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Hi everyone, Sorry, am a bit late to the party, just catching up with this thread – thanks Alannah for starting off and all for your responses. I agree it would be great if we as a SIG could feed in to an ALT response to this. I think there is so much to respond to in this green paper - the idea that providers existing the market represents an almost desirable form of evidence that the wonderful market is working as it should! The lack of awareness of the existence (let along desirability) of such creatures as part-time and/or mature students! (I could go on but David Kernohan has already highlighted many features - http://wonkhe.com/blogs/the-tefs-first-assessment/.) I think there is quite a bit for ALT to advocate for – for example, ensuring that use of learning technologies is considered as part of any evaluation of teaching quality, in some kind of holistic and ‘research and practice-informed’ way, rather than as a box tick, or some measure of TEL quantity delivered. In terms of openness, I fear the powers-that-be are (as highlighted already) much more interested in ‘opening’ the sector to the market than in open resources or practices. So an approach that says we support open as opposed to market will struggle to win favour. I do think from our point of view it is worthwhile drawing parallels with other opening agendas that have achieved significant traction; we have seen government won over by arguments for open access and open data already. There are also of course some key international statements such as the Paris declaration via UNESCO and reports from the OECD which can be cited. One of the key questions I think is what exactly we want to ask for, in terms of openness. (It’s a bit difficult to specify when it is still quite unclear exactly how this framework is going to or supposed to evaluate teaching excellence.) Do we want institutions to at least consider their policy position around this, and adopt some level of open policy, whether it is a ‘permissive’ one or an ‘open by default’ one? Or is it that we would like to see efforts to move towards greater openness in learning and teaching practice being something that is looked for and considered in any future assessment exercise? Or none of the above? Sorry if this has come out incoherently due to haste - happy to continue this conversation! All the best Leo Leo Havemann [cid:image001.png@01D1368B.B3E86140]<http://ble-learning.blogspot.co.uk/>[Description: Description: Description: Description: Description: twitter-smaller]<http://www.twitter.com/leohavemann> Learning Technology Support Birkbeck, University of London IT Services Malet St London WC1E 7HX www.bbk.ac.uk/its<http://www.bbk.ac.uk/its> New publications: Open Data as Open Educational Resources: Case Studies of Emerging Practice<http://education.okfn.org/open-data-as-open-educational-resources-case-studies-of-emerging-practice/> Open Data as Open Educational Resources: Towards transversal skills and global citizenship <http://www.openpraxis.org/index.php/OpenPraxis/article/view/233/180> From: Open Education Special Interest Group [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Clive Buckley Sent: 09 December 2015 12:37 To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: Consultation with the Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF) body to include OER policy? Nice point about values Terese. If you did catch this http://www.theguardian.com/higher-education-network/2015/nov/27/our-obsession-with-metrics-turns-academics-into-data-drones on the subject of metrics and the TEF, it makes for a good read. From the article “But there is the rub. The risk is that so much time will be given over to metrics that we will lose sight of what we are here to do; those ephemeral – yet life-changing – moments when students acquire the spark of self-learning. Creativity, love of knowledge and thirst for discovery are things we should teach, incentivise and promulgate. But they are not easily measured.” Clive Buckley PhD Programme Leader: MSc Learning and Technology Glyndwr University From: Open Education Special Interest Group [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Bird, Terese M. Sent: 09 December 2015 09:57 To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: Consultation with the Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF) body to include OER policy? Hello all, At some point, we need to get the attention of the politicians who are directly working on the TEF, yes? Calling on the shadow government and others parties particularly, I would think. We need to say that the TEF initiative must not be “values free” --- it cannot pretend that HE is free of values. And we cannot settle for the goals of the green paper which are much more concerned with opening opportunity for corporations and not for learners. So glad we’re talking about this! _______________________________________ Terese Bird Educational Designer and SCORE Research Fellow University of Leicester Medical School T: +44 (0)116 229 7263 E: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]> From: Open Education Special Interest Group [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Lorna Campbell Sent: 09 December 2015 09:50 To: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]> Subject: Re: Consultation with the Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF) body to include OER policy? Hi Alannah, Yes thanks for kicking off this important discussion. As other’s have said, the fact that the green paper refers to open markets but neglects to mention open education or open licenses is disappointing but not entirely surprising. I absolutely agree that we need to seize the opportunity to provide input into the TEF. I think Marieke is right when she says that "TEF may not end up being all learning and teaching practitioners are hoping for” which is all the more reason to try and make our voices heard. In terms of who would be the best body to do this, I would favour ALT. Jisc appear to have lost interest in open education and seem to be moving towards the marketisation model of HE that is so prevalent in the green paper. ALT have become more engaged in policy recently and they clearly have a strong perspective on open education. Persuading senior managers to raise their voices is likely to be useful too. The ALT Winter Conference is running for the next couple of days so I don’t expect we’ll hear much from any of the ALT team this week but I think submitting a response under the ALT banner is a good idea. I’ll be happy to chip in where I can of course. Cheers Lorna On 9 Dec 2015, at 09:37, Vivien Rolfe <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>> wrote: Hi Alannah Great email thank you. As far as I am aware there were a number of responses to the 'Assessing Quality in HE' call that included tech/OER (http://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/commons-select/business-innovation-and-skills/inquiries/parliament-2015/assessing-quality-in-higher-education/publications/). There were responses from ALT, the NTFs and two personal responses including my feeble last minute attempt regarding OER. We certainly should formulate a more punchy and cohesive response for the use of CC license for publically-funded outputs. I'm 'in'. Viv On Wed, Dec 9, 2015 at 9:28 AM, Pates, Dominic <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>> wrote: Thanks Alannah - interesting points, and much appreciated for pulling how the TEF currently sees 'open' (evidently market opportunities, rather than freedom to use/share/remix for ed purposes) out of the Green Paper! How would you see a mobilisation for consulting with the government on TEF policy panning out/shaping up? As you point out, Jan 2016 is just around the corner, but is still ahead at this point. Kind regards, Dom Pates Educational Technologist LEaD SMCSE City University London Ext: 0285 @CityUniLEaD On 9 Dec 2015, at 06:49, alannah fitzgerald <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>> wrote: Dear All, Like many I've been following the discussions online surrounding the forthcoming TEF with interest. But when I look at the UK government green paper seeking responses to the TEF consultation by January 2016<http://wonkhe.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/2016HEgreenpaper.pdf> there seems to be a notable absence of consultation with the JISC, the Association for Learning Technology, Creative Commons UK etc. based on Annex D - List of Individuals/Organisations Consulted. Earlier today in response to an input request for a Creative Commons talk it was suggested that "you could say something about CC as part of the TEF criteria" (Nigel, Dec 9th, 2015). Perhaps that was meant to be the REF? Or more wishful thinking from this d-list where the TEF is concerned? In an earlier discussion on OER policy across the (US-UK pond), Viv and Lorna raised the need to take a community effort with UKOER policy [1], [2]. It would seem that the TEF is one of those proverbial bulls that necessitates being grabbed by the horns where the implementation of OER policy is concerned. Are we able to talk about and mobilize a community-driven UKOER policy consultation with the government for the TEF? What's it going to take, do you think, to not only be part of the consultation process but to make OER policy stick to the TEF? (rather than being a case of teflon) January 2016 is just around the corner and this is how the state of 'openness' currently reads in the TEF green paper based on a keyword search for "open": "opening the higher education sector to new providers" "open up a wider set of validation options for providers, alongside existing validation arrangements, in order to remove barriers" "the 2011 reforms created a much more open sector, and allowed significant numbers of alternative providers to expand their student cohort and compete directly with other providers for the first time." "open up the higher education sector and drive value for money" "Create an open, market-based and affordable system, with more competition and innovation, and a level playing field for new providers." "We need to be open and transparent in looking at options that explicitly address concerns about burden and bureaucracy and use this to inform the design and processes of the future REF." "Question 3: Do you agree that the ambition for TEF should be that it is open to all HE providers, all disciplines, all modes of delivery and all levels? Please give reasons for your answers." With all good wishes, Alannah Alannah Fitzgerald FLAX Language Project (flax.nzdl.org<http://flax.nzdl.org/>) Open Education Research PhD Candidate in Educational Technology at Concordia University, Canada https://ca.linkedin.com/in/alannahfitzgerald / alannahfitzgerald.org<http://alannahfitzgerald.org/> / @AlannahFitz<https://twitter.com/AlannahFitz> / http://www.slideshare.net/AlannahOpenEd [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]> / [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]> / https://plus.google.com/u/0/+alannahfitzgerald [1] "I've particularly sought to influence NTF criteria and UKPSF criteria to include 'open', and I've pushed it as part of TEF consultations I've been involved in. This is nothing, and what it would take is a community effort." (Viv, Oct 30, 2015) [2] "I can’t help feeling that while awareness of open education may be growing in individual institutions, we have yet to make a dent at policy level. If anything, it sometimes feels like we’re regressing...While [in Scotland] there has been considerable interest in the declaration both nationally and internationally we have not yet had much of a response from the Scottish Government, however the University of Edinburgh has recently provided funded support for Open Scotland so I live in hope that we can bring open education to the attention of policy makers." (Lorna, Oct 30, 2015) — Lorna M. Campbell Open Education Technology and Practice Blog: lornamcampbell.wordpress.com<http://lornamcampbell.wordpress.com/> Mail: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]> Twitter: LornaMCampbell Skype: lorna120768