Open Educational Resources conference

Wikimedia UK education projects

Annual Conference — Campus Ambassadors – Student Societies — Schools — Committee — VLE

Wikimedia UK volunteers have a recurring presence at the annual Open Educational Resources conference.

The conference is not just focused on resources, but on open educational practices and their pedagogical, legal, and cultural significance. It also discusses overlapping topics such as open access to research. The conference is a focus for the free-and-open education movement in the UK, attended by academics, managers, learning technologists, project holders, staff developers, software developers, and others from across the education sectors.

2014

Martin Poulter and Simon Knight are attending to each run a session and to run a stall. Martin will run a workshop on "The Wikimedia Ecosystem- where do you fit in?". Simon and Martin are together running "Citation needed: Editing Wikipedia, a hands on fringe event".

This is made possible by financial support from Wikimedia UK as part of its education outreach. The conference is hosted by the University of Newcastle.

2013

Martin Poulter attended OER '13 in the University of Nottingham. He gave a presentation titled "The Wikipedia Education Program: open educational practice on a global scale", ran a stall and distributed education brochures. This was made possible by financial support from Wikimedia UK as part of its education outreach. Other Wikipedians were at the conference, including the UK-based academic Phil Wane who gave two posters.

The event was written up on the Wikimedia UK blog. The Wikipedia Education Program session was blogged about by Therese Bird of the University of Leicester and video is available through the University of Nottingham.

Abstract

As well as hugely successful global sources of openly licensed content, Wikipedia and its sister projects are prime examples of open practice. The development of a Wikipedia article is an open, transparent, community-driven process that is shaped by policies and guidelines that are in turn built by a similar process. Writing a good article involves learning about reliable sourcing, neutral tone, accessible language and other good scholarly habits. Wikipedia articles that are absent, biased or in a crude state may be poor when viewed as resources, but they are a great opportunity to involve learners in the process of improving the article during their module. In the Wikipedia Education Program, students adopt or create an article and improve its quality, while being mentored both by teaching staff and experienced Wikipedians. This program has been piloted extensively in the US and is now in use in many institutions across several countries. There have been many successes in motivating students to produce work that seen by a vast readership. There have also been problems where learners have been inadequately prepared for the distinct culture of Wikipedia. Involvement in Wikipedia assignments needs to be planned and structured, and expectations of all parties need to be realistic.

References

• "Students see benefits from Wikipedia assignment" Ayush Khanna, Wikimedia Foundation blog, April 23rd, 2012.
• "Spring 2012 United States and Canada student article quality research results" LiAnna Davis et al.

2011

Martin Poulter attended OER11 in Manchester to give a presentation titled "Wikipedia and Higher Education: beat them or join them?"

Slides have been uploaded to this wiki

Abstract

The presenter works on OER projects in Higher Education, and also in a voluntary capacity for Wikipedia, which aims to bring the world's knowledge to all of humanity. Both efforts are worthwhile, but their reach and impact is very different. I will argue that Wikipedia and its related projects have achieved enormous impact due to cultural factors that are only evident "behind the scenes". These cultural factors, including very high degrees of risk tolerance and individual empowerment, are largely alien to present-day Higher Education and become more so as universities become increasingly managerial. Some attempts to improve on the Wikipedia model, such as Citizendium, lack this special ingredient and enjoy considerably less impact. Universities have entirely different strengths from Wikipedia, but cannot put off the decision of whether they will try to compete with it, work with it for the common good, or work in a complementary way. If they want to be more wiki-like, they need to realise that this is not a matter of mere technological change, or even of individual practice.