{"id":3439,"date":"2014-03-05T09:30:17","date_gmt":"2014-03-05T09:30:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/newsletter.alt.ac.uk\/?p=3439"},"modified":"2014-03-05T09:30:17","modified_gmt":"2014-03-05T09:30:17","slug":"scottish-government-support-for-open-education","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/altc.alt.ac.uk\/blog\/2014\/03\/scottish-government-support-for-open-education\/","title":{"rendered":"Scottish Government Support for Open Education?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cWe broadly support open licences and OER and need a serious public debate on this issue.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

~Michael Russell, MSP<\/p>\n

This was the Minister for Education\u2019s response to a question I put to him at the end of January\u00a0regarding Scottish Government support for open education policy and open licences for publicly funded educational resources in order to benefit learners, not just within Scotland, but internationally.\u00a0 The Minister was speaking at the\u00a0Future of Higher Education In Scotland and the UK<\/a>\u00a0event in Edinburgh, organised by the ESRC Fellowship Project:\u00a0Higher Education, the Devolution Settlement and the Referendum on Independence<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In a wide-ranging speech outlining the Scottish Government\u2019s vision of higher education in an independent Scotland, Russell stated that we need an education sector that can meet the challenge of new technological advancement and institutions that can fully explore the potential of new technologies for learning. MOOCs and OER have great potential to form new pathways to learning, to widen participation and promote a culture of collaborative development and reuse. Consequently a core group supported by SFC has been established to look at the benefits of OER and promote online learning resources produced by Scottish universities.\u00a0 This group is composed of the Open University and the Universities of Edinburgh, Glasgow and Strathclyde; UHI may also have a role to play.<\/p>\n

While it\u2019s hugely encouraging to hear the Minister for Education acknowledging the importance, not just of the inevitable MOOCs, but of OER and open education more generally, I have some concerns that with such a narrow group of stakeholders involved in the core group, the scope of the debate might fail to encompass the wider benefits of open education to the Scottish sector as a whole.\u00a0 Open education policies and practice have the potential to benefit teachers and learner right across the sector, in schools, colleges and universities, in formal and informal learning scenarios, and to support life long learning right across the board.<\/p>\n

As yet, no further details have been released regarding the nature of the core group activities and the level of SFC investment, so we will continue to watch these developments with interest.<\/p>\n

A summary transcript of Russell\u2019s speech has been made available by the Scottish Government\u00a0here<\/a>.\u00a0The relevant paragraphs relating to open education are as follows:<\/p>\n

\u201cI am very encouraged by the potential of massive open online courses \u2013 short courses delivered online that can be taken by anyone, anywhere. Of course, we must ensure quality of provision, however, free resources such as these have great potential to provide pathways to formal learning and widen participation in higher education.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat is why I have indicated to the Scottish Funding Council that, in supporting this new work, they should facilitate the best open practice in Scotland and enhance the sector\u2019s capacity and reputation for developing publicly available online learning materials.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is a very exciting prospect that a student anywhere in the world can access materials presented by world-class academics working in world class Scottish universities.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Martin Hawksey<\/a>\u00a0has made a twitter archive of the event hashtag available here:\u00a0#HEScot<\/a>\u00a0and all papers from the event have now been uploaded here:Seminar 3: The future of higher education in Scotland and the UK<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This post was originally published on openscot.wordpress.com<\/a> and is re-posted here with the author’s permission<\/em><\/p>\n

Lorna Campbell
\nCentre for Educational Technology, Interoperability and Standards (CETIS) and Open Scotland
\nlorna.m.campbell@icloud.com<\/p>\n

If you enjoyed reading this article we invite you to join the Association for Learning Technology (ALT) as an individual member, and to encourage your own organisation to join ALT as an organisational or sponsoring member.<\/p>
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