Digital skills for collaborative OER development/Design blueprint/Workflow

Workflow

This course simulates the OERu open design and development approach. The OERu approach draws on the open source principle of release early, release often. The idea is to break down the design process into incremental steps, which are executed transparently rather than producing a comprehensive design specification behind closed doors. Early and frequent releases of key steps in the process creates a tight feedback loop among course designers, developers, prospective learners and OERu partner institutions. The open development model aims to maximise future reuse and remix by encouraging inputs during the design phase to avoid duplication of effort to tweak courses for reuse in different contexts. In addition, open development of the course outcomes enables partner institutions who may wish to offer assessment services for formal academic credit to initiate local approval processes ahead of the course development schedule.

The learning challenges in this course replicate the key milestones in the life cycle of an OER course. Figure 1 below depicts the actions, decisions and key milestones associated with the OERu design and development process. As an open process, these activities and milestones may not always follow a linear sequence. The open planning documentation is a living document which the OERu maintains in an open wiki. As a development matures and more information comes to light, it is a simple process to update earlier drafts of the design documents.

Figure 1: OERu design, development and delivery workflow indicating key milestones.

The design and development process

The table below provides a summary of the key milestones in the design and development process.

Milestone	Overview
Course description	Concise description to assist a prospective learner with their decision to participate in the course. The course description covers the following questions: What's is about? What will I learn? What's involved? Prerequisites? Information about the duration and credit options.
Design Blueprint	High level overview of the course and pedagogical approach including: Intended target audience Overall course aims and outcomes Overview of the delivery model Summary of the assessment model Summary of the interaction strategies, including; Student-content interactions Student-student interactions Student-support interactions
Course outline	Detailed outline of the topics and sub-sections to be covered including: Learning outcomes for each learning pathway Plan for substantive elearning activities Assignment outline Inventory of OER and open access resources to be used for the course.

Open selection of courses

From time to time, the OER Foundation places an open call for course nominations. These are submitted online and displayed publicly in the wiki which enables the open community to see what courses are being nominated (see for example the 2014 call for nominations). The nomination process is intended to be a low-threshold activity and simply lists the course name, level of the course, the corresponding credential and whether the course will be divided into micro-courses. The OERu promotes the principles of open self-organisation but may publish guidelines and requests for submissions in areas of study or levels of study to fill gaps in the emerging programme of study.

For the purposes of this course, we will not simulate a course nomination and selection process. OERu partners joining this course can work on their institutional course nomination and other participants joining our open course may choose any course or subject area for their associated learning challenges.