OERu/Planning/Quality review project/Feb 2018 meeting

OERu Quality Review Project☁
Meeting: February 23, 2018 Link to the meeting recording: ..

Present: Wayne Mackintosh, Carina Bossu, Dan Dubien, Adrian Stagg

Apologies: Linda Ward

Agenda Working Party members to add agenda items


 * Driven by the ACTIONS below.

ACTIONS from the last meeting
ALL MEMBERS TO REPORT

Review of literature tasks, please add links as appropriate to your work: Outcome: Annotated bibliography of resources that acknowledges the existing work, and the applicability to this project, and salient points.
 * 1) ICDE/UNESCO/CoL - Carina - https://docs.google.com/document/d/1wMkwIeWDsKwb26VcQZHwTmeGbs-zdJW7sEaQHsZp660/edit
 * 2) Google Scholar and existing QA frameworks related to open education - Dan
 * 3) Subscription-based databases - Linda
 * 4) JISC, ACHIEVE, DOAJ (Open Access Journals, Open Praxis, IRRODL, etc) - Adrian

DISCUSSION:
Summary of the findings

The following is a summary of the main topics raised during the meeting:

Accreditation:

The accreditation of courses is of interest to the Quality Working Party, especially as it relates to credit transfer models across the network. Any mechanism that can support the transition of OERu micro-courses into the institutional context can be explored within the remit of this group.

Autonomy

The guiding principles of the toolkit to be constructed and trialed by this group is based on retaining and respecting institutional autonomy across the network. The underlying rationale for this tool will be to provide broad principles of good practice; partners may enact those principles in a manner that makes sense for their needs and context.

Course History

It has been proposed that micro-courses have a 'Course History', that is, some documentation that discusses the learning design choices, and the use of this framework in design, development, and evaluation. This process will enhance repurposing activities, as it provides continuity of documentation and an open record of decision-making within the course.

Deadlines

It was agreed that the Group would run an open consultation session during Open Access Week (October), and then present the tool for endorsement at the International Partners Meeting in November.

Examples

Within the tool, examples of good practice will be available to show practitioners 'what this looks like '. This will assist with clarity of expectations, and serve as a way for good practice within the network to be identified, celebrated, and disseminated; aiming to improve quality across the entire network. During the development process, stakeholders will be asked to nominate examples of good practice for consideration.

Existing Frameworks

As a number of frameworks for assessing quality in online and distance learning have been located, the group has decided to focus on those that have been collated as part of the project. It is the responsibility of all team members to become familiar with the frameworks, and at the next meeting, we will focus on narrowing down the framework(s) that will become the focus of the revision.

 ACTION:  Dan and Carina are to provide a short-list of framework for consideration by the group. This will be a discussion point at the next meeting; all team members to be prepared.

Expectations

The nomenclature of the tool was discussed to ensure that the purpose of use was clear to partners (see also: Autonomy above). It was agreed that this is not a review, or audit, and the Group will adopt 'expectations' as the wording. Operationally, this means that there are principles that are expected to manifest within the course, but the nature of that manifestation is left to the authors of the course.

Scope

The Group agreed that we need a Definition, Statement of Purpose, and then Criteria & Rubric as part of this tool.

 ACTION:  Adrian to draft a proposal document for comment in advance of the next meeting.

Stakeholder testing

It was also agreed that the team would use a 'Workbook' approach to user testing similar to that undertaken in the OE Licencing Toolkit Project.

 ACTION:  Carina to check if the Group can have access to the Workbook designed for the OEL Toolkit; share the Workbook with the Group.

ACTIONS:
Next Meeting: via Zoom (to be recorded): NOTE: Due to the Good Friday Public Holiday, the next meeting will be held at 10.30-11.30, March 23, 2018.