Welcome to my blog on Quality, elearning, OER, OEP, OEC, and user generated content (UGC)


The posts in my blog will be both in English and Swedish.
Blogposterna kommer att vara både på svenska och engelska.

Tuesday, June 24, 2014

Why openness matters in education OCL4Ed June2014

The tasks for part 2 in the OCL4Ed June 2014 are about to:
  • Consider why openness matters in education
  • Reflect and share the reasons why we teach
  • Establish and share what we consider fair and reasonable practice with regards to sharing of teaching materials
  • ...and to reflect on lessons learned


To start with  talking about openness and why it matters, Iwill like to start with a citation by Lawrence Lessig...A time is marked not so much by ideas that are argued about as by ideas that are taken for granted. The character of an era hangs upon what needs no defense.

—Lawrence Lessig[1]

It is a human right for everyone to have access to education.  UNESCO considers this essential to exercising the other human rights.[2]  The use of Creative Commons (cc) is contributing to the inevitable outcome  today and in the future where open education will be taken for granted by all education institutions.Sadly, today many education institutions restrict access to learning by locking content behind all rights reserved copyright. In today's world where the cost of replicating digital information is near zero combined with the affordance that the cost of developing high quality courses collaboratively using open educational resources is far cheaper than doing this alone, we have unprecedented opportunities to promote the sustainability of education futures for all.Some argues that they are for CC, but they lock the material in a Learning Management System (LMS), and without thinking that the material is not open any longer. And, also their are  like 50 shades of openness. Some argues, including myself that real openness is with CC BY and BY SA.

Open Educational Resources (OER) and Massive Open Onlline Courses (MOOCs) have opened people's eyes to the future role of online learning in all educational sectors. CC, OERs and MOOCs is god enough by it selves, but they are also seen as catalysts for open up education, and they have given new blood, or new meaning and they has pushed a discussion of online learning on to the agendas even on top management, and mid management. It is also often argued that with increased openness, with CC, OERs and MOOCs quality will increase. When learners can use any course or material from anywhere, anytime with any device and learn from anyone both collaboration and competition will increase, and peer review, self-assessment develops. Institutions can improve their online courses, but Campus courses can also benefit  from the open movement. Incentives and strategies for open education are discussed today in new terms, very much through the hype in 2012 with the MOOCs.

So if education shall be available for everyone, everywhere at any time, with any device and from anyone, openness must be like default. Democracy, health, wellness, human rights will thus be developed and increased.

1.http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/l/lawrencele333208.html#fLKmIHc3SrTJPlJd.99

Sunday, June 22, 2014

Open content licensing for educators OCL4Ed





Open content licensing for educators

The course OCL4Ed #OCL4Ed is a free online course on open content licensing for educators is  a course where we all can learn about the concepts of open educational resources, copyright and Creative Commons open licenses to achieve more sustainable education for all.

The very first task is about to reflect on our experience of  e-Learning activities on creating a blog, and to get to know each other, and to use the online course environment (see how).
Our  reflections could cover for example:
  • Introduction of ourselves and reflections on what we would like to achieve by maintaining a blog to support our learning
  • Reflections on the activity as such? Was it easy or hard?
  • Share links to any additional resources we found useful in completing the tasks.
  • Provide tips for future learners who will be completing this activity. If we were to set up a new blog again, what would we do differently?
  • Add anything our readers may find interesting or useful

Hi everyone, I am Ebbba Ossiannilsson fr.o.m. Lund University in Sweden. I am very much looking forward to the OCL4Ed course. I attended this course when it first started some years agao. And now for the third time I am facilitator in the course as well as taking part to learn and to share with all of you.

I am working at national and international level on Open Educational Resources (OER);  Open Educational Practice (OEP), Creative Commons (CC), and MOOCs as well as on e-learning and especially on quality issues.
I earned my PhD 2012 from Oulu University in Finland and my Dissertation was about Benchmarking e-learning in higher education. Lessons learned from international projects 

I am a board member in several national and international Associations on elearning, MOOCs, and OERs, Associations like EFQUEL, EDEN, LANETO, EADTU, SVERD (I am V President in SVERD the Swedish Association of Distance Education). I use to serve as a quality reviewer for certification on quality in e-learning with EFQUEL (UNIQUe and ECB check).

At the latest EDEN Annual Conference 10-13 June 2014 in Zagreb, Croatia,  I was awarded the EDEN Fellow 2014.

I have done several MOOCs (some 30 in number) before.  I also use to be a facilitator in MOOCs. My main concerns are quality issues and I use to be a consultant on those issues.

I am very curious to take part in this I think  5th time  at the OCL4Ed

#OCL4Ed #EbbaOssian

Would like to share a link to the Norwefgien MOOC Investigation, from the Government on MOOCs to Norway. I will share the link because I believe it will have consequenses in the Nordic countries
http://www.regjeringen.no/nn/dep/kd/Dokument/NOU-ar/2014/NOU-2014-5.html?id=762916&WT.tsrc=epost&WT.mc_id=epostvarsel_regjeringano

Concerning writing Blogpost I do that quite frequently. I will use my current Blog for this course as well. I took part as a bloger in the Spring Blog Festival  an online course on WizIQ with Dr Nellie Dutsch.
But if I should create a  new blog, I will have done it somewaht different, maybe more structured and more ineractive.
Will see if I can do something to update this one