OER Research Hub and P2PU

Background

Hypotheses:
Improvement in student performance

Hypotheses: 

Use of OER leads to improvement in student performance and satisfaction
The open aspect of OER creates different usage and adoption patterns than other online resources 

Informal learners use a variety of indicators when selecting OER
Informal means of assessment are motivators to learning with OER

Vanessa and I chatted and would love your feedback. We also have some questions about what the fellowship funds might cover. These are the  research questions we are interested in for P2PU and School of Open:

• How does mentorship occur through OER or other tools used in the course? How do feedback interactions occur?
• How do people get over fear of learning open and practicing open?
• How and in what way is open (open tools, resources, practices) useful to people?
• How do people evaluate new open content, tools, and services?
• (Specific to School of Open) How does recruitment of an open  community of volunteers work? Is there something specific about the subject of "open"?
• Measuring impact of SOO courses -- do educators understand open better after? / Measuring critical reflection from educators on whether or not their students have learned about the value of open materials

The first four seem to fall under your larger research question,  "How does OER/openness change peoples attitudes and practices when it  comes to sharing?" So I feel like there would be a good fit for a  fellowship. Regarding ideas of what we envision the actual $ being spent  on:

• Vanessa or I (or both of us) fly to UK at end of course so we can work together on a:
  • Report - series of recommendations on our findings (would include interviews with course facilitators, etc.)
  • Dedicate some time to have course organizers implement findings into next iteration of courses
• Fly  in a few course facilitators to work on research and improve the next  iteration of courses based on research (don't know if there is enough  money for that or if this is something that fellowship covers)
• Send Vanessa to a relevant conference or other event that is about OER research after we complete report remotely in our respective  countries?
• Provide guidelines via OER research hub - room for some other kind of relationship
• Action research - stuff people can use. 

Fellowship logistics

• does not cover peoples time/salary
• per diem of 100 british pounds/day--is this during the proposed trip? yes, up to 4 weeks for researcher's subsistence
• expenses associated with generation of the report is a separate line item, travel to conferences is a separate line item
• Limit is $6,000 british pounds for travel and subsistence
• Other funds (like for generation of report)--we should estimate as a line item in our grant proposal
• Open fellowships - anyone interested in OER can apply - May 5

Next steps

• Simone get back to us re "provide guildeines via oer research hub" other kind of relationship
• Then Vanessa, Jane and Beck work together to draft research fellowship proposal
• Deadline? Flexibile - work directly w/Beck
• First part of September
• Jane send open fellowship proposal to list
• Vanessa will be point person

April 19 2013

Attendees

• Jane Park
• Vanessa
• Simone
• Beck Pitt

OER Fellowships

• Fellowship would be P2PU team come in and do a report on the series of findings on the facilitated course in School of Open
• P2PU interested in being involved in the report generated by OER Survey, add the data from course facilitators
• Very flexibile program--it's not just about answering OER's question, but our research project could address our own questions
• Fellowship should benefit both parties.
• A very specific document on School of Open might be difficult to get approved
• "We're hoping for loads of deliverables out of this"

Timeline for Research?

• August?

Survey Feedback

• Beck trimmed down the survey to the vital hypotheses
• Will be administered via SurveyMonkey
• Questions to