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Nicole Campbell Post 1

• 4 June 2018, 7:13 PM

Open for my students?

Hello everyone!


I wanted to share a scenario that relates to some of the other discussions I have been reading on the forums. I am also looking to get some advice from others that are passionate about OERs.


Over the past year, I have been working on building a resource for my students that will act as a repository of information to help them in my courses. I teach fourth-year capstone courses and I have ~ 100 students each term. It can be quite challenging to provide mentorship and assistance for all these students and so I decided to make a web page for them. The plan was to enroll my students on the site so that they could access it for the last year of their study. At one point I would have called this an open resource but as I learn more in this course I see that it would not be open to the public domain. I have hesitations about making it public because some of it might be based on the format/style of how I want my students to write their assignments. On the other hand, perhaps others could benefit from the resource and therefore it should be available.


I would love to hear from anyone else that might be in a similar position. As of right now, even though my resource might not be a true OER, I think it will still benefit students and there will be no additional charge so I am happy to pursue it.


Nicole

Jenni Hayman Post 2 in reply to 1

• 5 June 2018, 3:02 AM

Hi Nicole, what you're describing is more open practice, encouraging learners to be co-creators. That it is visible only to them at the moment may be an important issue of privacy for them. One way of approaching it might be to give them choices. They can do their work in the public open if they wish, perhaps they can each start a blog of their own. If their experienced students in their final year, they can use their work as a portfolio for their next step after graduation perhaps. For those that are reluctant to go fully public, provide them with an internal page perhaps. See what suits them and see how they might mentor each other, providing feedback and suggestions in either of the spaces where they choose to work. If they wish, public students can license some or all of they work using Creative Commons licenses, but they'd need a full understanding of what that means.