Re: [WikiEducator] Tony Bates asks some questions about OERu -- Let's help Tony and ourselves find the answers

Fri, 07 Oct 2011 10:51:27 -0700

Hi Wayne and all: I am co-chair with Dr. Ellen Murphy of a task force at the Empire State College Center for Distance Learning charged with providing direction for our OER-u development and want to make sure that our efforts are moving in parallel with the OER-u effort.

Speaking for what I know of ESC faculty and traditions (and not speaking for Empire State College administration)  I imagine that while ESC will be willing participants in creating new courses or converting existing ones for the OER-u credential you are envisioning, we will also be interested in continuing to use our existing PLA process to grant personalized Prior Learning Assessments, based on student documentation as we have for forty years now (only in today's world we will probably use e-portfolios created by students as documentation for PLA).   These e-portfolios would document the students' college level learning from a variety of sources including the MIT stuff etc. that students (presumably helped by volunteers) would assemble along with a summary of their learning and present to ESC for evaluation at a reasonable evaluation cost.  I am reasonably sure that anything with a recommendation for credit would transfer into ESC for students who come to us.

For those not planning to become ESC students it is my understanding that we are discussing whether or not we could open our PLA process to students who would then take our recommendations to other anchor partners who agree to accept them.  I imagine acceptance of our PLA assessments will be something each partner institution will have to decide on.   At the present time we formally grant the PLA credit to students before graduation...they cannot transfer it to other institutions.

 In answer to Dr. Bates blog question about making PLA evaluation criteria available to students prior to submission of their requests, our current practice is to hire experts in the field of the Prior Learning Assessment (PLA) request to evaluate the student's documentation of their learning.  These evaluators then conduct an oral conversation with the student to determine credit recommendations.  This has been systematized in a very efficient computer based process thanks to Dr. Nan Travers who is charge of assessment.  This approach has worked well for us for years but may be a bit hard to scale. 

Since the evaluation process is tailored to each student by individual evaluators it would be difficult to provide specific questions except for a hand full of frequently requested topics where we do have guidelines.   Our flexibility with PLA probably makes us fairly unique among the anchor institutions many of whom seem to rely on examinations which we almost never use...but I hope our process can be integrated into the long range plans because it truly does offer students many opportunities to attain credit for unique college level learning.  I am sharing this with everyone with the usual caveat that I speak for myself as a long time Empire State College faculty member with a special interest in self-direction and prior learning assessment and not for anyone else at the college.   I am extremely excited about the OER-u and hopes this explains the ESC world a bit better, from a faculty member's perspective.  Let's build the future.  Dr. Joyce McKnight, Associate Professor, SUNY/Empire State College

[email protected] wrote: -----
To: WikiEducator <[email protected]>, [email protected]
From: Wayne Mackintosh
Sent by: [email protected]
Date: 10/05/2011 10:56PM
Cc: Tony Bates <[email protected]>
Subject: [WikiEducator] Tony Bates asks some questions about OERu -- Let's help Tony and ourselves find the answers

Hi Everyone 

Tony Bates, who many of you will know, is a global leader and thinker in e-learning, open distance learning and effective integration of technology in education.  Tony has decades of experience and is a very respected scholar around the world. 

Tony asks some questions about the OERu in an excellent blog post:

Introducing the OERu --- and some questions

I have taken the time to respond to some of these questions.  I found this to be a very productive exercise in testing our strategic thinking  which underpins the OER Tertiary Education Network and the OERu concept. Do I have this right? How can we improve on our strategy?

I encourage you to help Tony answer his questions, and in so doing we are helping ourselves.  

I reiterate my closing thought.

 "With your help we can build a world were every student can have free learning opportunities with pathways to earn credible credentials. Together, we can make the future happen!"

Looking forward to the discussions which will follow. I'll see you in Tony's blog.

Cheers
Wayne


--
Wayne Mackintosh, Ph.D.
Director OER Foundation
Director, International Centre for Open Education,
Otago Polytechnic, New Zealand.
Founder and elected Community Council Member, WikiEducator
Mobile +64 21 2436 380
Skype: WGMNZ1
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