The dissertation deals with the issue of open educational resources (OER) in the context of environmental studies. The thesis has been framed as a set of four thematically related studies published as peer-reviewed articles in relevant professional journals. The introductory section deals with the broader context of the issue of open educational resources and clarifies the thematic context of individual publications. The first study discusses the issue of open educational resources, the evaluation of their quality and possibilities of use in environmental disciplines; at the same time, it analyzes various types of resources available for environmental education in the Czech environment. Based on this, research was carried out among students of environmental disciplines at Czech universities on a sample of 233 respondents. The results of the research are presented in the second study, which focuses on quality assessment, while the third study deals with the general methods of OER use. Findings show that the most widely used resource among students is Wikipedia, which they also consider to be a relatively high-quality resource. For these reasons, the last study focuses further on Wikipedia and the proposed verifiability of claims by respected sources as a quality indicator for the use of Wikipedia in...

A key component of Open Education movement are Open Educational Resources (OER), which are defined as any digital objects that are commonly shared in online repositories and can be freely accessed, reused and adapted by a community of users for educational purposes using an open license scheme. This broad definition includes a lot of different artefacts, such as digital learning objects, software tools like wikis or authoring systems, electronic textbooks, and lesson plans. Existing research on OER has focused on how to make digital objects available and re-usable for educators and learners. Currently, there are millions of resources for basically all subjects, education level. However, their adoption has been limited, the consumption of them is passive, and there are still many barriers towards the uptake of OER. Amongst those, are the not-invented-here syndrome and the lack of involvement and recognition of users who feel that they do or cannot contribute appropriately. In our research, we focus on tweaking the steps that are accomplished before having the resources complete and shared. In particular, in situations when ideas are initiated, shaped, and shared with like-minded people in order to create new educational outcomes, such as OER.

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Rachel Fleming, Ashley Sergiadis, and Rachel Caldwell discuss several ways that academic libraries can help OER adopters and authors improve the impact of their work, make materials more accessible, and ensure continued access.

At East Tennessee State University, an awards program incentivizes instructors to adapt or create Open Educational Resources (OERs) and publish them in Digital Commons@ETSU. Come to this presentation to hear lessons learned from the Digital Scholarship Librarian who supported the instructors during the creation and publication process. The presentation will cover the following topics: copyright, accessibility, promotion, timelines, and assessments.

La personnalisation de l’apprentissage dans les environnements informatiques pour l’apprentissage humain (EIAH) est un sujet de recherche qui est traité depuis de nombreuses années. Avec l’arrivée des cours en ligne ouverts et massifs (MOOC), la question de la personnalisation se pose de façon encore plus cruciale et de nouveaux défis se présentent aux chercheurs. En effet, le même MOOC peut être suivi par des milliers d’apprenants ayant des profils hétérogènes (connaissances, niveaux éducatif, objectifs, etc). Il devient donc nécessaire de tenir compte de cette hétérogénéité en présentant aux apprenants des contenus éducatifs adaptés à leurs profils afin qu’ils tirent parti au mieux du MOOC.D’un autre côté, de plus en plus de ressources éducatives libres (REL) sont partagées sur le web. Il est important de pouvoir réutiliser ces REL dans un contexte différent de celui pour lequel elles ont été créées. En effet, produire des REL de qualité est une activité coûteuse en temps et la rentabilisation des REL passe par leur réutilisation.Pour faciliter la découverte des REL, des schémas de métadonnées sont utilisés pour décrire les REL.Cependant, l’utilisation de ces schémas a amené à des entrepôts isolés de descriptions hétérogènes et qui ne sont pas interopérables. Afin de régler ce problème, une solution adoptée dans la littérature consiste à appliquer les principes des données ouvertes et liées (LOD) aux descriptions des REL.Dans le cadre de cette thèse, nous nous intéressons à la personnalisation des MOOC et à la réutilisation des REL.Nous proposons un système de recommandation qui fournit à un apprenant en train de suivre un MOOC des ressources externes qui sont des REL adaptées à son profil, tout en respectant les spécificités du MOOC suivi.Pour sélectionner les REL, nous nous intéressons à celles qui possèdent des descriptions insérées dans les LOD, stockées dans des entrepôts accessibles sur le web et offrant des moyens d’accès standardisés. Notre système de recommandation est implémenté dans une plateforme de MOOC, Open edX et il est évalué en utilisant une plateforme de micro-tâches. / For many years now, personalization in TEL is a major subject of intensive research. With the spreading of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC), the personalization issue becomes more acute. Actually, any MOOC can be followed by thousands of learners with different educational levels, learning styles, preferences, etc. So, it is necessary to present pedagogical contents taking into account their heterogeneous profiles so that they can maximize their benefit from following the MOOC.At the same time, the amount of Open Educational Resources (OER) available on the web is permanently growing. These OERs have to be reused in contexts different from the initial ones for which they were created.Indeed, producing quality OER is costly and requires a lot of time. Then, different metadata schemas are used to describe OER. However, the use of these schemas has led to isolated repositories of heterogeneous descriptions which are not interoperable. In order to address this problem, a solution adopted in the literature is to apply Linked Open Principles (LOD) to OER descriptions.In this thesis, we are interested in MOOC personalization and OER reuse. We design a recommendation technique which computes a set of OERs adapted to the profile of a learner attending some MOOC. The recommended OER are also adapted to the MOOC specificities. In order to find OER, we are interested in those who have metadata respecting LOD principles and stored in repositories available on the web and offering standardized means of access. Our recommender system is implemented in the MOOC platform Open edX and assessed using a micro jobs platform.

Eleven Canadian public university educators who used OERs in their teaching practices were interviewed about their lived experiences with obstacles and affordances encountered when adopting, modifying, and/or creating OERs. The reflective lifeworld phenomenological approach was used for data collection and analysis. The results were viewed through self-determination theory’s regulatory styles. Educators reflected on their experiences with several obstacles including, lack of time, perceived poor quality of OER textbooks, and difficulties using Pressbooks to modify and/or create OER textbooks, even though the educators appeared to have good technology skills. OER affordances included the ability to modify resources, OERs were easy to find, and OERs aligned with the participants’ teaching practices. Results found educators were motivated to use OERs primarily to ease their students’ financial burdens and have up-to-date teaching and learning material. All participants were externally motivated to engage with OERs and two were intrinsically motivated when creating OERs. The essential meaning of the phenomenon is understood as a device rooted in educators’ motivation to support students beyond the classroom. This research contributes to the growing body of qualitative OER research. The results and recommendations may be useful to educators who are considering using OERs and to teaching and learning centres that support OER use. / Graduate

This lesson covers the elements and principles of art. Elements of art are the physical parts of the work, including line, shape, form, space, texture, value, color, and time. Principles of art are the ways in which those parts are arranged, including unity/variety, balance, contrast, emphasis, movement, rhythm, and pattern.