The Ed Techie

The OA battle ground

In the battle for open, I'd say open access is probably the front which has been engaged the longest. It's worth looking at how the battle is going, as it exhibits many of the characteristics we're seeing in other areas. For example, the spoils are worth fighting for - Reed Elsevier reported revenue of over 6 billion GBP in 2012 of which over 2 billion was for the Science Technical and Medical publishing area. It's also an area where openness has 'won' - OA mandates abound, and a recent Wiley report found that 59% of authors had published in OA journals. It's not a minority pursuit any more. And yet at the time of victory we are also beset with doubt and conflict.

The Gold route so favoured by the Finch report and other mandates may well end up costing us more. And as the sting operation from Science showed last week, the pay-to-publish model creates a tension in the traditional model. I think the sting (where an obviously flawed, fake article was accepted by 157 OA journals) reveals a couple of things about how the battle is going. Firstly, that 'openness' has market value as a term, and so dubious journals have entered the market place offering open access publishing. Secondly, the incumbents (many of whom published the article) may not have a vested interest in making OA a success. If OA is perceived as lower quality then it reinforces their market position and the position of the library subscription model. I have heard anecdotally (and if anyone can prove this please let me know), that an article rejected for a traditional journal by a publisher will be offered to publish in their alternative OA journal for a fee. If this is true, it's genius, since they get to undermine the alternative model while getting paid to do so. This illustrates the danger of trying to let commercial interests shape the direction of openness.

The same can be applied to the other fronts in the battle for open: MOOCs, OERs, open data, open scholarship. So watch the outcome of the open access skirmishes with interest, for that will determine much of what follows in the rest of open education.

 

Will killer robot dogs mean the end of universities?

The answer to this question is, probably no.

But yet we don't see newspapers running articles about the potential threat of killer robot dogs to the status of universities. But we do see them about how MOOCs (sorry David) will destroy all higher education as we know it. For example here is a piece in Forbes. Or one from Nexttrends. Or one from Eduwire.

Why does it always have to be the death of, the end of? I guess it's because 'Will MOOCs be a complementary part of a richer mix of educational offerings from universities?' isn't such a snappy title. I think we've been through the first wave of the digital revolution, we've seen the things that will die off. And actually they don't usually die, they adapt. We shouldn't underestimate the ability of an industry, an organisation, professional people to accommodate digital practice. The 'will die' proponents do humans a big disservice, and portray digital change as an autonomous force which people are powerless before (I'm not mentioning technological determinism here). But if you look closely at that wave of change it is constructed from people using technology. 

This type of change and adaptation is much more subtle and interesting. So run this test the next time you see this type of claim. Could you replace X (MOOCs, tablets, web 2.0) with "killer robot dogs" and it still make sense? If so, the answer is probably the same. Or dinosaurs.

The art of guerrilla research

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In my presentations on digital scholarship I often make the claim that we have the opportunity to rethink the form that research takes. We are accustomed in academia to thinking of research as being of a certain 'size'. Usually this means it is funded research or something with a traditional output (research paper or book). But digital, networked technologies allow us different ways of approaching research. As I am forever saying, this is not to say they supplant the existing methods, or are superior to them, just that we have a richer mix of options now.

I've started calling the 'just do it' approach 'guerrilla research'. This term has been used in software design, for example Ross Unger and Todd Warfel argue persuasively for it, claiming that "Guerrilla research methods are faster, lower-cost methods that provide sufficient enough insights to make informed strategic decisions." I think there is a lot to be said for this approach to academic research also.

What might guerilla research look like? Well, as I've mentioned before, my PhD student Katy Jordan did some work on MOOC completion rates using open data that has been widely used. Or Tony Hirst likes to play with open data sets (although as he pines, it's not as easy as it was). Or a bunch of research that analyses travel blogs.

Guerrilla research is characterised by the following as I see it:

1. It can be done by one or two researchers and does not require a team
2. It relies on existing open data, information and tools
3. It is fairly quick to realise
4. It is often disseminated via blogs and social media

Guerrilla research needn't be in competition with formal, funded research. In fact it's a good way to get started on this. For instance, Katy's work has led to funding from the MOOC Research Initiative. If you want to demonstrate to a funder that your project is worth investing in, then being able to show some interesting preliminary findings is useful. And not just to say 'these are interesting' but to be able to demonstrate tangible interest because when you blogged it, the post had X many hits and was retweeted Y many times.

I feel we have a tendency to spend a lot of time trying to build up to a proper bid, when much of that work could be done in the open. And if you are a researcher struggling to get funding, then guerrilla research may offer a route to maintaining a research profile while you are waiting for that REFable grant to be realised.

Understanding OER in 10 videos

A long time ago, back when we still used the phrase 'web 2.0', I proposed an idea for a tool called "9 step" which sequenced online resources together, with connecting narrative. My proposal was that you can learn anything in 9 steps. I think Orson Welles once said he learnt everything he knew about cinematography in an hour, so 9 resources should be enough.

Well, due to my inability to see things through and lack of commercial flair I never did anything with the idea. Since then similar things have been trialled, to not much success, but I won't let that deter me from declaring that it was a great idea. 

Anyway, as part of the OER Research Hub we thought it would be useful to give people an introduction to OERs. I decided resurrecting my sequenced resources idea would be appropriate, but in a less ambitious manner, so I've created a YouTube playlist of 10 videos that explain OER. This goes from a simple "isn't it great" type introduction, then sets some of the context around sharing and reuse, before looking at some examples of projects and research. It ends with a long, thoughtful piece from Gardner Campbell on what openness means. 

You can add notes to a playlist, so this provides some of the narrative, but they're quite short. Even so, I think watching this playlist would give anyone a pretty good understanding of OERs and associated issues. You can view it as a course if you like. It could be massive, it's open, and online. If only there were an acronym for such things...

Anyway, see what you think, I feel we could make better use of playlists as educational tools.

FutureLearn & the role of MOOCs

If you're working in higher ed in the UK you will no doubt have seen that FutureLearn had its beta launch last week. Some disclosure - FutureLearn is owned by the OU & I've been partially involved in its development, so I'm probably not a completely objective commentator. Needless to say, what follows is just my opinion and not an official OU/FL one.

The first thing to note about the FutureLearn launch is that it launched. This is no mean feat. To get all those partner universities to sign an agreement on something quite vague, to develop a platform from scratch and to get good quality courses created for a platform that didn't exist involves an incredible amount of negotiation, hard work and good will from all parties. My small involvement with the project is that we have a weekly one hour meeting with the lead developer where we feed in advice and research. I've found them to be very smart and willing to take stuff on board. It hasn't felt like an antagonistic or us and them relationship. And I know where I speak of here, having been involved in the UK eUniversity, which became mired in contracts and stalled development. 

So, getting FutureLearn launched in a decent state is the higher ed equivalent of hosting the Olympics successfully. We're often criticised in higher ed for not being able to deliver so we ought to recognise it when someone does.

I know some people are down on FutureLearn, and I can appreciate why. It's a backlash to all the MOOC hype. I think it is important to maintain a critical standpoint particularly when commercial interests are trying to undermine existing practice to create a market for their own solutions. But I don't want to find myself in the position where I'm arguing that making good quality, well designed learning content available for free is a bad thing. 

The MOOC hype is settling down now, and I feel that FutureLearn is really an indication of what it may well end up being. Forget the "end of universities as we know them" rhetoric, ignore the "all education will be this way one day" commercial wet dream - MOOCs will be as OERs. And that's a good thing. OERs are now available from providers all over the globe, they make a big difference to the way many people work. But they haven't really fundamentally changed what we do in education, they've allowed new models and enhanced others.

Now if you're a venture capitalist this is bad news, you've sunk millions into a MOOC company, you need it to entirely revolutionise education, so you can own a big chunk of it. But if you're a university this is good news. Martin Bean, quite rightly in my view, pitched MOOCs as a shop-window. That's a sustainable business model for universities. We've found that OpenLearn is more or less sustainable now as a recruitment channel. This talk of business models may not be as altruistic or as revolutionary as radical MOOCers would like, but I think it's a good model with benefits on both sides. If a million learners every year get to experience some good online teaching material, and a smallish percentage of these then go on to study other MOOCs, or enter formal education, that's a positive outcome for universities, society and the individual learners. It probably isn't a model that will get venture capitalists excited though.

Academics and online impact

I presented at the OU's communications conference yesterday. I was asked to talk about how you create an impact online. I'm always a bit cautious about giving advice on this, as I didn't (don't) have a plan, so it's all been trial and error and messing about. But I guess that is my advice - just get started and try stuff out, don't wait to go on the "Creating academic impact online with blogs" course, just do it.

I was lucky to share the stage with two great OU colleagues. Meg Barker is an expert in relationships, and has a good blog associated with her book Rewriting the Rules. Natalie Starkey's expertise is in comets and asteroids and does a lot of TV work and writing for the Guardian, as well as blogging. I went last, so the previous two subjects had been sex and space. I then had to follow up with... educational technology. Do you ever get the feeling you made the wrong career choice? 

Anyway, my presentation is below. I make the point that I don't really know what all the stats mean associated with blogs, but they must mean something, right? 

Academics & online impact from Martin Weller

Better bums on seats

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During the expansion of higher education in the 90s & 00s it was all about getting more bums on seats. In the UK the Labour government set a target of 50% of 19-22 year olds going in to higher education. The aim then was just to attract as many students as you could.

But now we're in a period of reduction in student numbers, the drive is less for pure numbers but for students who will stay the course. It is very costly to universities to go through the enrollment process and for a student to then drop out. And it's often a damaging experience for the student as well, so it's in the interests of both parties to ensure that learners are really ready and suited to the course they want to study. We want bums on seats still, but we need to make sure they're the right bums on the right seats.

This is one of the hidden benefits of OERs and MOOCs I think. For instance on the OER Research Hub project we found that lots of users of OER are using them as tasters before committing to formal education. So they're seeing if they're ready for the level of study, and also the subject area they are interested in. And once they're in study, lots of learners are then using OER to complement their formal study to help them get through a course.

The OU backed FutureLearn MOOC platform launched today, and our Vice Chancellor Martin Bean has suggested that MOOCs act as a shop window for universities. I think this is a sound model - if learners get something for free and then some sign up for formal study, both parties win. This makes it a sustainable model, without the need to make a profit for venture capitalists.

But what I think may be as interesting as its recruitment function is the filtering function of OERs and MOOCs. If as a result of having studied open content the subsequent students you get into formal education are then less likely to drop out then it represents a huge benefit for both unis and learners. It would be a difficult figure to quantify, but I think improved retention savings would be worth looking at.

Innovating Pedagogy report 2013

Last year a few of us at the OU produced the Innovating Pedagogy report. This listed some topics in educational technology we thought were going to be significant. No-one warned me but it was an annual event, so here is the Innovating Pedagogy report 2013.

My colleague Mike Sharples (of FutureLearn fame) does an excellent job of cajoling us into contributing and putting it all together. He operates a process similar to that used in the creation of the Horizon reports, so a bunch of us suggest topics, we vote on these, then get assigned to write a summary for the selected topics. These are then reviewed, and then we write the main section, which goes through another round of review. It's a good process and hopefully it produces a good quality output.

So this year the topics we've chosen are: 

• Badges to accredit learning
• Citizen inquiry
• Crowd Learning
• Digital scholarship
• Geo-learning
• Learning analytics
• Learning from gaming
• Maker culture
• MOOCs
• Seamless learning

Some of the list are obvious (badges) and others less so (seamless learning), so I think it's got something for everyone. Some topics (eg MOOCs) have been repeated from last year, mainly where there has been significant developments in the past year, it seemed appropriate to include them again. Next year, no bloody MOOCs ok?

If you think there are subjects missing, you're probably right. This is just our take on the current landscape, which we think others may find interesting, we're not proposing it as a definitive list. Actually, it'd be nice to see a similar report from other unis and groups. Anyway, hope you find something in it that's useful. Here's that link again: Innovating Pedagogy 2013

Teaching as 'punishment'

In looking at issues around digital scholarship and promotion, I examined some of the work on academic tenure. There are usually three strands to tenure: research, teaching and admin/service. These are supposed to count equally, but there is a general feeling that researchers walk taller. There have been many attempts to raise the profile of teaching in the academic community, but a recent article in the Times Higher unintentionally reveals how little success they've had.

The piece is about Swansea university and its plans to move "management academics" "to teaching-only roles if they do not have four papers deemed to be of at least 3* quality." The article reveals several attitudes towards teaching in higher education. For a start it is entitled "Swansea’s tough REF plans provoke disquiet" which suggest a general agreement that teaching-only is harsh. 

If academics have not submitted four papers of the required standard they will be required to do 18 hours contact teaching a week instead of the 6 hours for 'research-active'. Teaching only is described as a threat.

Now, the problem is that if teaching isn't as widely recognised as research then being on a teaching only contract may make promotion harder. It is perceived by many as creating a two-tier system of academics in the university. I'm not going to go into that here. One could argue that if in four years you haven't produced four 3* papers, maybe you aren't research active and teaching might be a better focus. But what I want to highlight is that the language and assumptions in the piece reveal the research bias that exists in higher ed, despite the fact that the vast majority of a university's income is derived from teaching.

If you don't believe me, try reversing "teaching" and "research" in the piece. It quickly becomes amusing, so for examples here are sentences you will never see:

• "Staff complain over ‘arbitrary’ yardstick and research-only threat"
• "management academics at Swansea University typically will be moved to research-only roles if they do not score well in the NSS".
• "academics who do not have the requisite student satisfaction score will be obliged to research for up to 18 hours a week"

Teaching is frequently treated as a punishment - how does that make students paying hefty fees feel?

What do all these numbers mean?

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Bloggers, or anyone who maintains an online profile, have an ambiguous relationship with visitor stats and data. On the one hand we like to dismiss them as meaningless, but then secretly feel chuffed when we can outscore someone. I've tried to promote them as one way of measuring impact, but with the caveat that context is important. For instance, if you're a blogger in a relatively obscure area, such as Barry Town football club, then your range is limited and unlikely to compare in absolute numbers with, say, a blog reviewing Apple products.

I recently passed 300,000 views on this blog, over about 700 posts - that's not as exciting as it might sound as I've been going since about 2006. My friend Liam says he gets about 200K a year on his mobile tech blog. Here are some more stats from tools I use:

• Slideshare - 220,000 views over 6 years on 59 presentations
• Blipfoto - 92,000 views over 420 entries
• Flickr - 49,000 views over 1,140 photos
• Citations on academic articles - 1,620 (according to Google)

The first thing to ask is how reliable is this data? Tony can probably answer that better than me, but I think the blog traffic doesn't take into people who subscribe via RSS, so in that case underestimates. At the same time it does include my own obsessive self-clicking, so that may even out. It may also include bot traffic which doesn't really mean anything at all.

But if we take the data as accurate for now, the more interesting question is what does it mean? I would like to make the case that 300,000 visits to my blog equals 300,000 careful, considered reading of my posts, but the data doesn't back that up. Google analytics tells me that my average visit duration is 57 seconds. I suppose that is just about the time it takes to read a blog post, but it probably doesn't compare well with time taken on reading academic articles. My bounce rate is high too, at around 85%, so people come in, read a post and then go elsewhere, but I think that's fairly typical for blogs, I'm not providing a newspaper where you want people to go from one feature to another.

Blipfoto probably has the highest return on audience per post, and does better than Flickr. This provides a nice comparison as I have linked my blipfoto account to twitter, so it automatically tweets when I post, but I haven't done this for Flickr (which I think of more as a repository). I get 219 views per post on blipfoto versus 42 on Flickr, so we could say that the effect of linking to twitter is a 5-fold increase in traffic (if that's what you want). But I would say that Blipfoto is the most personal of these tools and the least connected to my professional life, so I wouldn't argue for any professional impact here.

What I think we're struggling with here is the newness of all this. What is the value of a slideshare view versus a download of a paper? Is there a conversion rate? I've tried to keep a foot in both the traditional camp, through publications, and the new forms of dissemination, so these figures might offer a reasonable comparison between the two. Looking at my citations you could crudely say that one citation is worth about 200 blog views (or vice versa).

However, it's probably futile to try and measure these things. It's not as if citations are a particularly reliable metric anyway, so we shouldn't use those as a currency to convert everything else into. It will also vary widely depending on discipline, and individual. And more importantly, we already have plenty of systems that our career path requires us to game, so why invent more?

Make no mistake, turning altmetrics into performance measures linked to real things like promotion, job security, money would have negative effects. For example, there is a correlation between number of posts and views, so if I was purely chasing the numbers I should post more often, regardless of quality (what quality?), or I might think I could get better numbers from splitting this post into three separate ones. This already happens in traditional outputs, I remember someone advising me not to write books because for the same effort I could have 5 REFable publications. This return on investment view ignores the internal validity of the form. I also tend to think of blogging as a social function, connecting with friends and peers, but if I'm linking it to direct returns then it's another example of monetising relationships that Brian is so uneasy about.

But when I've tried to make the case for digital scholarship and tenure, it is something along these lines that I want to argue - that the impact you see here is as valid as the impact we have chosen to recognise and measure. So we need to start thinking about what these numbers do mean for academics - we just need to make sure we don't turn them into the thing itself, with all of us chasing and parading numbers. But maybe that's inevitable as soon as you shine a light on them, in which case, ignore this post.