Abstract:

In implementing the Open Nottingham programme, the University of Nottingham has strategically embraced the Open Resource agenda. With benefits such as efficiency savings, promotional opportunities and enhancing the student experience, Open Nottingham is designed to foster increased use, reuse and publication of open educational resources (OER) by staff and students across the university and beyond. It aims to deepen understanding of the impact of OER on teaching and learning and to measure the effectiveness of OER as a promotional tool.

Open Nottingham is centrally funded, has senior sponsorship, and long-term sustainability is a key consideration in all developments. It is an established part of the University’s Five Year Strategy, supporting a number of the institution’s published objectives. For example, the expansion of the institutional repository ‘U-Now’ is listed as a goal under the Social Responsibility objective and providing access to a rich supply of resources has direct impact on student satisfaction through the Excellence in Education objective. Open Nottingham also feeds directly into the ‘knowledge without borders’ Internationalisation strategy.

Of the many initiatives operating under the Open Nottingham umbrella, some make use of formal Creative Commons or Open Source licensing, whilst others adopt a less formal, but equally open philosophy. These include U-Now, the Xpert repository and the Xpert media search and attribution service.

This multifaceted approach helped shift the culture at Nottingham, generating a measurable increase in engagement with OER in 2011. For example, there has been a 500% increase in the publication of Open Content over the last 12 months: 70% of schools and departments now have on OER presence; An OER module is now available as part of the PGCHE; Open resources are available in the on-line prospectuses. The availability of open teaching resources in the prospectuses is helping to place OER at Nottingham within mainstream systems and helps inform decisions by prospective students regarding whether a course is right for them.

This presentation provides an overview of the tools and services that drive the success of Open Nottingham. It provides detail on the strategies adopted to encourage publication of open content by a significant number of schools across the institution. It outlines the activities undertaken to engage staff and student populations in the re-use of OER and offers a case study for sustainable OER practice.

Keywords:

Open, oer, ukoer.