Abstract:

Generation X and Z are often referred to as "digital natives", but it becomes clear that professional skills are often lacking by the time they enter the professional world at the latest. As soon as they enter university, they need a wide range of skills to keep up with everyday university life.

To enable students to continuously improve their skills in the use of digital tools to keep pace in the long term, the OER.DigiChem.NRW project has set itself the goal of creating professional teaching and learning materials. The focus is on the creation of online tutorials for subject-related chemical software, but also for non-subject-related software, such as MS Office products or citation software. The project, which is funded by OER-Content.nrw and involves the University of Wuppertal, Cologne University of Applied Sciences and Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, will continue to create Open Educational Resources (OER) until the end of 2022 and anchor them in the learning management systems Ilias and Moodle.

In order to produce teaching and learning materials professionally and quality criteria are necessary at various levels: on the one hand, technical and standardized production techniques, and on the other hand, pedagogical, psychological and didactic aspects must also be taken into account in order to prepare the teaching and learning materials in a user-friendly and barrier-free manner. Furthermore, an overarching quality system is necessary to enable feedback and changes during production. How can such a synergy of production and quality assurance look in practice?

As an appealing appearance of videos and teaching materials cannot be underestimated for motivation and willingness to learn, training with external trainers to improve voice and performance quality are the first steps to professionalize the quality of the produced videos from the beginning, at all locations. Technical standards through the use of coordinated templates for many steps in the production process, the use of coordinated software tools and filming in a green screen studio enable consistent quality.

However, not only the technical requirements must be satisfied, but also the learning materials themselves, including scripts, exercise materials, and quizzes, must be prepared appropriately for the users. Didactic considerations for improving multimedia learning without overloading or overburdening learners play a key role here. Standardized evaluations via questionnaires help to acquire information about learning habits in connection with the first prototypes and to examine these in specific use and to derive necessary options for changes in an iterative process.

In addition, semi-standardized interviews allow to deepen the dimensions asked for in the questionnaires (1st dimension: text-picture design, 2nd dimension: navigation and orientation, 3rd dimension: quality and complexity of the learning material) and findings in order to gain further insights into the students' working and learning behavior.

It has been found that the standardised and professionally produced materials appeal directly to the students and are oriented towards their needs. Above all, the intrinsic motivation of the students to expand their skills in their self-study time is high.

During the two-year project, it became evident that the accompanying research was important for effective improvements in the design of teaching and learning materials as well as learning spaces.

Keywords:

OER, media didactics, quality management, chemistry, natural sciences, video production, research methodology, intentional learning.