So, the OER16 Open Culture Conference has been and gone and what an experience it was! Co-chairing OER16 with my inspiring colleague Melissa Highton has been an enormously rewarding experience and I owe a huge debt of thanks to everyone who volunteered their time, effort and creativity to make the conference such a success. In particular I’d like […]
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As part of its on going commitment to open education, the University of Edinburgh has recently approved a new Open Educational Resources Policy, that encourages staff and students to use, create and publish OERs to enhance the quality of the student experience. The University is committed to supporting open and sustainable learning and teaching practices by […]
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In keeping with the ethos of open education, the OER conferences have always made an effort to be as diverse, inclusive and, well, open as possible and OER16 Open Culture is no exception. The draft conference programme has recently been announced and we’re delighted to have accepted 101 papers and panels from 29 different countries. […]
Read moreVivien Rolfe, Co-Chair of the ALT Open Education SIG and Associate Head of Department of Biological, Biomedical and Analytical Science, UWE, has written an excellent blog post on her thoughts on sharing and open education following the recent Hewlett Foundation Annual OER Meeting. Viv reflects on the experiences that sparked her initial interest and engagement with open […]
Read moreEarlier this week EdWeek Market Brief reported that Amazon is developing a platform to “allow schools to upload, manage, share, and discover open education resources”. Amazon Inspire, which appears to be aimed squarely at the US K-12 education sector / market (you decide) will enable users to “to add ratings and reviews, and to receive recommendations based on […]
Read moreTowards the end of last year I was interviewed by the OEPS Project as part of their series of case studies on open education practice in Scotland. During the interview I spoke about the Open Scotland initiative, the Scottish Open Education Declaration, OER16, open education initiatives at the University of Edinburgh and the continued need to raise […]
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Last week the University of Edinburgh’s Information Services launched Open.Ed http://open.ed.ac.uk, a website devoted to showcasing open educational resources at the university. The website and the University’s accompanying OER Vision have three strands: For the Common Good Teaching and learning materials exchange to enrich the University and the sector. Support frameworks to enable any member of University of […]
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I’m delighted to announce that registration for the the OER16 Open Culture Conference is now open! The conference, which is being co chaired by Melissa Highton and I, is coordinated by ALT, and will take place at the University fo Edinburgh on the 19th and 20th April 2016. Register for OER16 The conference schedule will be […]
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Towards the end of last year, following an invitation from Adam Hyde of booksprints.net, I wrote a contribution for a free and open online book called The Cost of Freedom. The book is dedicated to Syrian internet volunteer and open knowledge advocate Bassel Khartabil, باسل خرطبيل, who has been detained in Syria since March 2012. On the 3rd October 2015 […]
Read moreThe recent Guardian article that Joanne Begiato, Steven Gray, Isaac Land I I wrote on The Six Best Conference Questions turned out to be so popular that we decided to write another one! This time about conference chairing. An edited version of this article appeared in the Guardian Higher Education Network on the 2nd December, but here’s […]
