(upbeat music)
LAUREN: - Hello and welcome listeners.
You are listening to Stories of Openness,
a limited series podcast created by the Open Education Team
at Deakin University Library.
My name is Lauren Halcomb-Smith, and I'm your host.
I'm a lecturer of Open Education at Deakin,
and I'm on a mission to explore the impact
that Open Educational Resources, or OER,
are having on learning and teaching at Deakin.
OER are free textbooks and other learning materials
that anyone can use, adapt, and share,
unlike traditional textbooks, which can be expensive,
and limited by copyright and licensing restrictions.
In this series, I'm talking with Deakin academics
about their experiences of creating and using Open Resources.
This podcast is part of a research project
that uses podcasting as a research methodology.
So this conversation is both a podcast
and open research data.
I'm coming to you today
from the beautiful, traditional, and unceded lands
of the Bunurong people.
I gratefully acknowledge them as the traditional custodians
of these lands, seas, and skies,
and recognize that this has been a place
of learning, teaching, and rich conversation for millennia.
And today we're in for a real treat
because I'm joined by a whole team of OER creators.
Simon James, Chris Rawson, and Erin Cheffers.
Simon and Chris are the co-authors
and Erin is the illustrator of the beautiful open textbook
æMathematical Reasoning and InvestigationÆ.
Simon is an associate professor in mathematics
at Deakin's faculty of science, engineering,
and built environment, and has been recognized
with the Deakin University Award for excellence in teaching
for his work with undergraduate math students.
And Chris, at the time of writing a textbook,
was a senior educational designer for Deakin
with a background in learning design and librarianship.
And Chris now works in the Deakin library
as a scholarly services librarian.
And - fun fact - is a colleague of mine.
And finally, Erin is a graphics and user interface designer
for Deakin's strategic educational initiatives unit.
And at the time of writing the textbook,
Erin was a student of design and visual communication
and was part of the project
by Deakin's wildly successful Students as Partners Program.
Welcome, Simon, Chris, and Erin.
Thank you so much for being here today.
SIMON: - Thanks for having us.
LAUREN: - We're gonna get started with a few questions for you, Simon.
What's the story behind the creation of this OER?
SIMON: - Chris and I just before the pandemic got to know one another
who was helping me redevelop a unit at Deakin.
And so I found that experience really rewarding
being able to kind of bounce ideas off someone
and have someone help me really structure
and plan a unit properly.
Unfortunately, because it was just before the pandemic,
when the pandemic hit, we didn't really get an opportunity
to finish all of the things we would have liked
to have done with that unit.
And so when the opportunity to apply
for these open grants came around, he emailed me
and said I think the work that we did on that unit
would be a really good thing to turn into a textbook.
And he said it won't be much work and he'll do all of it
and all I have to do is agree.
And I thought, yes, that sounds good.
I liked working with Chris.
So really the content was kind of all there,
but we had to make a lot of, cut a lot of things short.
And one thing in particular, my unit compared
to some other maths units that we're getting redeveloped
at the time was we didn't benefit
from some really nice visual illustration things.
So we saw this as an opportunity, yes,
to make it much prettier and more presentable.
LAUREN: Chris, you were just shaking your head and laughing.
What was all that about?
CHRIS: - First of all, Simon's unit was very good
to begin with.
It's one of the best units in one of the best shape
I ever came across in the five or six years
I was doing unit redesigns.
Besides that, I do remember telling Simon it would be easy
and I would do most of the work.
And unfortunately it was not easy
and Simon did a lot of the work,
but I think we'll get around to that later.
But yes, that's on me.
LAUREN: - Simon mentioned that there was a grant program
and for listeners who may not be familiar
with the library's micro grant scheme,
can you tell us a little bit about what the program was
that you suggested to Simon?
CHRIS: - Yeah, so this was a program that was offering grant funding
to produce open educational resources
or textbooks at the time.
And there were fairly small grants,
I can't remember the exact amount,
but I think we got somewhere between $2,000 and $5,000,
which we used for employing Erin through the Students
as Partners Program.
And I should say, financially the Cloud First project
also tipped in a little bit of money.
So to help with Erin as well,
as well as giving you a little bit of time,
at least to Erin as well.
LAUREN: - So Simon, it was an undergraduate maths course
that you had redesigned prior to that pandemic,
but it didn't feel done.
What was the need that the project was gonna fill for you?
SIMON: - I mean, so other than finishing some things,
I guess the other thing we saw was this was an opportunity
to make our textbooks more widely available.
When you have a unit at Deakin,
it's closed to only be available to Deakin students,
but the nice thing about open resources
is I could then guilt free,
be able to share all of these resources
with anyone that wants them.
Chris and I both kind of thought
that some of the content of the unit is things
that could be shared a bit wider
because there's a lot of maths content out there
and a lot of maths units are very standard,
but this particular unit is a little bit different
in its problem-solving approach
and the way it presents its mathematics.
So we did think they could potentially be some outside,
yeah, outside scope for interest,
but I guess the main need in terms of what we were delivering
at Deakin, 'cause it had already been taught,
but can you say there's a need for Erin's work?
I think we can say that it definitely needed Erin's work
to make it more appealing to the target audience.
LAUREN: - I think a visual element communicates to readers
or users of whatever piece of work it is
that this piece of work is of high quality.
So it might be the content is of high quality,
but if you don't have great visuals,
there's sort of a mismatch there.
So I think visuals are a really important way
that we communicate to learners
that something is important, it's high quality
and it's credible.
CHRIS: I agree Lauren entirely, beyond that I also think,
particularly Erin's great work
where she really did her homework
and put some great imagery together.
It communicated a lot of the messages and tone and feel.
It became part of the language of the book.
That was such an important thing
and so worthwhile doing.
LAUREN: - Was there other motivations for you
from the perspective of a learning designer
that drew you or motivated you to want to create an OER?
CHRIS: - Yeah, look, it was the content in a lot of ways, Lauren.
I had a background doing a lot of work
with Future Learn for Deakin previously,
which is not open that it is publicly available content.
When I was looking at this material the first time
in the back of my mind,
I was thinking this would be a good fit for Future Learn again,
just because it fit nicely with a general purpose audience.
I guess for me, it was also a bit of a personal thing
in that Simon mentioned that this takes a different approach
to mathematics and problem solving.
One of the things I said in the book
are in introducing it and really want to reiterate
is that this was a genuinely transformational process
of learning for me. One of the things that I like to do
when I'm doing learning design is really immersed myself
in the content so that I can get a good handle of it
so that may working through the material itself.
I am, it turns out there's research out there
to say that I'm very typical.
I thought that I was terrible at maths,
the thought of doing maths, hard math,
was sort of like anticipating someone
was going to give me a punch or something,
almost like anticipating physical pain.
I genuinely believed I can't do it.
And I kind of also thought maths is
this procedural, structured, boring uncreative process.
What Simon did, and this approach to mathematics
that looks at it from a much more constructivist lens
that asked you to solve really loose problems
that have potential real-world applications
and ask you to think about different ways
that you can approach a problem.
Think about working out how you can then
take that solution, justify it,
and generalise that to other kinds of maths problems
that you've kind of changed my understanding of
not necessarily what was possible with mathematics
but my relationship with mathematics.
All of a sudden I realise that doing maths well is fun
that it is really creative.
Like a good mathematician is a very creative person
and solving any real-world problems.
I think Simon says that something along the lines of
æif it's really a problem you might be able to find
a solution in the back of a bookÆ,
that's just sort of a process.
So yeah, I wanted to share that experience
with other people from a general audience
and make people realise the maths is creative
and fun and enjoyable and all of that sort of thing.
LAUREN: Erin, we've talked about you, but we haven't talked to you yet.
Can you tell us what was your role on the project team?
ERIN: I was the visual designer.
I was actually still studying at the time.
I was in my third year of my visual communication design
course at Deakin, so I was just about to finish.
And I was asked by Chris and Simon
through my manager at the time as I was working
as a Student as Partners in internship at Cloud First.
So I had worked with Chris a little bit
on a project before I'm pretty sure.
But it was a really interesting opportunity.
I will say when I heard it was maths,
I was a bit of a bit scared.
But when I spoke to Simon and Chris kind of learned
a bit more about the project and what an OER was,
I was really excited to get my hands in
and work with them.
LAUREN: Simon, back to you.
Can you sort of walk us through the OER?
Like, what's it about?
How's it structured?
How's it put together?
SIMON: This unit is like the subject and the OER.
It's aimed at primary school teachers
who are going to specialize in mathematics.
The aim of the unit really is to change
the perception of mathematics as you go in,
you learn how to do a problem,
you see similar problems,
and then you apply that same routine to other things.
That is a part of mathematics.
And it's important that people work on their skills.
But I think it's a real disservice to mathematics
that people go through all of their schooling,
thinking that's all that mathematics is.
And so as Chris said, saying all the beautiful things
that we love to hear, you know, mathematics
is a very creative pursuit.
Real world problems are messy.
And probably actually the lens through which I worked
on this material and framed it was,
yeah, there was another few education mathematics people
that put out a book probably quite a long time ago
called Thinking Mathematically.
And that was really just about problem solving.
And so I kind of saw an opportunity to still teach topics
and still teach content that fits into a university degree,
but kind of think of it or, you know,
approach it through this problem solving idea.
So yeah, we touch on a few interesting and fun math things.
Not easy, you know, a lot of the mathematics is hard.
We've got things like base conversion in there
and some graph theory.
Yeah, always with that idea of,
you want to build intuition and build a relationship
with enjoying and exploring mathematics
rather than just how do I get the answer,
just teach me the way to get the answer.
And then I will show you that I can do it.
LAUREN - What other elements can a reader of Mathematical Reasoning
and Investigation expect looking at this open textbook
compared to a traditional mathematics textbook?
CHRIS: - So for me, what really makes this book stand out
is A) the problem solving approach
And B) just those problems themselves,
which, yeah, SimonÆs put together
with so much thought and care,
really make the book enjoyable.
And it's not Simon. ErinÆs work
making those problems look beautiful.
They all have their own illustration.
- Yeah, it really makes it, it brings it to the next level.
SIMON: - It does, you know, compared to a normal,
normal, normal textbook, you know,
we do embed video explanations into things,
which, yeah, they were already there before
we went into the OER,
but they had to be cleaned up and made
a little more copyright friendly than they had been.
They kind of already had set a little bit of the tone
of, yeah, only within my abilities,
but of the kind of approachable artwork style.
And also it's got coding in it.
So it uses the scratch platform,
which, yeah, it's a fantastic coding platform developed by MIT.
And so it uses coding as a way
to kind of explore mathematical questions
as one of the approaches that we have
of kind of problem solving and understanding things too.
LAUREN: - Sounds like it offers so much more
than a traditional paper textbook
that becomes a laptop stand for many students
after they finish their degree.
Simon, you had funding as we've already discussed a little bit.
You had some funding and you chose to use that funding
for a graphic designer who was Erin.
Can you tell us a little more about why graphic design
was so important to this project?
SIMON: - I am a big fan of things looking nice.
And yeah, I agree with you, you know, having high quality artwork,
yeah, it elevates things. Artwork in general
and not having just straight text on a page.
I don't know, I guess it must provide people reading it
with a little bit of rest or, you know,
breaking up the monotony.
All of those, I'm sure there's research that supports
that those kind of things help people digest material
if it's got those kind of breaks and things
that can let your mind wander a bit.
When we do have the opportunity to get funding at university,
you know, one of the best things I think you can do
is support students and support someone who's career
is kind of going forward.
I think that's a better use of money than buying something
or getting, I don't know, something material
or say paying for the rights to use something
or being able to give students like a real opportunity
to develop their skills, I think is really important.
And probably in terms of the work that we needed, you know,
there were other things that we kind of tossed up with
whether students could review some of the work
or whether students could make some kind of contributions.
But I guess the amount of funding that we had
and how it would really contribute to the product at the end,
graphic design from my perspective
was the best way to use that money.
I'm not sure if Chris had something to support or refute
any of that.
CHRIS: Oh, no, just to support that it was such a worthwhile investment.
And as I said earlier that the illustration
has become such an integral part of the text.
And that's because Erin worked so hard to take
Our sometimes quite vague instructions,
looked at what we'd written and really thought hard
about how to make something on the page that would flow
as support the content and did such a good job of that yet
that it's just become seamlessly integrated
into the rest of the text.
You did a fantastic job.
LAUREN: And before we hear from Erin because we really
want to hear more about these illustrations,
Chris, if I'm not mistaken, there is research
that shows that having visuals in learning environments
does support learning, isn't there?
CHRIS: Yes, it's the short answer.
And you're putting me on the spot.
So we'll probably cut this bit out.
LAUREN: I guess what I was thinking when Simon was talking about visuals
providing a brain break, I'm thinking like, yes,
that's universal design for learning right there.
CHRIS: Oh, I see.
LAUREN: That's like multiple means of my presentation.
And it reduces the cognitive load.
CHRIS: I think it's more than just that reduction of cognitive load.
And that's part of it.
I think it's more integral than that.
I think it plays a really central role in telling the story.
It's a narrative device.
This is why it's so important that I praise Erin
for really integrating that work and doing that work
to think about the visuals because it
and be distracting have visuals there
that don't fit very well with the story.
Ensuring that you have a single unified text
that's pointing together, that comes down to teamwork.
But it also comes down to Erin's good work.
And I think there's that sense of narrative.
But there's also, as you said,
multiple interpretations are easier when it comes to visuals.
That ability to bring your own self to the text.
It just makes it, it gives extra access points
for people to engage with the work as well.
Yeah, it's a lot more than just window dressing
and a lot more than just it makes it credible.
Although I agree, at least the base level it
needs to do that.
It becomes a really important part of the story
of the textbook itself.
LAUREN: Erin, can you tell us about the illustrations in the OER?
ERIN: Yes, there's a lot to say.
I think how we kind of started it was that the unit already
had a visual made and it was with an astronaut.
And we kind of took that and expanded upon it.
So we decided on three, I think, different themes,
which kind of went from the space to land,
which is kind of like a zoo, I think, and then underwater.
And we split those into chapters, different chapters.
Well, obviously, we needed to relate that to the content.
Each banner has its own relation to the content.
So it will have something to do with the maths
that the students are learning.
And that was also a bit of a tricky thing to do,
especially because it is an OER.
So we had to have the right licensing
to use what I was making, because I was outsourcing
from, I think, it was Flat Icon at the time,
as well as making my own graphics.
So we were incorporating those together.
But yet, altogether, I think we--
I think the different outputs from the illustrations
were banners main thing.
We had a few inline graphics, so diagrams and graphs
and stuff like that.
And then, I think, finally, it was our cover, which
was very exciting to make, because I got to intertwine
all the things together with the final cover.
LAUREN: And for anyone listening, I really
encourage you to look at the OER for no other reason
than the graphics.
The astronaut has so much character and so much personality.
My favorite one is, I think, it's the astronaut doing a moonwalk
or some kind of dance, maybe, on Mars.
Did the astronaut get a name along the way?
ERIN: I'm not sure.
CHRIS: I guess not, because the astronaut is the problem solver.
So we all assume they're all of the astronaut.
LAUREN: We're all the astronauts.
That's amazing.
Let's shift gears a little bit, because I
want to hear about how the OER landed when you actually
published it or you started using it.
Because if I understand correctly,
it was created for a specific unit that isn't being taught
anymore.
But did you notice that it was having
any impact on the students at the time?
CHRIS: The student experience probably is still fairly similar,
the students that are enrolled at Deakin.
Because we used the OER to pretty up the unit site.
But overall, what the students from one trimester
to another experience would have been fairly similar.
But yeah, so it was really more--
well, you know, and we do know that it was kind of being
used externally.
I don't know whether I can trust all of the stats on the site
where it was housed.
But it seemed to be getting, you know,
some good interaction.
We had had, yeah, some people from outside as well, who--
yeah, who'd contacted me kind of similar time
to making some of the resources about using the resources
in their things.
And so it was kind of all part of that as well.
LAUREN: Were you hearing anything from the students
that were using it any feedback?
CHRIS: Look, they might not talk to me about the pictures as much.
But obviously, whenever-- yeah, I probably also
was too-- I didn't give them an option to tell them
because I would just say, look at this unit site.
It's beautiful.
Look at this.
Look at these pictures.
Aren't you excited to be studying this unit with me?
And so all they could really do was agree.
So unfortunately, I didn't properly
get the extra feedback after that.
But I mean, it's obvious that they would enjoy it.
LAUREN: Well, yeah.
Just look at it.
Chris, do you have any stories to share about the impact
the OER has had on learning at Deakin?
LAUREN: Well, I hope that the approach that Simon took
and the approach to Cloud First took
has had resulted in the improvement
of learning experiences for students in a number of ways.
Without talking in generalities, the best
particular unit, I think
that what it really meant was students, particularly
pre-service teachers, making a much clearer link
between the content that they were working through
and how that might sit in a classroom.
I don't necessarily have the feedback
to justify that comment.
But that was certainly one of our signature intentions
when we reviewed the content itself.
I think that the visuals make a really huge difference.
I think just to be clear for listeners,
we're talking in some ways about slightly separate things.
So the OER textbook that we made
goes out to general audience, but the unit site,
which we worked on initially, formed the basis
of the textbook, Erin did some graphics.
Simon and I revised some of the content
and added a little bit more in, but it's essentially
a very similar product.
That being said, students working through the unit site
aren't strictly speaking, working through the OER textbook
if that makes sense.
LAUREN: I almost feel like it's a distinction
that doesn't need to be made because the nature of OER
is that they are always in evolution.
So whether it was technically an OER at the time
that it was being taught, and is there
a specific point at which something is,
or it's now crossed over the threshold
into being an OER.
I don't know if that's necessarily
a super helpful distinction to make.
I think it's fair to say that all open education projects
are at some point in the journey towards openness.
Some of them are more open than others.
So what I'm hearing is that it's hard to measure
the impact that a specific resource has on learning
unless you're doing very specific research about it,
but that the impression is that it supported their learning
in a positive way in the form that it was in
before it was sort of officially published
as an open education resource.
CHRIS: Yeah, and I would certainly say
that there's plenty of reason and good,
justifiable robust evidence to suggest
that in the form of the unit that students went through,
it was a well-regarded and well-enjoyed unit by students,
and I'm certain that students would have gotten
something important out of it
that they could bring into their classrooms.
'Cause as we said, right, the start,
the whole point of this OER textbook is
that people redefine their relationship with mathematics
to see it as a creative pursuit to solve problems
rather than just a series of steps
to get to the same answer that the back of the book has.
LAUREN: Like many open education projects at Deakin,
the students that engaged with this project
were not just the students in the unit itself.
You also had a student as partner.
So Erin, I'm really curious to hear about your experience
as a student at Deakin that this project had on you
because you, as you've mentioned,
you were a graphic design student at the time
that it was created.
What was it like for you to join this project team?
ERIN: - Interesting.
I'd say, I was quite nervous.
I had basically no professional experience
as a graphic designer except for my internship.
And through that, I had my manager
who I could obviously talk to a lot
and this was me leading the graphics,
which was a bit terrifying, I would say.
- I remember being extremely quiet
when we first started meeting
and not contributing much to the conversation
of the graphics, but I think this experiences helped me
and during the process helped me gain a lot of confidence
in the discussion of design and that, yeah.
LAUREN: - So as a graphic design student,
did this experience have any impact on you
as a student outside of the project?
ERIN: - Yeah, I would say so.
I mean, we didn't have a lot of experiences
with actual clients during our time in the degree.
And so I think that's something
that really was beneficial in this project
'cause I could actually talk to both Chris and Simon
about what they wanted and be able to gain feedback
from them as real people.
So that was really good.
And then obviously teamwork was one of the things
I feel would have very much benefited me
at going back into working like serving as a student
and working with my other graphic design students.
And yeah.
LAUREN: - And has the experience had any impact
on you since you've graduated?
ERIN: - Yeah, definitely.
It's one of those things where I can,
I can put it on my portfolio and show it off of it.
And obviously talk about it at job interviews
and put it on my CV.
That's a really good thing to be able to talk about this
and especially 'cause it was such a good experience
to have as well.
So I can always talk about highly about it.
- I just want to point out for the listeners
'cause we're not recording video for this
but I just want to highlight how emphatically
Chris and Simon are nodding in support
and encouragement of you, Erin.
I think you have two very strong cheerleaders in these two.
CHRIS: - Absolutely, look, Erin's work is exceptional.
When I asked Erin's manager who from her experience
we should employ for this project.
She did not hesitate to push Erin forward
and we couldn't be happier with the work that she did for us.
LAUREN: - All right, well, we're gonna shift gears again
'cause I wanna hear about the impact that this had
on you, Simon and Chris as teachers.
So Simon, can you tell me any stories
about how this OER project shaped your teaching practice?
CHIRS: - Yes, being involved in this project
was really eye-opening, I guess.
I've always been very pro-free education
and think that resources should always be made available
as widely as possible.
But of course, I never really understood any of the,
any of how you actually do it and what's legal
and what's not illegal and what the university allows
and what it doesn't allow.
So it definitely helped me get a much better understanding
of that, which has influenced how I then go on to develop
other units.
Being part of this project also means
that you get to see some of the other projects
that are being done.
And so actually that was probably one of my favorite bits
about being involved in the OER.
I was seeing all of the other really fantastic
and interesting ways that other people use their grants
at the university.
So yes, I look forward to listening to all of your podcasts
that talk about those in a little bit more detail
'cause I only ever would have gotten the five
or 10 minute version of what was going on.
So certainly those things would have had an impact.
Some of the positive stories, I don't know whether this is
the best place, best time in the conversation to mention them.
But some of the material that we'd used and drawn up on
in the book, we had to either get permission to use it
or we had to cut it out.
There were a lot of things that can't be used
or can't be used.
And we actually had some really positive experiences
in getting approval for some of those.
So the Shell Centre for Learning had produced this very nice
resource in the '80s, I think, or '70s or '80s.
And one of my chapters was completely really their problems
and even their graphics are done kind of a
adaption of their graphics to use.
And because it was in the '80s, they didn't have CC
licenses back then or as far as I know.
And so, but they immediately said, yes, our intention
in what we released, and it was a free resource,
and really it was kind of meant to be in the same vein as a CC.
And they were really supportive and wanted to see the product
once we'd released it.
So even stories like that, always having positive interactions
around something like open education resources
where lots of people can have similar life philosophies
and having those positive interactions is really great.
I don't know how much I've wandered off
from the original question, but yeah,
that was some of the positive stories that come to mind for me.
LAUREN: - It sounds like the experience of creating an OER
and going through the process and through the program
did have an impact on you as a teacher
and you learned a lot of important skills and competencies
that work well in your toolkit as a teacher.
What was it like teaching with the resource
in whatever form it was along the way?
SIMON: - Having a resource that you've developed yourself,
I guess it works two ways.
It's always nice to be able to deliver the message
that you want to deliver and have that kind of reinforced
As teachers rather than having a resource where you might
use it by necessity or you want to take some problems
forward, but you don't necessarily agree
with how material is presented or with the strictness
of the answers that they come up with.
And so you're constantly kind of creating maybe
a little bit of dissonance between what the students are learning
from the resources and what you intended them to learn
or what you want them to get out of them.
So I guess in that sense, having something that you've had
a good hand in and something that you feel is shareable
and widely shareable I think is a really nice thing
and if it wasn't as much work as it is,
I'd be wanting to push that on a lot of units
to do similar things, but yeah, probably is a lot of upfront work.
LAUREN: Chris, you are a learning designer.
You're a librarian now.
Both of these are arguably part of the teaching profession.
So how did this experience shape how you approach your role
as a member of the teaching profession?
CHRIS: Well, obviously if those roles are members
of the teaching profession, it's not at the coal face.
It's in that third space that looks at influence.
One of the things I was thinking as Simon was speaking
is that most of the time when you're working
on a unit revision, it involves a little bit of risk,
particularly for everybody involved, to be honest,
but for teaching stuff because often we are asking people
to teach in a way that we can sit people down
and show them the evidence that this is going
to be the most effective way of teaching,
but it's not necessarily the way that they used to doing it.
And often, there needs to be all kinds of both contingencies,
but also training sessions, put into place
to ensure that tutors understand the approach
and that it's taught in the way that it's intended.
And that's part of the reason as well
that there's so much upfront work that goes
into the redevelopment of one of these digitally-led units
that take what's now called the Deakin Design approach
as part of that Cloud First project
is that it means that students, no matter who's teaching it,
get that consistently high quality unit.
But a lot of that work around changing your mindset
when it comes to teaching around ensuring
that there are structures and training in place
just seem totally redundant with Simon and Simon's unit.
And a big part of that is Simon himself
is already a really proactive and reflective teacher
and that's really obvious to me,
even before I had met him just looking through the unit content.
And I think I said earlier that Simon's was one of the units
and the best shapes that I had ever encountered
during that sort of five, six year period I was doing unit revisions.
But I do think that working through the process
of revising that content, looking at it just with fresh eyes,
being able to have these discussions,
hopefully means that those, that kind of additional work
that as a learning designer and additional things
that we need to put into place,
I just felt more and more confident weren't necessary.
And I do think that the process of developing that content
even in OER form really helped with that.
And I think the other thing for me is it's about
thinking judiciously about where an OER might be appropriate.
Now, having being a colleague of yours in the library as well
Lauren I think sometimes we get a slightly insulated view
on what people's attitudes to open access
and OER are.
I know that there are a significant group of people
who would only, what say they would only employ
living there in the right circumstances.
There's a sense that there's a lot of time involved
and there is that was our experience as well.
We would never have been able to do it without
a grant.
But also there's a sense that sometimes people's value
as a teacher is in the content that they can deliver
and they don't want to effectively replace themselves.
There's a sense that goes along with that,
that the university's IP is important
and in part of what makes the university.
But at the same time, that's usually
balanced against a sense that we're making a difference
and that the content that we're teaching is important.
There's that philosophical debate that's always going on
and then there's always the question
from that learning design perspective.
It's similar to AI.
When it comes to just redeveloping a unit,
it kind of would prefer in some ways
that the unit development team
were just grabbing something off the shelf
and trying to plug something in.
You want to see that they are interacting,
bringing something important of themselves
to the content and that the unit that's developed
is developed in a way that is coherent
with the rest of the course structure as well,
which doesn't always lend itself
well to general audience work.
Now, I'm not mentioning all of these things to be a doubt
because I think this is a great project
and I think there are some really great projects
that should OER.
I think it'd be great if by default people could sit down
and look at whether or not the information
might be useful for a general audience
or a more open audience and resources be allocated to that.
I know it's not the reality of where we are.
That's full circle to that point that I feel
that having been through the work,
being through put Simon through the ringer
of developing a lot of that copyrighted content
that I told him fully confident would be really simple
and it would all be if you know
copyright implications of any real worry
to be concerned about and some 100 hours or more later
of Simon and I, but mostly Simon,
going through video and work and re-developing content
to make sure it's copyright compliant.
That was a painful lesson, but an important and good one
that shows that OER needs to be something
that you commit to fully and go into with your eyes open
but that it is possible and that in some ways
where it's possible and where we have the resources.
I feel as a university, you know,
if we believe - and I certainly do - that education
can have the power to transform the way
that people understand the world and relate to it
and relate to others, then it's part of our social imperative
I think to be open when we can with our teaching material.
LAUREN: - So what I heard Chris is that there were a lot of challenges
especially in terms of time and time as a resource
and maybe implications about creating an OER
that you weren't fully aware of.
But it also sounds like the opportunity to work
with an educator like Simon was incredibly fulfilling
for you from the perspective of a learning designer
and perhaps one of the impacts that it had on you
was recognizing how fulfilling open education projects
could be from sort of a pedagogical philosophy perspective.
What I also heard was as a librarian,
it's given you a more in depth understanding
about OER creation projects that then you bring
into your practice as a librarian,
perhaps not being quite so evangelical
as about open education and open access
as some of us are, myself included.
So it does sound like it had a really balanced impact
on you as a teaching professional Chris.
Is that fair to say?
CHRIS: - Yeah, I suppose it is, then those are all kind things to say.
And yeah, the only other thing I'd add to that is
it may be more aware of the challenges
and so more aware of where OER might be appropriate
but that doesn't make me any less evangelical
where it clearly is appropriate
and where we have the time and money to do it.
Again, I think there is a real social imperative
to do it where it's appropriate.
LAUREN: There's an expression that we often use in open land
as open as possible, as closed as necessary.
I would be really remiss in my job
if what people took away from this project
was that the idea that everyone should create an OER
and that everything should be an OER creation project.
If anything, what I would like to see is more people
knowing about your OER and adopting your OER
and the other OER that Deakin has published
at other institutions, we wouldn't want every single institution
to have a bespoke OER if there are these beautiful resources
like yours already available.
And there are swathes of them around the world,
these free resources that anyone can access,
anyone can download, anyone can share,
anyone can change up a little bit.
So I think that part of our job is also,
my job, is also helping people consider existing OER
as a pathway to being an open education practitioner
and not that the only pathway to being an open education
practitioner is to create a brand new resource.
SIMON: - Another thing in support of all of these resources.
So I mean, I've done more recently
I have been developing units using an existing OER
and then adding some extra open quiz system.
So NumBas is an absolutely awesome,
very flexible quiz system.
So you're still able to give your,
so just what Chris was talking about,
still able to give your flavor to the open resource.
So you're not completely outsourcing your learning,
you're taking something that exists
and then integrating it in the way
that you want to teach the subject.
But if we don't do this, there's so many risks
that we come up to if you force students
to pay for a textbook or use the software
even that's associated with textbooks.
You know, it starts out at $10 per student
and then they jack up the price at half way down
and then you've already invested all of this time
and money maybe into creating a resource
that you don't own.
So that's the best thing about or one of the things
that a lot of these things I kind of take for granted.
So I am essentially evangelical as well.
But you know, when you're dependent on someone else's resource
and they control the way that that resource is delivered to you,
it gives you a huge risk
in terms of what you're doing in the future.
So that's the other reason why I think OER are very handy.
LAUREN: Simon, are you hearing any stories of colleagues
at other institutions using your OER?
SIMON: There was a team in America, maybe Chicago or something
that had wanted to use one of the videos
that's included in the OER as a resource
for a teaching program that they were making for.
Yeah, essentially similar kind of cohort to us.
So I think maybe teachers that were already out there
that were kind of getting upskilling and everything like that.
So being able to, you know, often if people come across a resource
through a university site that's not necessarily cleared,
then being able to share it is not necessarily easy,
but because this was part of OER, I'm like, you know,
it's open access, you can use it, go for it.
So that was kind of cool.
I hope that's being used well.
I don't really have insight into exactly how
it's used or how it's been going, but I love the idea of it.
LAUREN: My last question, second to last question actually.
Second to last question is a little bit introspective,
a little bit meta, you might say.
So we know that this is not just a podcast
to celebrate your work and surface the stories.
It's also a research project.
This conversation is going to become research data
that the team and I are going to analyze.
I'm really curious what you all think it all means.
What do your stories tell us about the impact
that open educational resources have on learning and teaching?
SIMON: I guess for me, one of the things that's
been really obvious in the conversations
that we've had, you know, the impact can be everywhere,
like on, you know, as part of the creation process,
as part of having a nice finished resource that, you know,
Erin talks about the, it's a nice finished product
that she can show.
It's a nice set of experiences that she can speak positively
to when she's going out to things.
It's a nice symbol of the collaborations
that we've all done together.
It's always we've got all of our names together
on the front cover of that very nice resource.
So all of those things, I think, can be very nice.
I said nice a lot, but yeah, in creating OEAs,
it is that lasting impact as part of the process
of creating it, part of the process of using it,
part of the process of learning about other OEAs as well.
I think, you know, it really is not a compartmentalised thing
that has small impacts.
LAUREN: Chris, what do you think the impact is?
What are your stories tell us?
CHIRS: Look, I think that this story tells us that when teachers
and potentially people in that third space
can have the time and resources to come together
and collaborate, then it can change the way
that we approach tertiary education.
Taking that, digitally led approach
and having time to sit back and reflect about
what's going to be best for students,
what's going to make a great learning experience for them,
how that might work, how it might integrate
with classes and assessment,
and really taking that holistic, big picture view
can produce really fantastic outcomes for students.
And we have talked about it being a lot of work
and we won't lie, it is, but front loading that work
means that a lot of the work down the track
and the teaching is already done.
The content creation is there.
It's a really great quality.
The lesson plans are there, in place
and things, you know, should run smoothly,
especially after a couple of runs.
So, yeah, just as a way of approaching the design
and development of learning content,
I feel like that digitally driven open mindset approach
is something, yeah.
I mean, you used the term evangelical, something
I'm extremely passionate and evangelical about.
LAUREN: My very last question, this one's actually the last one.
For anyone, what is your favorite part of the OER?
SIMON: Very obviously, Erin's pictures.
LAUREN: Any picture in particular?
SIMON: Yeah, the one that probably comes to mind
is for a sequences topic and she just
had all of the animals kind of in line.
It was always nice.
Yes, Erin did have to work with real people here
to give very vague ideas and just say,
"I just kind of do something with what we have."
And so, I don't know.
The intrigue of just kind of looking at her images
and saying, "First, what's the connection to the material?"
I think is very enjoyable for me
and I assume enjoyable for other people, but yes.
LAUREN: Chris, favorite thing about the OER?
SIMON: Well, how can I go past what Simon just said?
Definitely the imagery.
It took it to another level.
I mean, I enjoyed the experience of collaborating with others too,
but in terms of the finished product, absolutely.
I can think of another one, which is an underwater one,
a series of bubbles rising in the perfect bell curve,
which just shows how much time and effort Erin put into
developing those images because you'll be,
but I don't think it either of us sat down
and explained to her what a bell curve was
and what it was supposed to look like.
She figured that out.
LAUREN: Erin, do you have a favorite part of the OER?
ERIN: Maybe getting rid of my fear of maths a little bit.
No, I really just enjoyed talking to these guys
and figuring out how to make these banners
because the banners, I will say, are my favorite part,
especially making them because they had so many awesome ideas,
especially how to show the maths in terms of animals and space.
So that was really cool to work on.
LAUREN: I really want to thank the three of you so much
for sitting down with me today
and having this conversation.
I'll take us out with some credits, very short.
Stories of Openness is a limited series
from the Open Education team at Deackin University Library.
It's part of a research by Podcast Project led by me,
Lauren Halcomb-Smith, with Angie Williamson, Danni Johnson,
and Eddie Puvuna.
We choose Open wherever possible,
including Audacity for Editing, Castopod for hosting,
and Music by Scott Holmes Music.
This podcast by Deakin University
is licensed under a CC by NC 4.0 license.
For more information and full acknowledgments,
please see our show notes.
Thank you so much for listening,
and thank you again, Simon, Chris, and Erin.
(gentle music)