Statistics

Previous course statistics

Summary of the OCL4Ed 2012.12 workshop

The Open content licensing for educators workshop (OCL4Ed) has been presented four times averaging 556 participants per workshop. With the completion of OCL4Ed 2012.12, presented from 3 to 14 December 2012, the Open Content Licensing for Educators initiative has now provided free learning opportunities for 2,242 educators worldwide. OCL4Ed 2012.12 attracted 327 registrations from 60 different countries. OCL4Ed 2012.06, OCL4Ed 2012.01 and the pilot course registered 516, 1067 and 332 participants respectively.

Summary of participation metrics

OCL4Ed 2012.12 recorded a nominal increase in active participation compared to OCL4Ed 2012.06 when measured by the average number of page visits per participant and average number of microblog and discussion forum posts. The "average participant" visited the OCL4Ed pages in WikiEducator 48.42 times and visited the Moodle pages 43.59 times during the course.

Metric	OCL4Ed 2012.12		OCL4Ed 2012.06		OCL4Ed 2012.01
	Total	Average	Total	Average	Total	Average
Number of participants	327		516		1067
Number of countries	60		72		90
Page visits to OCL4Ed node page and course instruction subpages in WikiEducator	15836	48.42	23275	45.12	27999	26.24
Unique visits to OCL4Ed node page and course instruction subpages in WikiEducator	10175	31.12	14312	27.74	15961	14.96
Moodle forum posts	863	2.61	819	1.59	1347	1.26
Total number of microblog posts (WENotes, Twitter and identi.ca)	905	2.76	1261	2.44	1892	1.77
WikiEducator Notes (WENotes)	201		394		289
Identi.ca	75		143		300
Twitter	629		724		1303
Ask OERu posts	7		43		-
Total number of Moodle page visits	14254	43.59	18655	36.15	37582	35.22
Response rate for Fair and reasonable practice survey	46%		42%		42%

Word clouds generated from OCL4Ed discussion and microblog text

The Wordle images below provide a sense of the discussions and posts during OCL4Ed 2012.12 and OCL4Ed 2012.01.

Wordle image generated from the text posted during the OCL4Ed 2012.12 workshop

Wordle image generated from the text posted during the OCL4Ed 2012.01 workshop

Summary of the fair and reasonable practice survey

The data-set generated from the Fair and Reasonable Practice Survey for the OCL4Ed 2012.12 workshop is consistent when compared to the international data from +800 educators worldwide derived from previous workshops. (See for example this summary on slideshare.)

It is refreshing to see that 94% of the 2012.12 respondents agree that learning materials should be free for all learners of the world.

Of particular interest is the opinion of the OCL4Ed 2012.12 participants (which compares with our international data set) concerning the myths and red herrings associated with OER, specifically that the sky will fall down, quality is poor and educators don't have time to share OER.

Consider for example that:

• 72% of respondents disagree that time is a barrier to not sharing OER
• 81% of respondents disagree that they will not use OER because there is no guarantee of quality
• 81% of respondent disagree that instituions will loose competitive advantage by giving materials away.

Clearly, based on this survey data, educators support the notion of sharing teaching materials and do not agree with many of the perceived barriers frequently cited as the reasons for mainstream adoption at the institutional level.

Course evaluation

The online course evaluation indicates that OCL4Ed 2012.12 has succeeded in achieving its aims. The live evaluation results can be accessed online.

In summary, 97% of the respondents agree that OCL4Ed 2012.12 has met the specified workshop objectives. 100% of the respondents agree that the materials are relevant and 97% will recommend the OCL4Ed workshop to others.

From a workload perspective, the OCL4Ed workshop was designed for participants to spend between 1 and 1.5 learning hours per session. The workshop design has achieved this objective with the average time spent by OCL4Ed 2012.12 evaluation participants recorded as 1.2 hours per session.

Evidence of learning

The self-evaluation items comparing pre- and post-seminar knowledge of the concepts of OER and Creative Commons licenses provides some evidence of learning as a result of participation in the OCL4Ed workshop. For example, the pre-knowledge self-evaluation of participant's knowledge of OER indicated that 66% rated their knowledge in the "beginner" category with 29% in the "intermediate" and only 5% in the "advanced" category. After completing the workshop, the "beginner" category had reduced to 8% with increases in the "intermediate" and "advanced" categories reporting 68% and 21% respectively. The combined total for the "intermediate" and "advanced" categories had increased from 34% to 89%.

OCL4Ed certification

Currently, the OCL4Ed workshops do not provide any options for certification. The majority of respondents (68%) recommend that options for formal academic recognition towards appropriate credentials be considered for the OCL4Ed courses in the future. 63% of the respondents recommend that the OCL4Ed course should offer "Certificates of Participation." Cognisant of the fact that the OCL4Ed workshops to date have been offered as professional development workshops, 18% of the respondents recommend that participation in the OCL4Ed workshop be considered for assessment plus credit towards a formal credential from an accredited institution.