OER1164 Oral Presentation ppt

Thursday 12 May 16.50 Breakout Room 6

OERs in business education: supporting HE teachers

Richard Atfield & Steve Probert, Business, Management, Accountancy and Finance Subject Centre, Oxford Brookes University Business School

Conference Theme: Academic practice and digital scholarship

Abstract: The Business, Management, Accountancy and Finance Subject Centre (BMAF) are working with five HEIs to repurpose for open release many of resources originally produced in relation previous BMAF projects aimed at supporting and improving academic Continuous Professional Development (CPD) activities in support of the Professional Standards Framework (PSF). Since their original development, these resources have been refined by those HEIs, who have also added some additional resources; the five HEIs are: Aston University, University of Dundee, University of Glamorgan, University of Liverpool and Southampton Solent University. All five HEIs involved have indicated a willingness to develop and sustain their resources beyond the formal end of the project; it is in their interests to do so as they all run PGCerts and CPD programmes for Business School and other staff. The project aims to provide a range of repurposable resources which have relevance and application to business education but which should be adaptable for other subject areas and for generic application. By directly involving practitioners, both in business education and educational development, the project will make available realistic OERs with both discipline-specific and generic applications. Ultimately, we hope to create an environment which encourages business and management schools to identify and release OER for wider benefit on a continuing basis. Our results should thereby contribute to the wider understanding and awareness of UK OER. This presentation will explore many of the social, political and cultural aspects of moving the thinking from and "institutional" worldview (Checkland, 1981) to an "open" one. It is intended that this presentation will offer a different perspective – that of the resource-creators; rather than the perspectives of institutional IPR "gatekeepers". It is hoped that this presentation will be of use to other people championing OER developments, by bringing the cultural aspects of "internalised" (rather than "formalised") resistance to the OER processes to the fore, and by providing practical suggestions as to how these cultural aspects may be overcome.

Keywords: business; management; continuing professional development; professional standards framework; cultural aspects of oers; communities of practice; academic development

References:

Checkland, P. (1981), Systems Thinking, Systems Practice, Wiley, Chichester.