Welcome to openSpace

UCF has successfully bid for £20,000 project funding under The Higher Education Academy/JISC Open Educational Resources Programme. The pilot project, which will be launched in March 2010, will initially release educational resources used in MA Professional Writing's Distance Learning course (total of 20 postgraduate credits) under Creative Commons.

Post launch, openSpace will include further course materials from Art, Design, Media and Performance.

The openSpace project team will use this space to disseminate information about the project. It's also a portal for sharing information about Open Education: pedagogy, research, theory, projects, internationalisation, online educational collaborations, technology and more.

In order for openSpace to truly reflect UCF we need your input.

An introduction to Open Education

Open Education Resources (OERs)

Open Education Resources are the backbone of any open education virtual learning environment.  OERs range from online quizzes, assignments or audio and video lectures, to open textbooks (free online textbooks, novels, periodicals, etc) and online spaces for group work.

Open Education (OE) is a rapidly changing field.  The development of and approaches to OERs is dynamic and exciting.  This space is for sharing research and best practice regarding OERs and their use from OE practitioners.   

Open Education Discussion Forums

UCF recognises the potential that free and unfettered access to educational resources offers to the local, regional, national and international communities and welcomes the opportunity to examine how technology and an emerging legal framework can promote creativity and the sustainability of the open educational resources we produce.

This forum is envisioned as a space to discuss and debate the broad framework of pedagogic innovation and the role and nature of universities in the 21st century. One of the intended outcomes of the openSpace pilot will be to inject elements from our discussions, debates, research and findings on eLearning curriculum design into the OER movement in HE.

The 12 month project will be project managed by Alex di Savoia (alex.disavoia@falmouth.ac.uk) and overseen by Christina Bunce (christina.bunce@falmouth.ac.uk), working with colleagues from Learning & Teaching, Academic Services, the International Office, the Learning Space and other interested colleagues.

openSpace project documents

Documents directly related to the openSpace project.

IPR

IPR stands for intellectual property rights, which includes: copyright, design right, trade marks, patents, trade secrets and any other similar rights whether registered or unregistered existing anywhere in the world.

Below are links to sources of further information and guidance around the subject of IPR.

Open Education Conferences

Papers and presentations about openSpace delivered at Open Education conferences.

Creative Commons & Open Education Videos