New technologies, software, and effective practices have increased access to information while new policies and philosophies that explore openness have accelerated that change. The growth of social networks and virtual communities has transformed the learning environment into an interactive place to share and build content and community. The pursuit of open content prompts many questions: What are the opportunities and the challenges associated with open educational content? What are the models for sustaining, maintaining, and promoting open resources? How can we, as a community of teaching and learning professionals, collaborate to realize the full potential of open content? What evidence do we have that the trend toward open content is having the impact we hope for?
Join us September 14 and 15 for “Open Educational Content: Addressing Challenges and Seizing Opportunities,” the Educause Learning Initiative’s 2011 Online Fall Focus Session, where we will engage the teaching and learning community in exploring initial questions around open educational content. Tour institutional examples of high-quality content development, maintenance models, and delivery and organizational options that support adoption. Through interactive sessions and various case studies, we will:
- Define what open educational content is and is not
- Examine the technology trends that, over the past 10 years, have begun to serve as enablers of open content (e.g., mobility, software, the cloud, lower technology costs)
- Address models of authoring and participation in open content use (e.g., delivery and organization issues)
- Review models for assessing the impact of open resources on student success
This is a virtual (web conference) event which will be viewed in Bostock Library 024 (the CIT Lab). Registration is requested.