OERu/Planning/Course approval and quality working group/Second Meeting

When: 13 August 2014, 11:00AM AEST (Click on link for your local time.)
Where: Google hangouts
When (Repeat Meeting): 14 August 2014, 4:00PM AEST (Click on link for your local time.)
Where (Repeat Meeting): Google hangouts

Agenda

1. Welcome
2. Minutes of the previous meeting
3. Matters arising
   1. Review of the 2014 Audit of Course nominations
   2. Review of the Peer Review Functionality in the Open Content Licensing Micro
   3. Review of the eCampus Alberta Quality Framework (tbc)
   4. Review of the Qualification Frameworks between Partner Nations (tbc)
4. Course sprint planning and development
   1. OERu workflow

Minutes

Thankyou to Irwin, Meg, Diane, Steve, Wayne and Sarah (convenor) for attending. Late apologies from Marcus who was unable to login, had technical problems on the day.

1. The Course nominations were reviewed, a good number and variety of courses have been proposed.
2. The group felt that it was a good idea to involve and liaise with the proposed courses and development teams as key for feedback on our developing approval and quality process. Some form of mentoring among experienced and new partners could also be useful.
3. Learning Outcomes and related assessment were seen as key items to notify OERu partners early enough so that local conversations can occur as to local re-use or accreditation possibilities.
4. A "Base Course Outline" document was shared by Thomas Edison State College which we could consider as a first phase of an approvals process, to standardise the information that is good to be circulated.
5. The existing OERu Course Design Blueprints could also be used - if we could ensure all course developers were following and updating the Blueprint in a timely fashion then perhaps the key elements to be considered in a quality course would be factored in, and also the communication aspect to the community to allow peer review and accreditation decisions would be facilitated?
6. Meg reported that the eAlberta Quality Framework was a useful review lens to check the quality of a completed course, using AST1000 as a test case. There were 2 areas that could be removed or edited. It was noted that this framework did not work as a support for quality design process. It was an 'after the event' review checkpoint.
7. The group reached a point of considering that perhaps both a quality design process (Base Course Outline and/or Design Blueprint) and a quality review process (modified eAlberta quality framework) were needed, and would use different instruments. It was raised that we could demonstrate these at the November planning meetings.
8. Local accreditation by OERu partners of another partner's course is seen as the ultimate acceptance of a quality course.
9. There was general agreement that there could be some checkpoints created to pro-actively pursue feedback from all OERu partners on proposed new courses during the development phase, to stimulate the review of Learning Outcomes and Assessments, and to provide feedback on the likelihood of local accreditation or re-use in local courses.
10. It was suggested that a section on "Student identity management" could be added to the Design Blueprint, with the addition of an open-ended question such as "Have you considered how you can ensure that the student who submits the assessment is the student they say they are, and the same student who has participated in the free online course? Please explain the current approach."
11. The upcoming Course Development Sprint was discussed, and the material to be covered has some overlaps with the issues being looked at by the Working group eg Design Blueprint, Quality standards. It was noted that the Sprint cohort would also therefore be good sounding boards to provide feedback on Design blueprint effectiveness and possibly Quality standards (if these can be shaped in time for inclusion.)
    

Thankyou to Johan, Mmushi, Wayne and Sarah (convenor) for attending the second (South African timezone) meeting.

1. Members had reviewed the previous minutes and submitted documents and could see the benefit of them.
2. In considering the differences between them, and the differences between course approvals systems and documentation for local campus deliver vs OERu delivery, we noted the importance of the pre-dominance of the 'OER wrap-round design model' to over half of the OERu courses and proposed courses. In other words, developing a course from existing OER is a different proposition to developing a course from scratch which is the way it is typically done by campus/partner institutions. It was suggested that this distinction is probably not very well understood and needs to be highlighted in the pre-amble to any documentation.
3. Mmushi reviewed the Transnational Qualifications Framework (agenda item 4) and found it to be a solid and well conceived document, and suggested that it would be useful not only to the quality process, but also to student communications on the website, to help students pick the right/suitable courses - which they can receive credit for in their jurisdictions.

Comments and Questions post-meeting

1. Regarding the feeling from the group that partner institution accreditation was the ultimate form of quality assessment.

Does this mean that the issue of whether student's have a good experience is secondary? Or do we think that if a quality process such as Design blueprints are followed and quality exemplars and checklists are used for review (such as the eAlberta quality freamework) that we are confident that the students will have a quality experience? Or does student evaluation need to be built-in to the review cycle in conjunction with an instrument such as eAlberta quality framework? How would we resource this?Slambert 05:15, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

Hi Sarah, good questions. I don't think that promoting the student experience and institutional accreditation as the ultimate form of quality assessment are mutually exclusive any more than the fallacy that teaching is a prerequisite for learning. Quality assurance is a cornerstone on which the OERu logic model is built and OERu partners agreed that we will not compromise quality at the first meeting of founding anchor partners. As in the case of OCL4Ed where we administer an evaluation survey after each course which has been used to refine the programme after each iteration, this is a practice we could encourage in the network. If individual partners have the resource to build in student evaluation during the blueprint phase, they are free to do so - but I don't think we can dictate this to partners. The challenge with the OERu model is that the target audience is "undefined" when compared to more traditional design models. I think we should focus on an iterative development model where we improve incrementally over time as the network gains authentic experience. To date, there are only a handful of OERu partners who have authentic experience of developing and running OERu courses -- let's give the network time to mature an avoid the temptation to "over regulate" quality approaches. That's not to say quality is not important - it is a foundation stone of the OERu model ;-) --Mackiwg 22:12, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

Actions

From the first meeting:

1. All members to Review the "Base Course Outline" or BCO document shared by Thomas Edison State College and the OERu design Blueprint and see if either is preferred as a planning and/or communications tool to facilitate quality course development, and thus quality courses
   BCO https://docs.google.com/document/d/1XPyhLo38fot25Q4U1N92sWwLZ084T5BNRtMQYtbXAPo/edit
   Blueprint http://wikieducator.org/Introduction_to_Research_Methods_In_Psychology/Blueprint
2. Meg to upload a digital version of the eAlberta Quality Framework into a collaborative space ie Google doc then wiki, and modify to remove elements of web-design and instructor-led feedback which are not relevant for OERu. DONE and ready for comments by all
   https://docs.google.com/document/d/18TOtnxT52B1TBy8sB0jsQMFRjARpIxsCtYv5PTG1JY0/edit?invite=CO7ejfUB
3. All to review the modified Quality Framework (or Guideline?)and provide feedback as to its usefulness.
4. Sarah to check and see if the current batch of course submission teams are using and publicly sharing the OERu Design Blueprint, or if they have their Learning Outcomes and Assessments listed publicly anywhere on the OERu planning wiki
   Course nominations are listed here http://wikieducator.org/OERu/Planning/2014_Course_nominations
5. All members to review the Draft Sprint agenda and see if they can provide feedback or any assistance to Wayne with the components that relate to course quality

Course Sprint info here http://wikieducator.org/OERu/Planning/OERu_course_sprint_planning

From the second meeting:

1. no other items were added for action, the first set of actions were supported
2. other items can still be added later if needed

Next meeting

1. Align this with the Sprint planning, around 12th September for main meeting, 15th September for SA timezone meeting. Agenda to focus on the documentation surrounding the Course Blueprint as a cornerstone to the quality of the new/developing OERu courses