Drawing on All Resources

Drawing on All Resources: developing open educational practice in art, design and media

Faculty of Arts, University of Brighton, Grand Parade, Brighton

16 May 2012

We are pleased to announce that the full report from the highly successful event is now published online in Networks 18. This includes the presentations and recordings of the sessions, reports and feedback from the day and links to useful resources.

This one-day forum, aimed at tutors and managers in creative practice higher education, showcased the work of individuals, departments and institutions working towards more open educational practices in art, design and media disciplines. It aimed:

• To capture, recognise and share the work of individuals, departments and institutions in developing open educational practices in creative practice higher education.
• To allow specialists in the OER field, to present examples and discuss current developments in the creation and use of licensed educational materials.
• To enable those attending the event to engage in open dialogue about themes and issues that are emerging around the creation and use of online teaching and learning resources.

Here is a short section from the overview report of the event, written by Debbie Flint:

"Drawing on All Resources: developing open educational practice in art, design and media was, we think, the first conference to take a focused look at open educational resources and practice in the context of creative practice higher education. Hosted by the University of Brighton and partly funded by the HEA, the event brought together people and projects, many funded by the JISC / Higher Education Academy Open Educational Resources Programme (2009 - 2012), and many part of OER projects led by the Art Design Media Subject Centre until recently based in the Faculty of Arts.

Many of our universities’ policies and strategies relate to, or even directly align with, the development of open educational practices; that is with making our teaching and learning resources (in the very broadest sense) openly available online for use in a whole range of contexts. For example, our policies relating to: social engagement (providing access to the university’s resources); curriculum development and the student and staff experience (understanding how students learn best and utilising appropriate technologies to support this); management of the physical environment (managing scholarly information and resources); and our marketing and communications strategies. However, the majority of higher education institutions in the UK are still grappling with how to make more open approaches work in practice.

Work undertaken by the Art Design Media Subject Centre over the past three years suggests that the development of open educational resources and practices poses distinct opportunities, as well as challenges, for our subject disciplines and creative practice higher education.

Open educational practices may support staff / student, cross and inter-institutional collaboration; provide opportunities to articulate the nature of creative practice higher education; raise individual, departmental and institutional profiles; and perhaps the recording, digitisation and sharing of skills-based resources may free up time to spend on other aspects of teaching.

Some of the challenges relate to unclear understandings of, and conflicting motivations for, the development of open educational practice. There are concerns about its relationship with, and impacts on, established disciplinary teaching practices, staff roles and workloads. There are also issues about quality; the need for institutional policies, systems and provision of technical support; and the consequences of ‘giving away’ hard-won resources."
To read more and to see all the presentations and reports 

Follow or participate in discussions about the event via this blog page and / or
Twitter:    #droar    @networkADM

With thanks to the Higher Education Academy who gave funding towards this event as part of the HEA Discipline Workshop and Seminar Series.