Jheroma Simon

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Jheroma Simon
OMDE 603 Section 9040
April 20th, 2015
Open Educational Resources
Word count: 1590
Introduction
The University of the West Indies (UWI) was established in 1948 as the University
College of the University of London. The university became independent in 1962. Spread
amongst 16 English-speaking countries in the Caribbean, this university has 42 physical site,
catered to over 47,000 students in 2011/2012, with 5,800 full time staff members, 1,800 of them
being academic staff, and is a highly accredited university with a goal of becoming a globally
recognized, regionally integrated, innovative, and internationally competitive university, deeply
rooted in all aspects of Caribbean development (Strategic Plan, 2012-2017). In 2008, in hopes
of offering a high-quality education to adults who wish to reach their full potential, living at a
distance from the campus sites, and wanting an open teaching, learning, and research relevant
educational tool, the Open Campus (OC) of the UWI was established.
Based on the Open campus Strategic Plan (2012-2017), this new campus was designed to
be a flexible form of studies that students who are mature professionals as well as those who are
undergraduate, to utilize the convenience of a system that can be accessed at on-site locations, at
work, on one of the many campuses, or at a local library. The program offers face-to-face,
blended and online learning through a range of courses, certifications, diplomas, undergraduate
and graduate degree programs. These islands are considered to be under-developed, therefore
financial resources and adverse economic circumstances from the contributing countries has

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been a challenge in achieving the goals and visions of the UWI. Due to the financial constraints
of the UWI, access to online courses allows for saving money in areas where a traditional
classroom is more costly. Reducing use of energy, saving on traveling costs, streamlining
operations and modalities, are ways that can help the UWI meet the standards outlined in their
vision. Moving towards an online system will improve the universitys finances.
The UWI OC functions within a network of real and virtual classrooms. There are many
technology platforms available to and for institutions incorporating a Distance Education (DE)
program. These technologies are dependent on the World Wide Web and are established based
on the needs of the organization and their mission, vision, and values, the focal point being the
continued development of the internet infrastructure within the Caribbean. Without reliable or
large bandwidth availability, it has been a challenge for the OC to find a technological platform
that would be able to fit the needs of all the courses, students, teachers, and administrators on a
server that will not crash due to the under-developed internet infrastructure. Experimentation
with the Single Virtual University Space System including the Single Virtual Library Space
(UWILinC) where students are able to access library resources across all campuses, a Learning
Exchange system, Moodle and Mahara , though older versions, have led to the conclusion that
the university has not broadened the spectrum to include and Open Educational Resource system
that is a combination of the Virtual space, Learning exchange system, Moodle, Mahara and the
Virtual Library, and is a platforms that is easily accessible and available on a smaller bandwidth.
Analysis
Based on the needs of the adult learners over the 24 year old age range, most working in
professional fields but wanting to expand on their knowledge of specific subject areas whether

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for their career or in a different field, DE has become the forefront for those seeking flexibility
and convenience while maintain autonomy over their academics (Thomas & Soares, 2007).
Open Educational Resources (OERs) would be the suggested platform for a university that exists
in 16 countries, that will be affordable, and that can meet the needs of all teachers, students and
administrators. OERs are defined as digitized materials offered freely and openly for educators,
students, and self-learners to use and reuse for teaching, learning, and research (Open
Educational Resources, 2007). They include the distribution of learning content and texts, tools
to develop software, and use of open licenses. This platform allows for the use of different
medium, videos, files, images, sound, and websites to share educational content from teacher to
learners. The creation of OERs depends on a team of designers working diligently from other
countries, for the purpose of this university, preferably one from a developed country with more
resources and finances. Collaborations between multiple faculty members from different
universities offer differing perspectives, a comparison of information and more diverse learning
tools. Practice Collaboration by Difference (Kim, 2012), is one of the five ideas that are used to
support improvements within the tertiary level within specific institutions. This idea is the use of
various people from multiple backgrounds, experiences, opinions and expertise to work together
to design the best technologically successful tool that can be both financially acceptable and
work on the current web infrastructure in the Caribbean.
OERs drivers have been improved to include cheaper and more user-friendly information
technology infrastructures (Open Educational Resources, 2007) that can be shared without
legality issues. The idea of openness, to reuse, revise, remix, and redistribute (Wiley, 2010)
works by others for educational purposes can be both positive and negative factors within the
OER system. Reusing anothers person work to defend or define a subject can be difficult

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especially if the points stated may not completely match a teachers theories. Being able to revise
the content can be seen as collaboration if both facilitators are in agreement but it can also lead to
a text full of mixed views and theories. If text can be remixed, then when does a student ever
truly know who the original author was and which point belonged to him/her? Redistribution, in
itself, can cause issues of plagiarism, creative rights being misrepresented and errors or
misconstrued information.
OERs need less broadband for complete access to all tools. One barrier would be due to
the Caribbeans unreliable net services. The UWI will have to work hard and spend what can be
afforded to advance the communications system in order to ensure that the broadband is up to par
with the needs of the OER system, relying on another institute to help financially as a
compromise for the collaborative work in an OER. Since OERs are collaborative works shared
and used by universities but developed through faculty initiatives, it can be used to broaden
participation in DE courses for those who want to expand and learn more in a specific field of
study, lifelong learning, and covers both formal and informal learning techniques and styles.
As part of a developing set of countries, the UWI should consider using a curriculum that
can be supported by existing OERs within another institution. Collaborating with that institution
allows for opportunities to expand on students knowledge and offer a more globally integrated
innovative learning experience which will assist in the future vision for the UWI. Because the
teachers no longer will be able to completely design the curriculum but instead become a
supporter of or collaborator with other faculty from other institutions, another barrier arises. The
role of the teacher will change drastically (Davis, et al, 2008). The OER would develop more of
learner autonomy and an even more self-directed learning concept (Bates & Sangra, 2011). This,
unfortunately, causes other issues in the areas of assessing students and the knowledge that they

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acquired. To ensure that the learning process is still one that is teacher-learner where the teacher
is the sole provider of the content. Materials and assignments will be supplied by the teacher
using the OER platform and will include other forms of assessments that would depend on the
students understanding of the shared texts, chosen by the teacher.
Teachers who pride themselves as being experts in their field will not be accepting of the
OER system. Teachers who have written books and want to use specific modes and mediums
within the classroom, teachers who want complete control of every text supplied within a
classroom, teachers who strive on being not only a teacher but a tutor, counsellor, etc. will not be
happy with the use of OERs. Students, who chose to follow an innovator because of their fame
or theories, will not welcome the idea of teaching using an OER system. Sometimes when
choosing classes in a familiar field, there are specific teachers a student may label as important
or necessary to the evolution of that field. Students sometimes choose to further their education
based on the availability and teachings of that specific teacher or faculty. Would they be
accepting of the OER and the expansion of knowledge from another institution from other
professionals in the field? Possibly, but those students may still object to having the OER system
as its only option for DE.
Conclusion
The OC of the UWI are currently developing and implementing a range of
methodologies and formats for the delivery of Open Campus programmes, including blended
learning modalities (face-to-face, online, and distance) along with the distribution of print and
software materials (Strategic Plan, 2012-2017), within the needs of the classroom covers two
methodologies mentioned by Davis, Little, and Stewart (2008), the needs of the students and the

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knowledge acquired from their learning. In order for the UWI to become a globally recognized,
regionally integrated, innovative, and internationally competitive university, deeply rooted in all
aspects of Caribbean development (Strategic Plan, 2012-2017) with limited finances and an
under-developed net infrastructure, implementation of OERs will be the most suitable, affordable
and globally integrative. Though there are barriers and OERs have weaknesses that can cause
major issues within the DE community, it is a technology that can change the existence of the
OC within the Caribbean today.

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References
Bates, A.W.T. & Sangr, A. (2011). Managing technology in higher education: strategies for
transforming teaching and learning. CA, USA: Jossey-Bass.
Chapter 2: Open Educational Resources Conceptual Issues. (2007). Giving knowledge for free:
The emergence of open educational resources. Paris, France: Organisation for Economic
Co-operation and Development. Retrieved from
http://www.oecd.org/edu/ceri/38654317.pdf
Davis, A., Little, P., & Stewart, B. (2008). Developing an infrastructure for online learning. In T.
Anderson (Ed.), The theory and practice of online learning (2nd ed.) (pp. 121-142).
Retrieved from http://www.aupress.ca/books/120146/ebook/05_Anderson_2008Theory_and_Practice_of_Online_Learning.pdf
Kim, J. (2012, February 6). 5 ideas to support innovation in higher ed [Blog post]. Retrieved
from http://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/5-ideas-support-innovation-higher-ed
Thomas, M. & Soares, J. (2007). Increasing public access to university qualifications: Evolution
of the university of the west indies open campus. International review of research in open
and distance learning, 10 (1). Retrieved from:
http://www.eric.ed.gov/contentdelivery/servlet/ERICServlet?accno=EJ831707
UWI open campus: Strategic plan (2012-2017). Retrieved from: open.uwi.edu