Back in September we announced we would be widening our foci to researching the impact of open education more broadly and would be undergoing a rebrand to reflect this wider remit. If you’ve seen us at events and conferences, or been regularly dropping by to this website, you might have noticed that we’ve been sporting a new look which reflects our move to becoming the Open Education Research (OER) Hub. Today we’re proud and excited to formally launch our new website and offerings. We hope you enjoy browsing, finding out more about what we can offer you and catching upon the latest news.

Hub Summer Round-up!

April 2016 saw the team “on tour” and participating in a number of conferences and events including OER16 in Edinburgh, Scotland and OE Global in Krakow, Poland. If you missed us and want to check out our presentations, you can find them all on Slideshare!

22-23 June we were joined by OER experts and advocates from across Europe to discuss the possibility, remit and potential of an OER European research network. Look out for a blog post with more detail and how to get involved shortly!

Martin Weller at European OER seminar (Beck Pitt, CC BY)

We’re continuing to build on the success of our Open Research agenda consultation as we move through 2016. We’ve been soliciting views and building on responses to our online survey. Review some of the findings presented so far and don’t forget to contribute via the online survey too! This exercise will finish toward the end of the year and we’re looking forward to sharing the latest at OpenEd 2016 in Richmond, VA in November!

Research on the Opening Educational Practices in Scotland (OEPS) project continues with a new course Becoming an Open Educator due for launch on OpenLearnWorks this summer. In the meantime, you can review the findings from our surveys of HE and FE/college educators and levels of awareness of OER.  Keep your eyes peeled for a forthcoming infographic of our research findings in the not too distant future!

This summer sees the team working on an exciting new version of our award winning Open Research course – this time with accompanying Pressbook! Look out for more on this in early Fall. We are also finalising a Pressbook to help researchers make better use of the open research tools and methodologies that have been released over the course of the project. More on this soon.

GO-GNers in Krakow! (OER Hub, CC BY)

It’s been a busy period for the Global OER Graduate Network (GO-GN)! April saw us bring together selected members for an intense two day workshop with a chance for participants to present their research and explore open research practices with the team. You can read all about participants’ experiences in Viviane’s blog post The GO-GN Seminar and OE Global Conference AdventureJamison’s blog I opened, OpenEd, an opening and Chrissi’s @GOGN_OER Days in Krakow, Poland 10-11 April 2016.

You can also hear from all of the GO-GN workshop participants in this great new video which tells you more about the network and what it hopes to achieve. Watch What is GO-GN?

More recently, in mid-June, we were excited to formally announce closer collaboration with the ICDE Global Doctoral Consortium (GDC)  who focus on “online, open, flexible and technology enhanced learning.”  Find out more in this press release. If you’re studying for a PhD in open education and are interested in joining the network, we’d love to hear from you!

GO-GN also hold monthly webinars (#FirstWednesdayOfMonth) which bring together experts and students. July’s special guest was Rajiv Jhangiani (Kwantlen) who gave us a great insight into his own research and the latest OER research findings. Thanks to everyone who participated in an excellent discussion. You can watch past webinars and also check out what’s coming up next. Events are open to all so mark the date!

Finally, the OER World Map needs you! If you haven’t already checked out or contributed to the map, which is charting people, projects, initiatives, events and organisations involved in any aspect of open education then don’t delay… get involved today! Add yourself, your project or organisation or event, reuse the data or even volunteer to be a Country Champion! Read more on how to get involved.

OER World Map

 

Picture credits: Martin Weller at European OER seminar (Beck Pitt, CC BY 4.0); GO-GNers in Krakow! (OER Hub, CC BY 4.0)