Overview
This presentation describes the approach taken by an externally-funded series of analytic projects in OER, first POERUP and then the successor studies on SharedOER and Adult Education & OER, to “solve” the requirement, first posed by UNESCO in 2012 (D’Antoni, 2013), but later taken up by the Hewlett Foundation (2013), of geographic mapping of OER initiatives, policies and other related entities. There are of course several such “solutions”, all with their strengths and weaknesses, but the POERUP database is larger than most so far, more multi-sector (HE,VET and K-12) and more global in coverage – in part because it could leverage on a series of well-funded EU projects over several years, each unusually (for EU projects) taking a global viewpoint.
The presentation will consider the decisions taken by POERUP and its successor studies on technology, databases, mapping and user interface, looking both at the distribution and the collection aspects.
For the means of both widespread distribution and collection the particular solution eventually decided on, after several trials of other technologies (which will be described) was the use of semantic wikis, specifically Semantic MediaWiki, with the Semantic Maps extensions. This toolkit has the advantage of being both widely available (either via service providers or as an institution-installable software suite) and very similar in approach to Wikipedia and WikiEducator, thus familiar to a large community of educators. In our view, this makes it a wise choice for OER map projects. Semantic Wiki is the collection wiki of choice for POERUP, and interestingly it is also the technology used by the long-standing EduTech wiki at the University of Geneva.
For the curation aspects, requiring painstaking editing of metadata, it became clear that the use of spreadsheet software (be it Excel or open source) offered the best trade-offs, having an easy learning curve for many educational users yet being powerful enough to use to curate and then load even a “large” database of OER initiatives. (In the world of OER initiatives, 1000 is a large database; in the wider world of open access, 5000 is a large database. Both numbers are in fact quite modest in terms of modern spreadsheets and databases.) However, collection of data was done in Word (see later).
Selection of relevant fields for the database was a key aspect, requiring many tactical decisions. For example, it is relatively easy to agree on a standard list of countries, but when it comes to regions and subregions there is much less stability, a fact which North Americans find challenging, used as they are to years of fixed borders in state/province boundaries and even county boundaries. Languages, educational levels, and subject taxonomies all require careful handling if (as we required) the curation is expected to be done by the generality of the educational OER community rather than a cadre of information scientists.
On the rendering of maps there are many issues to consider, including pin clustering (an institution may have several OER initiatives with effectively the same geolocation).
Linked Open Data is increasingly important and the decisions taken there will also be reviewed.
For those interested in global mapping, perhaps the most important aspects are not the technical aspects but the organisational and process lessons learned about large projects trying to get an overview of the global scene in OER.
For further details see attached paper.
Selected references
Bacsich, P. (2014a). Transversal and categorised inventory of OER Programmes and Initiatives – on maps. POERUP Deliverable 2.1 Edition 2, June 2014. Available at http://poerup.referata.com/wiki/File:POERUP_D2.1_edition_2.pdf
Bacsich, P. (2014b). POERUP: Policies for OER Uptake – Final Report. POERUP, October 2014. Available at http://poerup.referata.com/wiki/File:2011_4021_FR_POERUP_pub.pdf
D’Antoni, S. (2013). A world map of Open Educational Resources initiatives: Can the global OER community design and build it together? Summary report of an international conversation: 12–30 November 2012. Available at https://oerknowledgecloud.org/?q=content/world-map-open-educational-resources-initiatives-can-global-oer-community-design-and-build-i
Hewlett Foundation (2013). Launching the development of an OER World Map: Phase 1. RFP released 15 November 2013. Available at https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B5FQbmPL4C6TV21uT09CRXdIYnM/edit