Thanks to a request from staff in HCA the Library currently has trial access to two databases from AM Digital …Continue reading →
Blog Posts
Cherish inclusive design standards
It’s my last week at the University of Edinburgh, a quiet time to reflect. Over the last couple of years, we have published the University Design System, the Inclusive Language Guide, and the Editorial Style Guide. These have brought us closer to inclusive design standards. We need to keep developing these resources, and not take […]
OER23 Conference: Advancing open education practices
This year the OER Conference will be returning to Scotland for the first time since it was hosted by the […]
Open for Good: 10 years of open course development at the University of Edinburgh
As part of Open Education Week, the global celebration of open education worldwide, EDE hosted a public webinar Open for Good: 10 years of open course development at the University of Edinburgh, which shares the story of how the we developed an open co…

Creating Edinburgh: The Interdisciplinary City
In this guest blog post, Dr David Overend, Lecturer in Interdisciplinary Studies at Moray House School of Education and Sport, […]

Introducing the University of Edinburgh’s Stock Media Footage
In this guest post, Media Production Intern Qiaojun Yan introduces the University’s Open Media Stock Footage collection on Media Hopper […]

Open Education Week 2023
Open Education Week (OE Week) is an annual celebration hosted by Open Education Global that provides an opportunity for actively […]

Summer Internships – Come and work with us!
We have an exciting opportunity for two student interns to come and work with the OER Service for three months […]

Colouring books hosted on Edinburgh Diamond service
Our colouring books ‘We have great stuff’ volumes one and two are now available on Edinburgh Diamond, the University of Edinburgh Library’s digital service for hosting Diamond open source books and journals.

ENCORE+ Interview on OER and credentialing
Towards the end of last year OER Service manager Lorna M. Campbell was interviewed by Dai Griffiths of the European […]

OER Service 2022 Roundup
It’s been another busy year for the OER Service! As well as celebrating over 5 years of institutional support for […]
Open Media Bank: Legacy MOOC Project
The Instructional Design Team have just completed a project with the OER (Open Educational Resources) Service which, as all good projects do, started with a mysterious old dusty spreadsheet. It was a record of legacy MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses)…
Open Research Support at Russell Group Universities
As part of my work as Research Data Steward, I was asked by our Open Research Co-ordinator to investigate the …Continue reading →

Open to the World: Celebrating 20 years of Creative Commons licences
Creative Commons, the international organisation dedicated to sharing knowledge and creativity, celebrates 20 years of Creative Commons licences. The organisation […]

Learning Technology Community: OER Service Takeover
Next Monday 31 October the OER Service is looking forward to taking over the University of Edinburgh’s Learning Technology Community […]

OfS review of Blended Learning
In March 2002 the Office for Students announced their plan to review blended learning provision in English universities. I was delighted to be invited to be part of the expert panel doing the review. The OfS currently hold no sway in Scotland, but they shape the ways in which some of the universities in England …
“An epoch in history” – Charles Lyell in Nova Scotia 1842
We are delighted to welcome Tim Fedak – a Curator and Palaeontologist based at Nova Scotia Museum – to our …Continue reading →

Ada Lovelace Day 2022
As every year, I gathered colleagues, friends and students to celebrate Ada Lovelace Day again. There was story on the BBC that this year might be the end for ALD, but I am not convinced. There is still much work to be done. “According to data published by STEM Women – a company which organises networking …
Open Textbooks and OER Webinar
Last week Lorna Campbell, OER Service Manager, and Dhara Snowden, Textbook Programme Manager at UCL Press, joined Jane Secker and […]

ALTC 2022 – Reconnecting
Earlier this month the annual ALT Conference returned as an in-person event for the first time since the pandemic. Around 400 participants joined the hybrid conference at the University of Manchester, for both an in-person and online programme. For many delegates it was their first in-person conference since the Before Times and I think it’s […]

OEG Voices Podcasts
Earlier this summer Lorna Campbell and Charlie Farley joined Alan Levine from Open Education Global for the OEG Voices podcast […]

100,000 downloads of award-winning OERs from TES Resources
As part of our mission and vision to share the knowledge we discover with our graduates, and make the world […]

digital leadership in education: a feminist perspective
I am delighted that a chapter I wrote, based on my research has now been published in the Handbook of Digital Higher Education
Chapter 28: The importance of diversity and digital leadership in education: a feminist perspective from higher education ht…

End of Open Content Internship
One of the aspects that had initially attracted me to the role was the importance of openly licensed, accessible resources […]

Open Content Internship – Last Week!
Looking back at my first blog post, it doesn’t feel like it’s been nearly three months at all! I applied […]

Researching Social Media Algorithms: Dangerous Data
How come Twitter shows you the cutest cat video EVER each time you log in? How much does Facebook make […]

Collaborating and Developing the SatSchool OERs
This blog post is a bit different, as it is co-written by both myself (Molly) and Alyssa. We both worked […]
Edinburgh Open Research Conference Proceedings
One of the ambitions for the EOR conference held in March, 2022, when we first started planning it was to …Continue reading →

OER for Disability Pride Month
During Disability Pride Month, I chose to develop my own resource and chose to work with the AS and Neurodiversity […]
Procurement aka the crack in everything that lets the bullshit in
I’ve been thinking and writing and talking a lot about edtech procurement recently. In fact I’ve been thinking and writing and talking about it for years but it feels like in this moment it might just be getting a little more traction. It might of … Continue reading Procurement aka the crack in everything that lets the bullshit in

A midpoint reflection: OERs, EDI in tech, internship ideas
I was slightly alarmed when Charlie asked us to write a halfway point blog for the internship, because it still […]

Open Content Intern for ISG: how can OERs help digital spaces?
Reading Time: 3 minutes This blog is cross-posted from the ISG Student Employee Blog. Programme of Study and Year: MA Fine Art, Year […]

Open Content Internship – Halfway Point!
Hi! I’m writing as I am half-way through the Open Content Internship. It doesn’t feel like it’s been nearly six […]

Open for Good – New brochures from the OER and Online Course Production Services
We’re delighted to announce the publication of two new brochures from the OER Service and the Online Course Production Service, […]
Fundamentals of Music Theory: Co-creating sustainable open textbooks for music education
University of Edinburgh Learning and Teaching Conference 2022 presentation by Lorna M. Campbell, Ifeanyichukwu Ezinmadu, Ana Reina Garcia, Nikki Moran and Rebecca Wojturska. Fundamentals of Music Theory: Co-creating sustainable open textbooks for music…

The First Week of the Open Content Internship!
Hello, I am Molly – one of the two Open Content Curator Interns for Summer 2022! I’ve just finished my […]

Starting an Open Content Curator Internship
Hi! I’m Alyssa, one of two Open Content Curator Interns at the Learning Teaching and Web Directorate of the ISG this summer. I am writing this as our first week of meeting new people, training and learning finishes up.
OER22 In Person & Online
Last week I was at the OER22 Conference, and I was actually at the conference because for the first time in two years the OER Conference was in person and online. OER22 was a hybrid conference in every sense of the word; the first day took place in London, the second day featured recorded online […]

Wikipedia, Student Activism and the Ivory Tower
This was a talk presented at the LILAC 2022 Information Literacy Conference held at Manchester Metropolitan University on 11-13 April 2022. The slides will be uploaded shortly. 0) Intro slide: Video of Manchester Metropolitan University’s Wikipedia page being edited. Anyone can click “Edit” on any page on Wikipedia to improve its open-licensed information with verifiable […]

Open Education and OER in the Curriculum
Principles of Open Education and OER This blog post was originally posted on the Curriculum Transformation Hub. The principles of […]

Down the rabbit hole with Wikipedia – LILAC 2022
I asked LILAC Information Literacy Conference 2022 delegates what their favourite Wikipedia pages were and here’s what they answered: Boris Johnson (It’s not flattering) The Dyatlov Pass incident Dolly Parton Cellar door High five Mary Shelley Loch_Ness_Monster The Sopranos List of Manufacturing processes Disambiguation (disambiguation) List of The Simpsons guest stars Defenestrations of Prague Marxist […]

23 Things course wins the MERLOT Instructional and Design Technology Classics Award for 2022
At this year’s OLC Innovate conference, Stephanie (Charlie) Farley was awarded the MERLOT Instructional and Design Technology Classics award for […]

IWD2022 & OERs by Fabulous Women
Celebrating International Women’s Day in 2022 we want to highlight some of the excellent OERs shared with us by a range of fabulous women teaching, supporting, and learning with us here at The University of Edinburgh.

Open Education Week 2022
An annual celebration, Open Education Week (OE Week) March 7-11th is an opportunity for actively sharing and learning about the latest achievements in Open Education worldwide. This year we’re running two information events. The first is a webinar ‘Open to the World’ about our open course development. The webinar is free and open for anyone within or outwith the university to attend! The second is an information session for internal University of Edinburgh staff on how open education is being used in curriculum across the university to the benefit of staff and students.

LGBT+ History Month OERs
February is LGBT+ History Month in the UK each year with the overall aim to promote equality and diversity for […]

Sustainable Futures & Live at COP26
Videos from the two short free online courses on Learning for Sustainable futures and Live at COP26 are now open licensed and available for anyone to view, use, and re-use under Creative Commons licences.
The Penguin and the Piper: Telling a different story
Today is Word Penguin Day so I took the opportunity to share some of my all time favourite open licensed […]
Open eTextbooks for Access to Music Education Project Final Report
This is the final report of the Open eTextbooks for Access to Music Education Project. Introduction Open eTextbooks for Access to Music Education was a Student Experience Grant funded research and development project that ran from February to July 2021. The project was managed by the OER Service based in Learning, Teaching and Web Services, […]

OEGlobal Open Student Award – Hannah Rothmann
Wikipdia student intern (2020) Hannah Rothmann has been awarded the 2021 OEGlobal Awards for Excellence Open Student Award for her […]

OEGlobal Open Leadership Award – Dr Melissa Highton
In fantastic news we are proud to see Dr Melissa Highton, Director of Learning Teaching and Web Services and Assistant […]
A Culture of Sharing: Strategic Support for OER at the University of Edinburgh
Many thanks to P-8 Digital Skills Project “Strengthening Digital Skills in Teaching”, ETH Zürich and ZHAW for inviting me to speak at their OER Conference 21. Slides and transcript of my talk, which highlights the work of Wikimedian in Residence, Ewan McAndrew, GeoScience Outreach students and Open Content Curation Interns, are available here. Before we […]

Celebrating Open Access
Open Access (OA) is often the starting point towards open licensing and Open Educational Resources(OER) and is an important aspect of Open Education Practice (OEP).
What is Open Access?

Over a year of hybrid working: What the data tells us (about women)
I was very pleased to be able to deliver this conference workshop with Lilinaz as a pre-conference workshop for UCISA’s Women in Tech Group Conference in October. It is another of the UCISA CPD sessions and builds on data we collected last year about demographic differences in lockdown At the University of Edinburgh, we conducted University-wide …
Fundamentals of Music Theory – Adventures in open textbooks
Last week I was delighted to see a project that I’ve been working on since the beginning of the year come to fruition with the publication of the Fundamentals of Music Theory open textbook on the University of Edinburgh Library’s new ebook …

Guide to Developing Enabling Policies for Digital and Open Teaching and Learning
The Irish National Forum for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education has published a new Guide to […]

University of Edinburgh wins OE Global’s Open Policy Award
We’re delighted to announce that the University of Edinburgh has been awarded OE Global’s Open Policy Award as part of […]
A new OER Policy for the University of Edinburgh
This post originally featured on the University of Edinburgh’s Teaching Matters blog. In September 2021, the University of Edinburgh’s Education Committee approved a new Open Education Resources (OER) Policy, which revises and updates our previous 2016 policy. Supported by the central OER Service, the policy encourages staff and students to use, create and publish OERs […]

Fundamentals of Music Theory open textbook published
We’re incredibly proud to announce the publication of our Fundamentals of Music Theory open textbook, which is the first ebook to be hosted on Edinburgh Diamond, a new service provided by Edinburgh University Library that supports the publication of academic and student-led Open Access books and journals. This open textbook is the result of a project […]

ClimateHub UK
COP26 is only two weeks away and there have been bundles of activities across the education sector to raise awareness and education around climate and environment. One of these has been the creation of Climate Hub UK by the UK Association for Science and Discovery Centres (ASDC) with funding from the Scottish Government.

OEGlobal Open Curation Award
We are incredibly proud to receive the 2021 OEGlobal Awards for Excellence Open Curation Award for our collection of high quality student made OER on the TES platform.
Since 2015, the University of Edinburgh’s Open Education Resource (OER) Service has collaborated with Geoscience’s Outreach (GO) course, where students create educational projects with community clients, to curate an exceptional collection of high quality OERs into an accessible collection on the TES platform.

New University of Edinburgh OER Policy approved
The OER Service is immensely proud to announce the launch of the University’s new OER Policy, which was approved by […]

Passing the flame with OER
One of the most satisfying things about working in OER is how often the answer to an enquiry we receive […]

The Future of Learning and Teaching in HE in the Post Pandemic World
I’ll be part of two universities’ festivals of learning and digital this week. At Digital Week 13-17 Settembre 2021 at Università degli Studi di Padova. I’ll speak about policies and practices of Open Education at University of Edinburgh. At University of Durham Festival of Teaching and Learning 2021 13th-17th September. I’ll speak about ‘The Future …

Teaching Matters: Five OER Inspirations
This month’s Teaching Matters Newsletter highlights five inspirations from the recent OER theme Open for Good: Five Years of Open Education […]