 120 credits of resources through this
mechanism.
7.1.4 All resources will comply with appropriate standards. These will comprise the JISC
recommended standards on all aspects of development, including accessibility standards.
7.1.5 Work package one deliverables
• The repository
• Teaching resources available for sharing (a target of 480 credits)
7.2 Work package two: Establishing a community of practice and the shared use of a framework
for transforming teaching materials into OERs
7.2.1 This work package will commence at the same time as work package one with the early
establishment of a wiki or community based site such as a Ning or the OU's Cloudworks. The
work plan reflects the aim of capturing and releasing existing resources from innovators in the
fields of social policy and social work and of linking this into an emerging community of practice
(Wenger 2001: http://www.ewenger.com/tech/index.htm). This community of practice will facilitate
collaboration between experienced and less experienced practitioners. The development of a
dedicated wiki or other social media site will provide a flexible and interactive community space
where people at all stages of experience can join the discussion and be enabled to develop,
upload and release suitable resources as well as to facilitate the sharing of experiences of, and
expertise in, using and re-using resources for a range of learning and teaching contexts. Advice
has been sought from the Subject Centre for Sociology, Anthropology and Politics (C-SAP) which
led the CSAP OER project 'Evaluating the Practice of Opening up Resources for Learning and
Teaching in the Social Sciences' and used a wiki for support purposes and to build a community of
practice (https://csapoer.pbworks.com/).
7.2.2 Publicity and two workshops about the project will also be delivered early in support of this
work package in order to begin to generate interest for potential future contributors and to promote
the establishment of the community of practice. The technical support officer's role at the centre
will primarily be to support the community in developing new resources and in the expertise
required to produce and release resources into the future. It will be crucial that this person is on
hand, on email and on the phone, to provide one-stop shop access to technical support for all
partners and potential collaborators. This person will also provide a defined facilitator role for the
virtual community.
7.2.3 A framework, such as at the CORRE framework devised by the OER phase 1 Otter project
(http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/programmes/elearning/oer/otter.aspx) will be identified early on as
the model to support the development of resources, the key priority being that the process is as
straightforward as possible for busy practitioners from both institutional and practice settings to
gain the expertise needed to develop, upload, release and exchange resources.
7.2.4 Development of the repository and its functionality is also critical to this work package.
Working with the department of Electronics and Computer Science at the University of
Southampton, the repository will be developed with maximum interactivity - comments, rating, and
other features, still to be confirmed, will be incorporated in order to promote discussion about the
use, reuse and usability of the resources.
7.2.5 Work package two deliverables
• Guidance on creating, developing and repurposing of resources for open access
• Interactive forum (wiki/social networking site) developed and active
• Interactive functionality of the repository integrated
7.3 Work package three: Underpinning processes. This work package will include project
management, publicity and marketing, dissemination and evaluation.
7.3.1 Project management: This project will be directed and managed by Helen Bulpitt, Deputy
Director of SWAP, with Jackie Rafferty, Director of SWAP. A full time project officer will be
recruited to undertake the day to day running of the project, together with one of SWAP's academic
learning and teaching advisers, who will work on the project part time. Part time technical and
library officers will be seconded from the University of Southampton to provide expertise in specific
areas. This group will form the management group which will be informed by project advisers and
a wider steering group and will undertake the following:
• development of the repository itself, in consultation with the partners and maximising the
interactive functionalities available
• recruiting and collaborating with a steering group, comprising project partners,
representatives from institutions, as well as employer groups (local government information
unit, GSCC, etc) and other sector organisations. The external evaluator (see section 15
below) will also be invited to attend the steering group as critical friend. This group will
steer the process of peer review of resources, though others will be invited to become
reviewers. The review process will be seen as a developmental tool for those more
experienced in support of those less experienced in generating and releasing materials.
• recruiting and collaborating with a user group tasked with trialling and reviewing resources
and functionality of the repository. This group will comprise students, academics, service
users and carer representatives, as well as practitioners from institutions and practice.
• dissemination activity, which will begin from day one as the project is publicised and the
community is encouraged to get involved (see section 14 below)
• evaluation: the iterative process inherent in the model of the project will be captured
throughout the project, including impacts on individuals, schools, departments, students
and institutions (see section 15 below)
The project team will take every opportunity to engage with the ongoing work of JISC and make full
use of the project support services.
7.3.2 Publicity and marketing: It is anticipated that although we are starting from a fairly low
baseline of awareness of the potential of OER, we can generate a high level of interest in this project
from the community through an education and marketing/promotional campaign. This campaign will
tap into and reinforce partnership commitments to the project and encourage sustainability. The
project website will reflect the marketing campaign, outline the core aims and activities of the project
and invite further colleagues to join the community by sharing their own resources or by commenting
on items shared by others. The project will be promoted on all partners' websites, newsletters etc.
Other forms of publicity will be produced such as postcards and posters for use at events.
7.3.3 Work package three deliverables
• An active community of experienced and new resource contributors
• Two development workshops
• Project website and publicity materials
•
•
Dissemination activity through the dedicated website, subject centre and partner websites,
conferences (e.g. JSWEC http://www.jswec.co.uk/ )
Evaluation report
8. EdShare
8.1The EdShare software is a platform for sharing resources for learning and teaching. It is built
on the proven EPrints software (developed within the School of Electronics & Computer Science at
the University of Southampton) which delivers the University’s institutional research repository.
EPrints software has been deployed across many institutions internationally.
8.2 EdShare was created by a JISC-funded Project at the University of Southampton 2008-2009
and provides for metadata, tagging, and semantic mark-up of stored items. Each resource created
has a persistent URL, enabling linking, sharing and reliable, continued access over time. EdShare
is a way to keep resources that people really care about, and use in learning and teaching,
safe. Anybody with a username and password can login to EdShare, to add content and if the
resources are given the “World” level of permission, they are available to anyone with access to
the World Wide Web. Resources presented in EdShare are retrievable both by searching within the
repository itself, and also by searching in Google, thereby providing a valuable level of visibility for
the creator’s educational offer. RSS feeds can be set up to link resources in EdShare to many
other web-based services.
8.3 EdShare has attracted considerable interest and attention across the HE community in the UK
and we have developed plans with other institutions and organisations to support them in installing
their own version of the software. We have worked in partnership to understand the strategic
approaches, policies and practices that will enable this kind of service to flourish. So far, with our
JISC-funded Projects and associated Benefits’ Realisation funding, we have supported
installations of EdShare as the institution-wide learning and teaching repository at the University of
Southampton (www.edshare.soton.ac.uk), as well as the HumBox repository for the Languages,
Linguistics and Area Studies (LLAS) HEA Subject Centre, the WLBR at the University of Worcester
and LORO at the Department of Languages, Open University.
8.4 The EdShare team will assist the project in a number of ways:
• Technical assistance will be required with setting up a local version of the repository
software and configuring it for the specific domain requirements. The initial phase will also
require delivery of a look-and-feel appropriate to the community’s requirements.
• Technical support will be necessary throughout the project to resolve identified problems
and to fix bugs.
• EdShare is a stable piece of software. The requirements of this deployment, however,
could be expected to generate a level of beneficial feedback both to improve usability and
to deliver other modifications.
• Development of feature enhancements which would be generalisable across other subject
communities in which practitioners, academics, practice educators, researchers, CPD and
regulatory groups work in partnership. These may be relatively minor technical changes
rather than new feature-sets, but will enable the software better to fit the needs of complex
communities.
• Implementation of specific subject taxonomies already in use across the sector.
• Support in making the transition for technical support from a specialist IT team to the host
organisation. This process will deliver sustainability for the developmental work. It will take
the form of documentation, training and wider community engagement.
9. University of Southampton Library
9.1 This project would build on the experience of a range of work across the University of
Southampton. In addition, the Project would seek to identify how practice in a range of national,
practitioner, educational and research communities can be co-ordinated and integrated to provide
increased benefit to all.
9.2 There are online educational resources that have already been developed and presented for
use by the subject community. Many of these resources have been quality assured to provide
confidence for copyright and IPR concerns. In other cases, however, there is still work to do in this
area. Experience at the University of Southampton has been developed in the HumBox Project
(humanities based) for establishing models for best practice relating to metadata, as well as
copyright and IPR concerns in the area of educational resources. Academic liaison library staff
would support the wider applicability of these models for a different community of practice. They
are also cognisant with the wider OER communities and familiar with supporting tools.
9.3 The University of Southampton is particularly active in this domain through projects such as
EPrints, DataShare, EdShare, and HumBox. The Library contribution to these Projects has
enabled extension and deepening of the partnership working between academic groups and liaison
library staff. This Project would enable further development of the engagement role across the
academic, practitioner, and practice based educator communities to support deployment, access
and use for learning and teaching resources. Librarians would work with partner organisations
and established communities of practice to explore and begin to identify early stages of a
framework to enable more effective sharing and support for sharing high quality resources.
9.4 Subject focused taxonomies exist in the community and are at early stages of
dissemination. The Project would undertake work to deploy the required and appropriately tailored
taxonomy within the software installed. University librarians would focus on the organisation,
curation and management of resources within the repository. This work would maximise visibility,
retrieval, delivery and access between the range of project partners as well as to the wider subjectbased community of users across the web.
10. Risk analysis
This project is managed by SWAP. The most significant risks identified for this project are:
Scor
Pro
Sev e
Type of
babi
Risk
erity (Prob Action to prevent/manage risk
lity
risk
(1-5) x
(1-5)
Sev)
Staffing
External
suppliers
Organisational
Loss of project partners
1
4
4
If loss of partner occurs early in the
project, additional partners will be
approached. If loss occurs late in the
project, additional materials will be
sought from existing partners and
additional sources.
Funding for project lead
institution (SWAP
Subject Centre) only
guaranteed until July
2011
2
4
8
Ensure core work is finished by end of
July 2011. Develop contingency plans
with partners
Staff absence (due to
holiday, sickness, etc)
2
2
4
Build in extra time into work plans;
divide duties and activities between
appropriate staff
Loss of key staff
1
5
5
Divide duties and activities between
appropriate staff
Recruitment of staff
delayed
1
5
5
Start recruitment process as soon as
funding is guaranteed. Another staff
member to take on role in interim.
Non-delivery of
resources
1
5
5
Delivery of resources will be written in
to project partner contracts
Insufficient quantity of
resources
2
3
6
Between them, project partners have
huge number of contacts across the
sector who will be able to supply
additional resources
Repository use by
community minimal
2
3
6
Publicity and marketing of repository
from an early stage in project
Organisational
difficulties (e.g.
communication with all
2
2
4
Regular communication at all stages of
project.
partners, arranging
cross-institutional
meetings)
Technical
Legal
Lack of technical support 2
4
8
Technical support staff will be recruited
to the project
Technical issues with
repository
1
4
4
Repository will be modelled on existing
EdShare repository at University of
Southampton, which is already very
robust and has been extensively
tested.
Agreements delayed
3
2
6
Send agreements to partners as soon
as possible after funding is secured.
IPR and copyright issues 4
4
16
An individual experienced in IPR and
copyright issues will be recruited to the
project
11. Sustainability
11.1 The project partners represent key organisations that are embedded in the social work sector
and have ongoing commitment to the social work community. As such, their commitment to the
maintenance and continued support of a dedicated repository will extend beyond the end of this
project.
11.2 The development of a community of practice facilitates a self-directed network where future
opportunities can be exploited in collaboration. Moreover, the project aims to create and encourage
a disciplinary culture favourable to the sharing of resources, which is a key factor in sustainability.
Methods to achieve sustainability will be implemented throughout the project, e.g. by including and
supporting contributors to the repository in decisions about submission, evaluation, modification,
and technical development of the repository, thus reinforcing their commitment to the community,
and exploring and minimising potential fears and worries over contributing open content.
11.3 This project will lay emphasis on the provision of resources that can be used for multiple
purposes. This will ensure the resources retain currency with changing curricula and teaching
approaches, allowing maximum sustainable flexibility.
11.4 Dissemination activity will also form part of the sustainability plan for the project which will
continue to support the sharing initiative through the work of the Subject Centre and project
partners. Core networking activities will aim to extend the community of users, which will be
expected to continue using and contributing to the repository beyond the life of the project.
11.5 The dedicated repository will be hosted at the University of Southampton, and will be
monitored and maintained by the existing ePrints support team as well as the maintenance and
dissemination forming part of SWAP’s core activities. All resources deposited in the dedicated
repository will also automatically be uploaded to JorumOpen.
12 Intellectual Property Rights (IPR)
12.1 Most partners collaborating on this bid have indicated that they, or their institution, own IPR
on the materials to be released and that release of the materials, in the spirit of the OER initiative,
should be straightforward. Nonetheless we anticipate that considerable exploration and negotiation
of IPR is likely to be required during the course of the project and the project has already secured
the services of an expert in the field at the University of Southampton Library as a project adviser
(Brown).
12.2 It is intended that all OERs will be released under the Creative Commons AttributionNoncommercial-Share Alike license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/).
Engagement with the Community
13. Stakeholders
13.1 Key stakeholders in the project are the Higher Education Academy, JISC, HEFCE, project
partners, cognate Centres of Excellence in Teaching and Learning (CETLs), the SWAP community
including academic staff, social work practitioners and trainers and students, social work
employers, staff and educational developers, Heads of Departments/Schools and Deans of
Faculties, policy makers within HEIs, the Department of Health and the Department of Education.
Representatives of each of these groups have already been approached and have expressed
interest and support (see letter of support from the General Social Care Council, for example)
14. Dissemination
14.1 Dissemination from the earliest stages of the project is recognised as crucial to the
sustainability of the repository. A dissemination and marketing strategy will be developed at the
beginning of the project to ensure wide dissemination of the project and to encourage interest and
participation.
14.2 The project will have a dedicated website outlining aims and objectives and will include a
timetable of activities. The website will be publicised via SWAP's and all the project partners'
existing links to the community (print, online, face-to-face). The website will be regularly updated
and maintained by SWAP.
14.3 The project will be publicised at relevant events organised by SWAP and the project partners,
such as the Joint Social Work Education Conference (JSWEC) as well as through the subject
associations and regulatory bodies.
14.4 Publicity of the project will start from the earliest phase and will continue throughout the
project, maximising the support and constituencies of both JISC and the Academy. As part of work
package two (see section 8.3) further colleagues will be encouraged to join the community by
sharing their own resources and/or commenting on resources shared by others, which will
reinforce and encourage sustainability.
14.5 This project will be the vehicle by which to start an ongoing discussion within the community
about the potential and practicalities of the sharing of open education resources.
15. Evaluation
15.1 Integral to the functionality of the repository is the facility for users and contributors to
comment on and evaluate their own resources and those of others. These comments will be
captured to form the basis of ongoing, formative evaluation.
15.2 Further formative evaluation will be captured through regular meetings and contact with the
steering and user groups (both face to face and virtual meetings).
15.3 Criteria for evaluating the project will include both quantitative measures (number of
resources deposited, number of resources downloaded etc) as well as qualitative measures (level
of contributions, diversity of collaborators and levels of previous experience etc).
15.4 An external evaluator will be recruited early in the project to act as a critical friend throughout
the life of the project, culminating in an evaluation report.
15.5 Impact evaluation will also be undertaken. The Higher Education Academy's own framework
for impact evaluation will be used as a basis for this, enabling synergy in reporting on the OER
project and on core subject centre activities. This framework comprises a six level evaluation
framework (developed from Kirkpatrick (1994)6 and Fincher (2000)7): awareness and knowledge;
reactions; engagement; learning from the project; applications of the learning; effects on delivery of
teaching and the impact on students.
16. Budget
16.1 The proposed budget is included below. This has already been through the University of
Southampton's TRAC mechanism and has received approval from both the Deputy Head of School
(Research) and the School of Social Sciences Accountant.
Directly Incurred Staff
6
Aug 10-July 11
Aug 11- Aug 11
TOTAL £
Kirkpatrick, D. (1994) Evaluating Training Programs, San Francisco, CA, Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc.
Fincher, S. (2000) 'From transfer to transformation: towards a framework for successful dissemination of engineering
education' Frontiers in Education Conference, Kansas City
7
Non-Staff
Aug 10-July 11
Aug 11- Aug 11
TOTAL £
Travel and expenses
Hardware/software
Dissemination
Evaluation
Other (grants to partners, servicing user
group activity)
3806
0
9515
4758
123693
346
0
865
433
11245
10380
5190
134938
Total Directly Incurred Non-Staff (B)
141772
12888
154660
Directly Incurred Total (C) (A+B=C)
204454
18847
223301
Directly Allocated
Aug 10-July 11
Aug 11- Aug 11
4152
TOTAL £
Estates
Other
Contributions from partners in time and
resources
12748
0
123693
1159
0
11245
134938
Directly Allocated Total (D)
186448
17113
203561
63063
5733
68796
453965
229167
41693
20833
495658
250,000
225187
20472
245,658
Indirect Costs (E)
Total Project Cost (C+D+E)
Amount Requested from
JISC/Academy
Institutional Contributions
Percentage Contributions over the
life of the project
JISC/Academy
Partners
50
No. FTEs used to calculate indirect
and estates charges, and staff
included
No FTEs: 1.8
13907
Total
50
100%
Which Staff: Helen Bulpitt, Martina
Johnson, Jackie Rafferty, project
officer,
17. The Project Team
17.1 Helen Bulpitt (Principal investigator SWAP) has been managing and co-ordinating
collaborative educational development projects since 2004 at two HEA Subject Centres: Health
Sciences and Practice (2004 - 2008) and SWAP (2008 - present). As well as managing over 40
small-grant funded projects, she co-ordinated support for 16 health-related FDTL 4 projects,
providing brokerage and advice and facilitating networking events. She also undertook an impact
evaluation study on these projects and contributed to the national events and publications that
drew together learning from across all phases of the FDTL funding. (Bulpitt and McKimm 20098;
McKimm and Bulpitt 20099). She has almost 30 years’ experience as a teacher at all levels from
early years to higher education and has a particular interest in learning theory and creative
pedagogy.
8
Bulpitt, H and McKimm, J. (2009). Effecting educational change through collaboration: the experience of the healthrelated FDTL4 projects FDTL Voices: drawing from learning and teaching projects (pp. 18 - 27). The Higher Education
Academy.
9
McKimm, J. and Bulpitt, H. (2009). FDTL projects as a testing ground for models of educational leadership. In Hodsdon,
L and Segal, R. (eds), FDTL Voices: drawing from learning and teaching projects. The Higher Education Academy
17.2 Jackie Rafferty (Co-investigator SWAP) has been researching, developing and facilitating
the use of technology in the Human Services for over 20 years, over that time she has successfully
led a number of consortia funded through HEFCE, Department of Health and EU monies. She has
directed the Higher Education Academy Subject Centre for Social Policy and Social Work since it
began and for 10 years prior to that directed the Computer Teaching Initiative (CTI) Centre for the
Human Services. She also directs the Centre for Human Service Technology (CHST) and is
currently researching the use of social media for learning and practice. Recent publications
include: Rafferty, J. and Steyaert, J. (2009) (Eds.)10 Waldman, J. and Rafferty, J. (Eds.) (2008)11
17.3 Dr Martina Johnson (Co-investigator SWAP) is a learning and teaching adviser for SWAP
and has a particular interest in technology-enhanced learning. After a first degree in psychology
with cognitive science, she completed her doctoral thesis on the topic of explicit and implicit
learning under the supervision of Professor Stevan Harnad, a leading figure in the Open Access
initiative. At SWAP, Martina was involved with the E-supported Learning and Teaching
Enhancement (ELTE) Project, which ran from 2006 to 2008 and is currently the lead on technology
related projects.
17.4 Tarsem Singh Cooner (Co-investigator CEIMH) worked as a senior social work practitioner
for twelve years in a range of statutory roles in social services. He is a qualified social work
practice teacher and during the late 1990s began creating multimedia based training CD-ROMs for
students on placement. He joined the University of Birmingham in 2001 as an e-Learning Manager
for the School of Social Policy and Social Work where he was responsible for developing blended
learning resources and practices. In 2005 he became Associate Director of a HEFCE funded
Centre of Excellence in Teaching and Learning in Interdisciplinary Mental Health. In this role he
has focused on developing interdisciplinary enquiry-based blended learning programmes involving
a range of social care and health related disciplines both within and outside of the University. Using
a funded project model the Centre of Excellence has built a reputation for encouraging and
designing the development of flexible and collaborative blended learning designs that involve high
levels of mental health service user and carer involvement. Tarsem has a high degree of technical
expertise and experience that he has combined with an interest in pedagogic research to develop
innovative approaches to overcome barriers of time and space that previously prevented students
from related disciplines from learning together with practitioners and service users and carers. All
the resources created by the Centre have been made on the basis of encouraging the
development and sharing of Open Educational Resources.
17.5 Gavin Nettleton (Co-investigator SCIE) has a fairly long history in higher education, media
production and e-learning. He started his career in education following a first degree in psychology
as a media producer in higher education in South Africa and then in Edinburgh in the seventies
and in the eighties. He moved into e-learning via media management and multimedia production
interests in the late 80s and following an MA in Open and Distance Learning in the mid 90s, he
subsequently e-tutored with the OU, while maintaining his broader media and e-learning role in the
University of Brighton. He worked for a while in the ill-fated UK e-University as a Senior Learning
Technologist prior to moving into the social care sector as Head of e-Learning for the Social Care
Institute for Excellence in 2004.
17.6 Ian Watson's (Co-investigator IRISS) background is in the legal framework of information,
including rights management, intellectual property rights and data protection. Currently Knowledge
Media Project Manager with IRISS, he is responsible for managing the IRISS repository (Learning
Exchange) as well as creating original content (learning materials, audio recordings, video
interviews etc). The Learning Exchange is hosted on IntraLibrary proprietary software but IRISS
built an 'open search' interface based on the SRU standard (www.iriss.org.uk/openlx). Currently
the Exchange is being ported to a new platform built on the Drupal open source CMS.
17.7 Dr Mark Brown (Project Adviser) has been University Librarian at the University of
Southampton since 2001, responsible for the policy and strategic direction of the University Library.
10
Rafferty, J. & Steyaert, J. (Eds.) (2009) Social work in the digital age, British Journal of Social Work, 39/4, Oxford
Press
11
Waldman, J. & Rafferty, J. (Eds.) (2008) Technology enhanced learning and teaching in social work education, The
International Journal of Social Work Education. 27/8. Routledge
Member of the Education Policy Committee and the Professional Services Group, working in
collaboration with the iSolutions service and Student Services. He has been a project team
member for a range of JISC-funded projects including EdShare and Institutional Data Management
Blueprint (IDMB) and is currently leading the Institutional Repository Steering Group, which is
coordinating the development of repository activities at Southampton (including EdShare, the
learning and teaching repository). He was formerly Project Director for the KULTUR Project,
developing a repository for the creative arts and joint Project Director for the DATASHARE Project,
joint with EDINA, LSE and Edinburgh, to provide a model for managing significant orphan datasets
in the social sciences.
17.8 Prof Hugh Davis (Project Adviser) is the Head of the Learning Societies Lab (LSL) within the
5* research School of Electronics and Computer Science (ECS) at the University of Southampton.
He is also the University Director of Education with responsibility for E-Learning. He has been
involved in hypertext research since the late 1980s and has interests in the applications of
hypertext for learning, open hypertext systems and architectures for adaptation and personalisation.
He has extensive publications in these fields, and experience of starting a spin-off company with a
hypertext product. His recent research interests revolve around Web and Grid service frameworks
for eLearning and he has a particular focus on the assessment domain. He has led many projects
focussing on both the technology and application of e-learning.
17.9 Debra Morris (Project Adviser) is ELearning Lead for the University of Southampton Library,
an academic liaison librarian, as well as Project Manager for EdShare at the University. She is a
member of the University Southampton Learning Environment Group, the Technology Enhanced
Learning Steering and Implementation Group, the University Learning Spaces Strategy Group and
sits as a member of the Student and Academic Administration Board. In 2005, she was awarded a
University of Southampton Vice Chancellor’s Award for Learning and Teaching. She is a Member
of the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals.