OER1126 Oral Presentation ppt

Wednesday 11 May 16.20 Breakout Room 4/4a

Where technophile meets technophobe: creating an OER repository for the social policy and social work teaching community

Jules Newman & Helen Bulpitt, Subject Centre for Social Policy and Social Work  (SWAP), University of Southampton

Conference Theme: Collaboration and communities

Abstract: This paper will inform on insights gained from a one-year JISC-funded OER project on setting up an online repository for the social policy and social work community. One of the key aims of this repository, SWAPBox, is the creation of a vibrant community which interacts to offer support and feedback to members, as well as discuss and inform each other on the wider issue of using free online resources as part of the discipline’s teaching. It is expected that the diverse community of SWAPBox will consist of organisations already active in developing OERs and individual educators whose experience of using and creating online resources is currently still limited. By introducing a range of features, members will have opportunities to interact with others in accordance with their specific needs and interests. The presentation will provide an overview of the key interactive features, how they have been used by the user community and will make good practice recommendations on the basis of the SWAPBox experience.
By bringing together new and experienced users of OERs in SWAPBox, we are hoping to trigger a cultural shift across a subject community whose engagement with technology and online teaching resources has been largely limited or non-existent. A key concern for evaluation will be assessing the extent by which such a shift has taken place. By introducing a number of quantitative and qualitative feedback and monitoring features, we envisage to gain an insight into the motivation of different users of SWAPBox and how they are engaging with the repository. Finally, the presentation will also address the question of sustainability beyond the funded part of the project: how can online communities be encouraged to take on ownership of a repository like SWAPBox, update it and keep interacting with each other without any prompts from the project team?

Keywords: oer repository; swapbox; social policy and social work teaching community; creating online communities; sustainability of online repositories

References:

SWAPBox Project Available at: http://www.swapboxproject.co.uk/