PROWE personal repositories: online wiki environments using new networking tools and shared reposito

1
PROWE (personal repositories online wiki
environments)using new networking tools and
shared repositories to support part-time distance
tutors professional development

• Lara Whitelaw Anne Hewling
• Open University

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PROWE what is it?

• Combines
• new communications tools e.g. wikis and blogs
• part-time distance tutors/associate lecturers
• continuing professional development needs
• communities of practice
• social networking tools
• repository theory and practice

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What drives it?

  "In what ways could wiki and wiki-type
environments be useful and useable as personal
and informal repositories to support professional
development within part-time tutor communities of
practice?"  
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What does that mean in practice?

• What are the CPD needs of part-time
  teaching/tutoring staff?
• What kind of sharing do these staff already do,
  or need to do, or want to do?
• What can new technologies like wikis, blogs etc.
  offer in response to these needs and wishes?

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Institutional context - OU

• Around 150,000 undergraduate and more than 30,000
  postgraduate distance students
• Nearly all students are studying part-time
• About 70 per cent of undergraduate students are
  in full-time employment and more than 50,000
  students are sponsored by their employers
• More than 25,000 OU students live outside the UK

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Staffing context OU

• More than 7,000 tutors with diverse backgrounds
• All dispersed around UK, Europe and elsewhere
• Highly structured learning/teaching/working
  environment
• Distance-only institution
• Moving towards Moodle in 2007

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Institutional context - UoL

• Around 10,000 undergraduate and 8,000
  postgraduate
• 6,000 students are studying part-time distance
  courses both in UK and overseas
• 65 of postgraduates are on courses with a
  significant distance learning, often online,
  element

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Staffing context UoL

• Approximately 350 Associate Tutors
• In at least 11 departments
• A wide range of tutor roles, duties,
  activity/involvement levels
• Blended environment
• Moved to Blackboard in 2005

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What has happened so far?

• user needs assessment
• tools assessment
• elgg and Plone testing environments
• metadata and repository set-up

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Personal Repository Metadata

• As these are personal repositories the metadata
  profile has been developed to be as light as
  possible
• The project is looking at the use of folksonomies
  for the development of a community based
  vocabulary
• Librarians will be reviewing metadata and the
  supporting documentation throughout ensure the
  profile an vocabularies are appropriate and
  sustainable once the project come to an end.

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Continual Professional Development

• Personal/Continual Development profiles for users
  mapped to IMS LIP/UK LEAP/FOAF
• Further investigation into staff needs regard
  CPD. Exploring the possibilities of
• Developing some form of indicative internal
  assessment of CDP from activities within the
  environment
• Developing mechanism for exporting CPD evidence
  for external assessors where evidence needs to
  submitted in set formats
• Integration with staff management system to
  reduce duplication and the amount of data asked
  of the user up front when they first create their
  user profile

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What happens next?

• bigger and better trialling (more people, longer,
  more directed activity)
• development of documentation and models
• evaluation
• reaching some conclusions

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Matters arising

• Is anyone out there interested in sharing?
• What are their existing pedagogical models and
  how do they expect things to roll out?
• what is a typical tutor and what are typical
  needs?
• facilitation

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PROWE A community is like a ship everyone
ought to be prepared to take the helm.Henrik
Ibsen

•  

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Contact us

Web page http//www.prowe.ac.uk Project email
info_at_prowe.ac.uk Project Officer email (OU)
a.hewling_at_open.ac.uk Metadata Development
Manager l.whitelaw_at_open.ac.uk