Project One Supporting Transition with OER

Project  One

Draft Workpackage Team One OER-Getting Started Workpackage

Team Leader

Andy Hagyard, Teaching and Learning Coordinator, Centre for Educational Research and Development

Working Title

Supporting transition with OER

Project Summary

This team will contribute to the overall project by exploring and developing the use of open educational resources to support the transition to Higher Education. The term ‘Transition’ is considered to include the provision of resources prior to arrival at University, during the induction period, and extending into the first year to help students adapt to the requirements of academic study. The project addresses acknowledged problems in transition for students from a diverse range of social and educational backgrounds, and will build on research and existing practice from across the sector.

Aims

The aim of this aspect of the project is to develop greater understanding of the learning development needs of students in transition, the range of existing OERs and the tools currently available to produce them, and to repurpose or develop OERs to meet the specific needs of students at the University of Lincoln across a range of disciplines. Resources will be designed to be customisable, for embedding within a disciplinary context.

Deliverables

• A collection of generic open educational resources to support transition to Higher Education,
• A guide for library and learning development staff on the availability of OERs for Learning Development and the tools available to create and repurpose them, in order to support the transition of students into Higher Education,
• A contribution to institution-wide initiatives to enhance transition support, as well as external dissemination of project outputs through a range of means including journal articles and conference presentations.

Methodologies

The project team includes staff from the staff from the Centre for Educational Research and Development (CERD) and Academic Subject Librarians, who currently co-ordinate learning development support across the institution. The team will exploit existing involvement in the Association for Learning Development in Higher Education (ALDinHE) as well as the University’s role as part of the LearnHigher CETL, which aims to develop and share peer-reviewed resources to support student learning.

Activities will include:

• reviewing previous transition support projects from across the sectore, including the ‘getting started’ initiative at Lincoln, in order to assess the needs of students prior to arrival and through induction,
• scoping existing resources, both within the institution and externally,
• exploring appropriate tools for the development of OERs and reviewing institutional requirements in terms of software, hardware and staff development (in collaboration with other teams..),
• working with the Change Academy to develop strategy for the embedding of OER practice to support transition to Higher Education