Innovators Showcase - Open Educational Resources

Innovators Showcase

In-the-field teaching videos

Clive has gone out into the field and made short videos, mostly just a few minutes long,  on each of the topics covered in his fluid mechanics and acoustics classes. These form an integral part of all of his lectures.

I feel that the videos help to give physical insight to the theory and to put it into context, which is important for an in-depth comprehension of the subject. Seeing the lecturer personally engaged with real life situations brings the lectures to life and enthuses the students.

Clive Greated

Wikipedia in curriculum for public engagement, science communication and digital literacy

Over two three hour sessions, Reproductive Biology Honours students researched, synthesised and developed a first-rate Wikipedia entry of a previously unpublished medical term: neuroangiogenesis. The project allowed students and staff to explore the affordances of virtual (online) spaces for public engagement whilst integrating digital literacies training and application into curriculum. This course work simultaneously supported skills for academic outcomes and life-long learning, whilst developing students as online, collaborative writers, and supported building skills for science communication.

More details can be seen here.

Working with colleagues from different disciplines, I found the process of introducing the whole Honours class to a range of literature searching tools, setting them specific tasks to collect information for the Wikipedia page, and then engaging a small group of students to help build the Wikipedia page a truly inspiring activity. To see the end product evolve on the screen in front of me was very exciting!

Chris Harlow

Setting up a MOOC

The 'Introduction to Philosophy' MOOC was set up in 2013 with the help of the University's wonderful Distance Education Initiative team. Since then, it has had almost half a million users from all over the world, and has opened the door to a wide variety of outreach and impact activities.

Different members of the philosophy department contributed videos on the topics they specialise in. This helped hold learner's interest throughout the course, and has given us a great set of online resources to introduce people outside the University to the spectrum of topics our teaching covers.

Dave Ward

Outreach from a MOOC

The ‘Introduction to Philosophy' MOOC is now employed in a number of important outreach activities, such as in secondary schools and in prison education. The expertise and experience we have gained creating this MOOC has also led to a number of other exciting online initiatives within our School, such as a new research-led online MSc programme, the development of new MOOCs, and a greater use of online resources within teaching at all levels.

There is often a resistance to online learning initiatives when they are first introduced, since people aren’t familiar with the technology or the benefits they can bring. In my experience, however, once people see for themselves how useful online learning resources can be, a lot of this resistance disappears.

Duncan Pritchard

Football reaches out

Grant used "Football More than a Game" (the first football MOOC) to reach out to a broad range of international communities interested in exploring the role of football in the world today. The two modes of delivery, the MOOC and the Open Studies version, helped to provide both choice and flexibility to those interested in education through an interest in football.

We were fortunate enough to include well known people from the world of football, such as Alan Hansen, but what was refreshing about  the MOOC was its international reach.

Grant Jarvie

Building a learning community around the AI Planning MOOC

Materials built up over many years for a specialised research subject were brought together and improved, additional material was created with the cooperation of other senior figures in the field, video material was freshly created or digitized from older film stock. To preserve and make this material available for the future, it has been licenced for use by others via a Creative Commons Licence and provided via Coursera, YouTube and on University services. To create a community of people interested in studying and applying the techniques in this field in their areas of interest, the course uses a discussion forum, a community wiki and regular virtual world get togethers in the Venue @ Vue (Virtual University of Edinburgh), a challenge to create a digital artifact in YouTube, and involvement of guest lecturers and community teaching assistants from the field.

For more information see this blog post and this article.

The whole framework of it was definitely conceived as, and run as, a community of people interested in a common topic, and working together and exploring that space together. I was trying to reach different communities, and not just those interested in programming.

Austin Tate

Code Yourself!

Areti developed a MOOC that teaches children and teenagers around the world how to program. This free online course is part of a wider effort to promote computer science to the public and to equip the next generation with coding and computational thinking skills. The course license allows teachers to reuse the course videos and other learning resources in the classroom.

One of the success factors for this course has been the input that we’ve had from a wide range of people, from academics and teachers, to children, parents and code clubs. Reusing the MOOC material for new initiatives, such as the Code Yourself! workshop at the Edinburgh Science Festival, has also proved invaluable.

Areti Manataki

Creating podcasts for flipped classroom teaching

Creating concise audio podcasts supported a flexible learning experience, supported by structured discussion. The audio format allowed John to plan the structure of the piece, involving an interview with expert in the field, and produce a concise, re-usable and open-licensed resource, widely relevant to his own teaching as well as that of other lecturers. Listen to the podcast: Science and the media mooccast, on Soundcloud.

We used audio-only media in a recent MOOC to discuss finer aspects of the course material in what we hoped was an engaging and accessible way. These media were well-received by many students, who were able to access material outside the normal learning environment.

John Menzies