Transcript From PROBE to PROWE and back again … Chris Pegler IET, Open University PROWE evaluator http://www.prowe.ac.uk.

From PROBE to PROWE
and back again …
Chris Pegler
IET, Open University
PROWE evaluator
http://www.prowe.ac.uk
Acronyms, acronyms …
• JISC
• PROWE – Personal Repositories Online: Wiki
Environment
• PROBE – Personal Repositories Online: Bliki
Environment
• OU – The Open University
• IET – The Institute of Educational Technology
• UoL – University of Leicester (Beyond Distance
Learning Alliance)
http://www.prowe.ac.uk
Greetings from
Anne Hewling
http://www.prowe.ac.uk
The partners
Open University:
University of Leicester:
Includes:
Includes:
Anne Hewling (PO)
Anne Ramsden
Gill Needham
Janet MacDonald
Chris Pegler (Evaluator)
Gilly Salmon
Tony Churchill
Richard Mobbs
Selina Lock
Roger Dence*
* Roger tutors for the OU and UoL. He’s UoL consultant to the project
http://www.prowe.ac.uk
The project
Funded under the JISC Digital Repositories Programme.
Start and end dates: 01 June 2005 to 31 May 2007
“To investigate the use of informal repositories within
Wiki and Blogs by part-time tutors on distance education
programmes in the partner institutions. The focus is on
the use of wiki-type environments as personal and
informal repositories for sharing and storing resources in
the context of their own professional development
needs.”
http://www.prowe.ac.uk
The research question
"In what ways could wiki and wiki-type
environments be useful and usable as personal
and informal repositories to support professional
development within part-time tutor communities
of practice?”
• Environment may be a blog, wiki or bliki …
• Methods used will vary in line with the context
http://www.prowe.ac.uk
Why? (The need)
• The OU and UoL have large numbers of part-time
tutoring staff – in the OU there are >7000 linked to 12
regional centres!
• Many tutors work on more than one course and may
blend OU/UoL work with other teaching
• Current information exchange between tutors is course
rather than community focussed. The tutor cannot
access or easily share or use it beyond that
course/presentation.
• We don’t know much at all about personal and informal
sharing between part-time staff
http://www.prowe.ac.uk
How?
• Focus group meetings at OU and UoL in December (this
week!) will inform choices of tools and direct relevance to
tasks that tutors are already involved in.
• Tools will be used by tutors working with courses ranging
from Business to Museum studies, in online, distance
and blended teaching environments
• Personal and informal repositories will be supported
through one full presentation and evaluated during and
afterwards
• This builds on Janet MacDonald’s work with OU tutors
on sharing information online and Tony Churchill’s
experience with staff development at UoL
http://www.prowe.ac.uk
Community users and wikis
• Conventionally wikis are not WYSIWYG – will our users
use them if they are not?
• They’re often not moderated either – what style of
moderation do we need/want?
• Personal spaces within PROWE – choosing to share or
not. Reuse can be personal.
• Shared spaces for part-timers cause a challenge. What
have we learnt from students?
• Blog/Wiki balance?
http://www.prowe.ac.uk
http://www.prowe.ac.uk
The first 14 OU users look like …
• At little as 6 months experience and as much as 15 years
• Teaching on Technology; Education, Maths, Social Sci, Arts and
Openings
• Work environments are a mix, several work outside the OU
• Only 1 on dial up
• Only 1 had had any previous contact with repositories
• Currently organising digital teaching resources on personal web
pages, hard disks
• Transfer resources across teaching contexts using FirstClass and
USB pen drives. One uses bookmarks and four use chiefly paper
copies of handouts. One uses blog for storage/transfer
• Mostly recycling own material only, perhaps from more than one job
http://www.prowe.ac.uk
Answers sought:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
How can we create a sustainable repository and
support sharing for remote part-time teaching staff?
How will users respond to ‘lighter touch’ sharing based
on wiki/blogs?
How might these tools contribute to enhancing/building
an information sharing culture?
How do informal personal repositories work with
institutional repositories (or not)?
What transferable lessons are there?
http://www.prowe.ac.uk
Outcomes (User benefits)
• Enhanced peer to peer community for sharing
ideas and experience
• Quicker access to material to support teaching
• Time saving (easy to access materials and
value of the outputs obtained)
• Easy to use tools suitable for inexperienced
users of ICT
• Portable and accessible
http://www.prowe.ac.uk
Outcomes (Transferable)
• Will inform about the role of personal digital repositories
within a social network supporting teaching and learning
• Will identify related cultural issues and impediments
• Enhanced quality of teaching and learning through better
prepared teaching staff
• Improved uptake of shared resources
• Transferable Toolkit ‘product’ with relevance to other
communities of practice, for instance, those currently
using discussion lists
http://www.prowe.ac.uk
Mapping PROWE (or PROBE)
Personal
Unmoderated
(informal)
- we think
Controlled
access
http://www.prowe.ac.uk
Any questions?
[email protected]
or better still
[email protected]
http://www.prowe.ac.uk