Friday 21 August 2015

Module on open education: policy, accreditation by George Siemens #openEd

This is a course I saw passing by, that I just cannot keep in my mail box, as it might be of interest to many. It is however a paid for course organised by Athabasca University (yeah!). But if you are interested in a short cut to know all about open education through great content, shares, as well as direction and guidance by a great researcher: consider registering. From the mail:

This Fall 2015, the Centre for Distance Education will be offering the course MDDE 622: Openness in Education taught by CDE Faculty member Dr. George Siemens.  

Dr. Siemens is best known for his pioneering work on Connectivism, Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), and Learning Analytics.  He acts as the Associate Director of the Technology Enhanced Knowledge Research Institute (TEKRI) at Athabasca University, has authored many books and articles including Knowing Knowledge and the Handbook of Emerging Technologies for Learning, and is the founding member of the Society for Learning Analytics Research.  More recently, Dr. Siemens was invited to the White House to share his research on Innovation and Quality in Higher Education.  

More information about this exciting course can be found below.

MDDE 622: Openness in Education
Openness in content, data, government, and access is influencing organizations of all types. Education is influenced heavily: open educational resources and open teaching hold potential to disrupt the full spectrum of education: policy, learning development, delivery, and accreditation.

This course will offer a detailed overview of the history of openness in education, current trends including legal and technological developments, as well as future directions. Educators in all sectors (primary, secondary, and higher education), as well as administrators, will benefit from being well informed of trends and the organizational impact of open education.

Through review of literature, participation in group discussions, online lectures, and related open education resources, students will be able to:
  1. Define openness in an educational context and describe its various instantiations in different educational sectors
  2. Identify the potential of openness to contribute to systemic change in higher education and policy
  3. Plan, search, deploy, and integrate open educational resources (OERs) from design to delivery phases of learning
  4. Analyze current research views on how openness influences higher education enrolment, course design costs, and the distinctions between peer-developed resources (“crowd sourcing”) and centrally curated resources (expert).
  5. Describe the history of openness in education (including early literature on open universities in the 1960’s) and detail the impact of technological developments on openness
  6. Evaluate prominent intellectual property and copyright systems, detailing the influence of each on scholarship.
Students can register for this course online or by contacting the CDE office at mde@athabascau.ca . 

Have a great day!