Simon James, Chris Rawson, and Erin Cheffers' OER Story: Mathematical Reasoning and Investigation

(upbeat music)

LAUREN: - Hello and welcome listeners.

You are listening to Stories of Openness,

a limited series podcast created by the Open Education Team

at Deakin University Library.

My name is Lauren Halcomb-Smith, and I'm your host.

I'm a lecturer of Open Education at Deakin,

and I'm on a mission to explore the impact

that Open Educational Resources, or OER,

are having on learning and teaching at Deakin.

OER are free textbooks and other learning materials

that anyone can use, adapt, and share,

unlike traditional textbooks, which can be expensive,

and limited by copyright and licensing restrictions.

In this series, I'm talking with Deakin academics

about their experiences of creating and using Open Resources.

This podcast is part of a research project

that uses podcasting as a research methodology.

So this conversation is both a podcast

and open research data.

I'm coming to you today

from the beautiful, traditional, and unceded lands

of the Bunurong people.

I gratefully acknowledge them as the traditional custodians

of these lands, seas, and skies,

and recognize that this has been a place

of learning, teaching, and rich conversation for millennia.

And today we're in for a real treat

because I'm joined by a whole team of OER creators.

Simon James, Chris Rawson, and Erin Cheffers.

Simon and Chris are the co-authors

and Erin is the illustrator of the beautiful open textbook

æMathematical Reasoning and InvestigationÆ.

Simon is an associate professor in mathematics

at Deakin's faculty of science, engineering,

and built environment, and has been recognized

with the Deakin University Award for excellence in teaching

for his work with undergraduate math students.

And Chris, at the time of writing a textbook,

was a senior educational designer for Deakin

with a background in learning design and librarianship.

And Chris now works in the Deakin library

as a scholarly services librarian.

And - fun fact - is a colleague of mine.

And finally, Erin is a graphics and user interface designer

for Deakin's strategic educational initiatives unit.

And at the time of writing the textbook,

Erin was a student of design and visual communication

and was part of the project

by Deakin's wildly successful Students as Partners Program.

Welcome, Simon, Chris, and Erin.

Thank you so much for being here today.

SIMON: - Thanks for having us.

LAUREN: - We're gonna get started with a few questions for you, Simon.

What's the story behind the creation of this OER?

SIMON: - Chris and I just before the pandemic got to know one another

who was helping me redevelop a unit at Deakin.

And so I found that experience really rewarding

being able to kind of bounce ideas off someone

and have someone help me really structure

and plan a unit properly.

Unfortunately, because it was just before the pandemic,

when the pandemic hit, we didn't really get an opportunity

to finish all of the things we would have liked

to have done with that unit.

And so when the opportunity to apply

for these open grants came around, he emailed me

and said I think the work that we did on that unit

would be a really good thing to turn into a textbook.

And he said it won't be much work and he'll do all of it

and all I have to do is agree.

And I thought, yes, that sounds good.

I liked working with Chris.

So really the content was kind of all there,

but we had to make a lot of, cut a lot of things short.

And one thing in particular, my unit compared

to some other maths units that we're getting redeveloped

at the time was we didn't benefit

from some really nice visual illustration things.

So we saw this as an opportunity, yes,

to make it much prettier and more presentable.

LAUREN: Chris, you were just shaking your head and laughing.

What was all that about?

CHRIS: - First of all, Simon's unit was very good

to begin with.

It's one of the best units in one of the best shape

I ever came across in the five or six years

I was doing unit redesigns.

Besides that, I do remember telling Simon it would be easy

and I would do most of the work.

And unfortunately it was not easy

and Simon did a lot of the work,

but I think we'll get around to that later.

But yes, that's on me.

LAUREN: - Simon mentioned that there was a grant program

and for listeners who may not be familiar

with the library's micro grant scheme,

can you tell us a little bit about what the program was

that you suggested to Simon?

CHRIS: - Yeah, so this was a program that was offering grant funding

to produce open educational resources

or textbooks at the time.

And there were fairly small grants,

I can't remember the exact amount,

but I think we got somewhere between $2,000 and $5,000,

which we used for employing Erin through the Students

as Partners Program.

And I should say, financially the Cloud First project

also tipped in a little bit of money.

So to help with Erin as well,

as well as giving you a little bit of time,

at least to Erin as well.

LAUREN: - So Simon, it was an undergraduate maths course

that you had redesigned prior to that pandemic,

but it didn't feel done.

What was the need that the project was gonna fill for you?

SIMON: - I mean, so other than finishing some things,

I guess the other thing we saw was this was an opportunity

to make our textbooks more widely available.

When you have a unit at Deakin,

it's closed to only be available to Deakin students,

but the nice thing about open resources

is I could then guilt free,

be able to share all of these resources

with anyone that wants them.

Chris and I both kind of thought

that some of the content of the unit is things

that could be shared a bit wider

because there's a lot of maths content out there

and a lot of maths units are very standard,

but this particular unit is a little bit different

in its problem-solving approach

and the way it presents its mathematics.

So we did think they could potentially be some outside,

yeah, outside scope for interest,

but I guess the main need in terms of what we were delivering

at Deakin, 'cause it had already been taught,

but can you say there's a need for Erin's work?

I think we can say that it definitely needed Erin's work

to make it more appealing to the target audience.

LAUREN: - I think a visual element communicates to readers

or users of whatever piece of work it is

that this piece of work is of high quality.

So it might be the content is of high quality,

but if you don't have great visuals,

there's sort of a mismatch there.

So I think visuals are a really important way

that we communicate to learners

that something is important, it's high quality

and it's credible.

CHRIS: I agree Lauren entirely, beyond that I also think,

particularly Erin's great work

where she really did her homework

and put some great imagery together.

It communicated a lot of the messages and tone and feel.

It became part of the language of the book.

That was such an important thing

and so worthwhile doing.

LAUREN: - Was there other motivations for you

from the perspective of a learning designer

that drew you or motivated you to want to create an OER?

CHRIS: - Yeah, look, it was the content in a lot of ways, Lauren.

I had a background doing a lot of work

with Future Learn for Deakin previously,

which is not open that it is publicly available content.

When I was looking at this material the first time

in the back of my mind,

I was thinking this would be a good fit for Future Learn again,

just because it fit nicely with a general purpose audience.

I guess for me, it was also a bit of a personal thing

in that Simon mentioned that this takes a different approach

to mathematics and problem solving.

One of the things I said in the book

are in introducing it and really want to reiterate

is that this was a genuinely transformational process

of learning for me. One of the things that I like to do

when I'm doing learning design is really immersed myself

in the content so that I can get a good handle of it

so that may working through the material itself.

I am, it turns out there's research out there

to say that I'm very typical.

I thought that I was terrible at maths,

the thought of doing maths, hard math,

was sort of like anticipating someone

was going to give me a punch or something,

almost like anticipating physical pain.

I genuinely believed I can't do it.

And I kind of also thought maths is

this procedural, structured, boring uncreative process.

What Simon did, and this approach to mathematics

that looks at it from a much more constructivist lens

that asked you to solve really loose problems

that have potential real-world applications

and ask you to think about different ways

that you can approach a problem.

Think about working out how you can then

take that solution, justify it,

and generalise that to other kinds of maths problems

that you've kind of changed my understanding of

not necessarily what was possible with mathematics

but my relationship with mathematics.

All of a sudden I realise that doing maths well is fun

that it is really creative.

Like a good mathematician is a very creative person

and solving any real-world problems.

I think Simon says that something along the lines of

æif it's really a problem you might be able to find

a solution in the back of a bookÆ,

that's just sort of a process.

So yeah, I wanted to share that experience

with other people from a general audience

and make people realise the maths is creative

and fun and enjoyable and all of that sort of thing.

LAUREN: Erin, we've talked about you, but we haven't talked to you yet.

Can you tell us what was your role on the project team?

ERIN: I was the visual designer.

I was actually still studying at the time.

I was in my third year of my visual communication design

course at Deakin, so I was just about to finish.

And I was asked by Chris and Simon

through my manager at the time as I was working

as a Student as Partners in internship at Cloud First.

So I had worked with Chris a little bit

on a project before I'm pretty sure.

But it was a really interesting opportunity.

I will say when I heard it was maths,

I was a bit of a bit scared.

But when I spoke to Simon and Chris kind of learned

a bit more about the project and what an OER was,

I was really excited to get my hands in

and work with them.

LAUREN: Simon, back to you.

Can you sort of walk us through the OER?

Like, what's it about?

How's it structured?

How's it put together?

SIMON: This unit is like the subject and the OER.

It's aimed at primary school teachers

who are going to specialize in mathematics.

The aim of the unit really is to change

the perception of mathematics as you go in,

you learn how to do a problem,

you see similar problems,

and then you apply that same routine to other things.

That is a part of mathematics.

And it's important that people work on their skills.

But I think it's a real disservice to mathematics

that people go through all of their schooling,

thinking that's all that mathematics is.

And so as Chris said, saying all the beautiful things

that we love to hear, you know, mathematics

is a very creative pursuit.

Real world problems are messy.

And probably actually the lens through which I worked

on this material and framed it was,

yeah, there was another few education mathematics people

that put out a book probably quite a long time ago

called Thinking Mathematically.

And that was really just about problem solving.

And so I kind of saw an opportunity to still teach topics

and still teach content that fits into a university degree,

but kind of think of it or, you know,

approach it through this problem solving idea.

So yeah, we touch on a few interesting and fun math things.

Not easy, you know, a lot of the mathematics is hard.

We've got things like base conversion in there

and some graph theory.

Yeah, always with that idea of,

you want to build intuition and build a relationship

with enjoying and exploring mathematics

rather than just how do I get the answer,

just teach me the way to get the answer.

And then I will show you that I can do it.

LAUREN - What other elements can a reader of Mathematical Reasoning

and Investigation expect looking at this open textbook

compared to a traditional mathematics textbook?

CHRIS: - So for me, what really makes this book stand out

is A) the problem solving approach

And B) just those problems themselves,

which, yeah, SimonÆs put together

with so much thought and care,

really make the book enjoyable.

And it's not Simon. ErinÆs work

making those problems look beautiful.

They all have their own illustration.

- Yeah, it really makes it, it brings it to the next level.

SIMON: - It does, you know, compared to a normal,

normal, normal textbook, you know,

we do embed video explanations into things,

which, yeah, they were already there before

we went into the OER,

but they had to be cleaned up and made

a little more copyright friendly than they had been.

They kind of already had set a little bit of the tone

of, yeah, only within my abilities,

but of the kind of approachable artwork style.

And also it's got coding in it.

So it uses the scratch platform,

which, yeah, it's a fantastic coding platform developed by MIT.

And so it uses coding as a way

to kind of explore mathematical questions

as one of the approaches that we have

of kind of problem solving and understanding things too.

LAUREN: - Sounds like it offers so much more

than a traditional paper textbook

that becomes a laptop stand for many students

after they finish their degree.

Simon, you had funding as we've already discussed a little bit.

You had some funding and you chose to use that funding

for a graphic designer who was Erin.

Can you tell us a little more about why graphic design

was so important to this project?

SIMON: - I am a big fan of things looking nice.

And yeah, I agree with you, you know, having high quality artwork,

yeah, it elevates things. Artwork in general

and not having just straight text on a page.

I don't know, I guess it must provide people reading it

with a little bit of rest or, you know,

breaking up the monotony.

All of those, I'm sure there's research that supports

that those kind of things help people digest material

if it's got those kind of breaks and things

that can let your mind wander a bit.

When we do have the opportunity to get funding at university,

you know, one of the best things I think you can do

is support students and support someone who's career

is kind of going forward.

I think that's a better use of money than buying something

or getting, I don't know, something material

or say paying for the rights to use something

or being able to give students like a real opportunity

to develop their skills, I think is really important.

And probably in terms of the work that we needed, you know,

there were other things that we kind of tossed up with

whether students could review some of the work

or whether students could make some kind of contributions.

But I guess the amount of funding that we had

and how it would really contribute to the product at the end,

graphic design from my perspective

was the best way to use that money.

I'm not sure if Chris had something to support or refute

any of that.

CHRIS: Oh, no, just to support that it was such a worthwhile investment.

And as I said earlier that the illustration

has become such an integral part of the text.

And that's because Erin worked so hard to take

Our sometimes quite vague instructions,

looked at what we'd written and really thought hard

about how to make something on the page that would flow

as support the content and did such a good job of that yet

that it's just become seamlessly integrated

into the rest of the text.

You did a fantastic job.

LAUREN: And before we hear from Erin because we really

want to hear more about these illustrations,

Chris, if I'm not mistaken, there is research

that shows that having visuals in learning environments

does support learning, isn't there?

CHRIS: Yes, it's the short answer.

And you're putting me on the spot.

So we'll probably cut this bit out.

LAUREN: I guess what I was thinking when Simon was talking about visuals

providing a brain break, I'm thinking like, yes,

that's universal design for learning right there.

CHRIS: Oh, I see.

LAUREN: That's like multiple means of my presentation.

And it reduces the cognitive load.

CHRIS: I think it's more than just that reduction of cognitive load.

And that's part of it.

I think it's more integral than that.

I think it plays a really central role in telling the story.

It's a narrative device.

This is why it's so important that I praise Erin

for really integrating that work and doing that work

to think about the visuals because it

and be distracting have visuals there

that don't fit very well with the story.

Ensuring that you have a single unified text

that's pointing together, that comes down to teamwork.

But it also comes down to Erin's good work.

And I think there's that sense of narrative.

But there's also, as you said,

multiple interpretations are easier when it comes to visuals.

That ability to bring your own self to the text.

It just makes it, it gives extra access points

for people to engage with the work as well.

Yeah, it's a lot more than just window dressing

and a lot more than just it makes it credible.

Although I agree, at least the base level it

needs to do that.

It becomes a really important part of the story

of the textbook itself.

LAUREN: Erin, can you tell us about the illustrations in the OER?

ERIN: Yes, there's a lot to say.

I think how we kind of started it was that the unit already

had a visual made and it was with an astronaut.

And we kind of took that and expanded upon it.

So we decided on three, I think, different themes,

which kind of went from the space to land,

which is kind of like a zoo, I think, and then underwater.

And we split those into chapters, different chapters.

Well, obviously, we needed to relate that to the content.

Each banner has its own relation to the content.

So it will have something to do with the maths

that the students are learning.

And that was also a bit of a tricky thing to do,

especially because it is an OER.

So we had to have the right licensing

to use what I was making, because I was outsourcing

from, I think, it was Flat Icon at the time,

as well as making my own graphics.

So we were incorporating those together.

But yet, altogether, I think we--

I think the different outputs from the illustrations

were banners main thing.

We had a few inline graphics, so diagrams and graphs

and stuff like that.

And then, I think, finally, it was our cover, which

was very exciting to make, because I got to intertwine

all the things together with the final cover.

LAUREN: And for anyone listening, I really

encourage you to look at the OER for no other reason

than the graphics.

The astronaut has so much character and so much personality.

My favorite one is, I think, it's the astronaut doing a moonwalk

or some kind of dance, maybe, on Mars.

Did the astronaut get a name along the way?

ERIN: I'm not sure.

CHRIS: I guess not, because the astronaut is the problem solver.

So we all assume they're all of the astronaut.

LAUREN: We're all the astronauts.

That's amazing.

Let's shift gears a little bit, because I

want to hear about how the OER landed when you actually

published it or you started using it.

Because if I understand correctly,

it was created for a specific unit that isn't being taught

anymore.

But did you notice that it was having

any impact on the students at the time?

CHRIS: The student experience probably is still fairly similar,

the students that are enrolled at Deakin.

Because we used the OER to pretty up the unit site.

But overall, what the students from one trimester

to another experience would have been fairly similar.

But yeah, so it was really more--

well, you know, and we do know that it was kind of being

used externally.

I don't know whether I can trust all of the stats on the site

where it was housed.

But it seemed to be getting, you know,

some good interaction.

We had had, yeah, some people from outside as well, who--

yeah, who'd contacted me kind of similar time

to making some of the resources about using the resources

in their things.

And so it was kind of all part of that as well.

LAUREN: Were you hearing anything from the students

that were using it any feedback?

CHRIS: Look, they might not talk to me about the pictures as much.

But obviously, whenever-- yeah, I probably also

was too-- I didn't give them an option to tell them

because I would just say, look at this unit site.

It's beautiful.

Look at this.

Look at these pictures.

Aren't you excited to be studying this unit with me?

And so all they could really do was agree.

So unfortunately, I didn't properly

get the extra feedback after that.

But I mean, it's obvious that they would enjoy it.

LAUREN: Well, yeah.

Just look at it.

Chris, do you have any stories to share about the impact

the OER has had on learning at Deakin?

LAUREN: Well, I hope that the approach that Simon took

and the approach to Cloud First took

has had resulted in the improvement

of learning experiences for students in a number of ways.

Without talking in generalities, the best

particular unit, I think

that what it really meant was students, particularly

pre-service teachers, making a much clearer link

between the content that they were working through

and how that might sit in a classroom.

I don't necessarily have the feedback

to justify that comment.

But that was certainly one of our signature intentions

when we reviewed the content itself.

I think that the visuals make a really huge difference.

I think just to be clear for listeners,

we're talking in some ways about slightly separate things.

So the OER textbook that we made

goes out to general audience, but the unit site,

which we worked on initially, formed the basis

of the textbook, Erin did some graphics.

Simon and I revised some of the content

and added a little bit more in, but it's essentially

a very similar product.

That being said, students working through the unit site

aren't strictly speaking, working through the OER textbook

if that makes sense.

LAUREN: I almost feel like it's a distinction

that doesn't need to be made because the nature of OER

is that they are always in evolution.

So whether it was technically an OER at the time

that it was being taught, and is there

a specific point at which something is,

or it's now crossed over the threshold

into being an OER.

I don't know if that's necessarily

a super helpful distinction to make.

I think it's fair to say that all open education projects

are at some point in the journey towards openness.

Some of them are more open than others.

So what I'm hearing is that it's hard to measure

the impact that a specific resource has on learning

unless you're doing very specific research about it,

but that the impression is that it supported their learning

in a positive way in the form that it was in

before it was sort of officially published

as an open education resource.

CHRIS: Yeah, and I would certainly say

that there's plenty of reason and good,

justifiable robust evidence to suggest

that in the form of the unit that students went through,

it was a well-regarded and well-enjoyed unit by students,

and I'm certain that students would have gotten

something important out of it

that they could bring into their classrooms.

'Cause as we said, right, the start,

the whole point of this OER textbook is

that people redefine their relationship with mathematics

to see it as a creative pursuit to solve problems

rather than just a series of steps

to get to the same answer that the back of the book has.

LAUREN: Like many open education projects at Deakin,

the students that engaged with this project

were not just the students in the unit itself.

You also had a student as partner.

So Erin, I'm really curious to hear about your experience

as a student at Deakin that this project had on you

because you, as you've mentioned,

you were a graphic design student at the time

that it was created.

What was it like for you to join this project team?

ERIN: - Interesting.

I'd say, I was quite nervous.

I had basically no professional experience

as a graphic designer except for my internship.

And through that, I had my manager

who I could obviously talk to a lot

and this was me leading the graphics,

which was a bit terrifying, I would say.

- I remember being extremely quiet

when we first started meeting

and not contributing much to the conversation

of the graphics, but I think this experiences helped me

and during the process helped me gain a lot of confidence

in the discussion of design and that, yeah.

LAUREN: - So as a graphic design student,

did this experience have any impact on you

as a student outside of the project?

ERIN: - Yeah, I would say so.

I mean, we didn't have a lot of experiences

with actual clients during our time in the degree.

And so I think that's something

that really was beneficial in this project

'cause I could actually talk to both Chris and Simon

about what they wanted and be able to gain feedback

from them as real people.

So that was really good.

And then obviously teamwork was one of the things

I feel would have very much benefited me

at going back into working like serving as a student

and working with my other graphic design students.

And yeah.

LAUREN: - And has the experience had any impact

on you since you've graduated?

ERIN: - Yeah, definitely.

It's one of those things where I can,

I can put it on my portfolio and show it off of it.

And obviously talk about it at job interviews

and put it on my CV.

That's a really good thing to be able to talk about this

and especially 'cause it was such a good experience

to have as well.

So I can always talk about highly about it.

- I just want to point out for the listeners

'cause we're not recording video for this

but I just want to highlight how emphatically

Chris and Simon are nodding in support

and encouragement of you, Erin.

I think you have two very strong cheerleaders in these two.

CHRIS: - Absolutely, look, Erin's work is exceptional.

When I asked Erin's manager who from her experience

we should employ for this project.

She did not hesitate to push Erin forward

and we couldn't be happier with the work that she did for us.

LAUREN: - All right, well, we're gonna shift gears again

'cause I wanna hear about the impact that this had

on you, Simon and Chris as teachers.

So Simon, can you tell me any stories

about how this OER project shaped your teaching practice?

CHIRS: - Yes, being involved in this project

was really eye-opening, I guess.

I've always been very pro-free education

and think that resources should always be made available

as widely as possible.

But of course, I never really understood any of the,

any of how you actually do it and what's legal

and what's not illegal and what the university allows

and what it doesn't allow.

So it definitely helped me get a much better understanding

of that, which has influenced how I then go on to develop

other units.

Being part of this project also means

that you get to see some of the other projects

that are being done.

And so actually that was probably one of my favorite bits

about being involved in the OER.

I was seeing all of the other really fantastic

and interesting ways that other people use their grants

at the university.

So yes, I look forward to listening to all of your podcasts

that talk about those in a little bit more detail

'cause I only ever would have gotten the five

or 10 minute version of what was going on.

So certainly those things would have had an impact.

Some of the positive stories, I don't know whether this is

the best place, best time in the conversation to mention them.

But some of the material that we'd used and drawn up on

in the book, we had to either get permission to use it

or we had to cut it out.

There were a lot of things that can't be used

or can't be used.

And we actually had some really positive experiences

in getting approval for some of those.

So the Shell Centre for Learning had produced this very nice

resource in the '80s, I think, or '70s or '80s.

And one of my chapters was completely really their problems

and even their graphics are done kind of a

adaption of their graphics to use.

And because it was in the '80s, they didn't have CC

licenses back then or as far as I know.

And so, but they immediately said, yes, our intention

in what we released, and it was a free resource,

and really it was kind of meant to be in the same vein as a CC.

And they were really supportive and wanted to see the product

once we'd released it.

So even stories like that, always having positive interactions

around something like open education resources

where lots of people can have similar life philosophies

and having those positive interactions is really great.

I don't know how much I've wandered off

from the original question, but yeah,

that was some of the positive stories that come to mind for me.

LAUREN: - It sounds like the experience of creating an OER

and going through the process and through the program

did have an impact on you as a teacher

and you learned a lot of important skills and competencies

that work well in your toolkit as a teacher.

What was it like teaching with the resource

in whatever form it was along the way?

SIMON: - Having a resource that you've developed yourself,

I guess it works two ways.

It's always nice to be able to deliver the message

that you want to deliver and have that kind of reinforced

As teachers rather than having a resource where you might

use it by necessity or you want to take some problems

forward, but you don't necessarily agree

with how material is presented or with the strictness

of the answers that they come up with.

And so you're constantly kind of creating maybe

a little bit of dissonance between what the students are learning

from the resources and what you intended them to learn

or what you want them to get out of them.

So I guess in that sense, having something that you've had

a good hand in and something that you feel is shareable

and widely shareable I think is a really nice thing

and if it wasn't as much work as it is,

I'd be wanting to push that on a lot of units

to do similar things, but yeah, probably is a lot of upfront work.

LAUREN: Chris, you are a learning designer.

You're a librarian now.

Both of these are arguably part of the teaching profession.

So how did this experience shape how you approach your role

as a member of the teaching profession?

CHRIS: Well, obviously if those roles are members

of the teaching profession, it's not at the coal face.

It's in that third space that looks at influence.

One of the things I was thinking as Simon was speaking

is that most of the time when you're working

on a unit revision, it involves a little bit of risk,

particularly for everybody involved, to be honest,

but for teaching stuff because often we are asking people

to teach in a way that we can sit people down

and show them the evidence that this is going

to be the most effective way of teaching,

but it's not necessarily the way that they used to doing it.

And often, there needs to be all kinds of both contingencies,

but also training sessions, put into place

to ensure that tutors understand the approach

and that it's taught in the way that it's intended.

And that's part of the reason as well

that there's so much upfront work that goes

into the redevelopment of one of these digitally-led units

that take what's now called the Deakin Design approach

as part of that Cloud First project

is that it means that students, no matter who's teaching it,

get that consistently high quality unit.

But a lot of that work around changing your mindset

when it comes to teaching around ensuring

that there are structures and training in place

just seem totally redundant with Simon and Simon's unit.

And a big part of that is Simon himself

is already a really proactive and reflective teacher

and that's really obvious to me,

even before I had met him just looking through the unit content.

And I think I said earlier that Simon's was one of the units

and the best shapes that I had ever encountered

during that sort of five, six year period I was doing unit revisions.

But I do think that working through the process

of revising that content, looking at it just with fresh eyes,

being able to have these discussions,

hopefully means that those, that kind of additional work

that as a learning designer and additional things

that we need to put into place,

I just felt more and more confident weren't necessary.

And I do think that the process of developing that content

even in OER form really helped with that.

And I think the other thing for me is it's about

thinking judiciously about where an OER might be appropriate.

Now, having being a colleague of yours in the library as well

Lauren I think sometimes we get a slightly insulated view

on what people's attitudes to open access

and OER are.

I know that there are a significant group of people

who would only, what say they would only employ

living there in the right circumstances.

There's a sense that there's a lot of time involved

and there is that was our experience as well.

We would never have been able to do it without

a grant.

But also there's a sense that sometimes people's value

as a teacher is in the content that they can deliver

and they don't want to effectively replace themselves.

There's a sense that goes along with that,

that the university's IP is important

and in part of what makes the university.

But at the same time, that's usually

balanced against a sense that we're making a difference

and that the content that we're teaching is important.

There's that philosophical debate that's always going on

and then there's always the question

from that learning design perspective.

It's similar to AI.

When it comes to just redeveloping a unit,

it kind of would prefer in some ways

that the unit development team

were just grabbing something off the shelf

and trying to plug something in.

You want to see that they are interacting,

bringing something important of themselves

to the content and that the unit that's developed

is developed in a way that is coherent

with the rest of the course structure as well,

which doesn't always lend itself

well to general audience work.

Now, I'm not mentioning all of these things to be a doubt

because I think this is a great project

and I think there are some really great projects

that should OER.

I think it'd be great if by default people could sit down

and look at whether or not the information

might be useful for a general audience

or a more open audience and resources be allocated to that.

I know it's not the reality of where we are.

That's full circle to that point that I feel

that having been through the work,

being through put Simon through the ringer

of developing a lot of that copyrighted content

that I told him fully confident would be really simple

and it would all be if you know

copyright implications of any real worry

to be concerned about and some 100 hours or more later

of Simon and I, but mostly Simon,

going through video and work and re-developing content

to make sure it's copyright compliant.

That was a painful lesson, but an important and good one

that shows that OER needs to be something

that you commit to fully and go into with your eyes open

but that it is possible and that in some ways

where it's possible and where we have the resources.

I feel as a university, you know,

if we believe - and I certainly do - that education

can have the power to transform the way

that people understand the world and relate to it

and relate to others, then it's part of our social imperative

I think to be open when we can with our teaching material.

LAUREN: - So what I heard Chris is that there were a lot of challenges

especially in terms of time and time as a resource

and maybe implications about creating an OER

that you weren't fully aware of.

But it also sounds like the opportunity to work

with an educator like Simon was incredibly fulfilling

for you from the perspective of a learning designer

and perhaps one of the impacts that it had on you

was recognizing how fulfilling open education projects

could be from sort of a pedagogical philosophy perspective.

What I also heard was as a librarian,

it's given you a more in depth understanding

about OER creation projects that then you bring

into your practice as a librarian,

perhaps not being quite so evangelical

as about open education and open access

as some of us are, myself included.

So it does sound like it had a really balanced impact

on you as a teaching professional Chris.

Is that fair to say?

CHRIS: - Yeah, I suppose it is, then those are all kind things to say.

And yeah, the only other thing I'd add to that is

it may be more aware of the challenges

and so more aware of where OER might be appropriate

but that doesn't make me any less evangelical

where it clearly is appropriate

and where we have the time and money to do it.

Again, I think there is a real social imperative

to do it where it's appropriate.

LAUREN: There's an expression that we often use in open land

as open as possible, as closed as necessary.

I would be really remiss in my job

if what people took away from this project

was that the idea that everyone should create an OER

and that everything should be an OER creation project.

If anything, what I would like to see is more people

knowing about your OER and adopting your OER

and the other OER that Deakin has published

at other institutions, we wouldn't want every single institution

to have a bespoke OER if there are these beautiful resources

like yours already available.

And there are swathes of them around the world,

these free resources that anyone can access,

anyone can download, anyone can share,

anyone can change up a little bit.

So I think that part of our job is also,

my job, is also helping people consider existing OER

as a pathway to being an open education practitioner

and not that the only pathway to being an open education

practitioner is to create a brand new resource.

SIMON: - Another thing in support of all of these resources.

So I mean, I've done more recently

I have been developing units using an existing OER

and then adding some extra open quiz system.

So NumBas is an absolutely awesome,

very flexible quiz system.

So you're still able to give your,

so just what Chris was talking about,

still able to give your flavor to the open resource.

So you're not completely outsourcing your learning,

you're taking something that exists

and then integrating it in the way

that you want to teach the subject.

But if we don't do this, there's so many risks

that we come up to if you force students

to pay for a textbook or use the software

even that's associated with textbooks.

You know, it starts out at $10 per student

and then they jack up the price at half way down

and then you've already invested all of this time

and money maybe into creating a resource

that you don't own.

So that's the best thing about or one of the things

that a lot of these things I kind of take for granted.

So I am essentially evangelical as well.

But you know, when you're dependent on someone else's resource

and they control the way that that resource is delivered to you,

it gives you a huge risk

in terms of what you're doing in the future.

So that's the other reason why I think OER are very handy.

LAUREN: Simon, are you hearing any stories of colleagues

at other institutions using your OER?

SIMON: There was a team in America, maybe Chicago or something

that had wanted to use one of the videos

that's included in the OER as a resource

for a teaching program that they were making for.

Yeah, essentially similar kind of cohort to us.

So I think maybe teachers that were already out there

that were kind of getting upskilling and everything like that.

So being able to, you know, often if people come across a resource

through a university site that's not necessarily cleared,

then being able to share it is not necessarily easy,

but because this was part of OER, I'm like, you know,

it's open access, you can use it, go for it.

So that was kind of cool.

I hope that's being used well.

I don't really have insight into exactly how

it's used or how it's been going, but I love the idea of it.

LAUREN: My last question, second to last question actually.

Second to last question is a little bit introspective,

a little bit meta, you might say.

So we know that this is not just a podcast

to celebrate your work and surface the stories.

It's also a research project.

This conversation is going to become research data

that the team and I are going to analyze.

I'm really curious what you all think it all means.

What do your stories tell us about the impact

that open educational resources have on learning and teaching?

SIMON: I guess for me, one of the things that's

been really obvious in the conversations

that we've had, you know, the impact can be everywhere,

like on, you know, as part of the creation process,

as part of having a nice finished resource that, you know,

Erin talks about the, it's a nice finished product

that she can show.

It's a nice set of experiences that she can speak positively

to when she's going out to things.

It's a nice symbol of the collaborations

that we've all done together.

It's always we've got all of our names together

on the front cover of that very nice resource.

So all of those things, I think, can be very nice.

I said nice a lot, but yeah, in creating OEAs,

it is that lasting impact as part of the process

of creating it, part of the process of using it,

part of the process of learning about other OEAs as well.

I think, you know, it really is not a compartmentalised thing

that has small impacts.

LAUREN: Chris, what do you think the impact is?

What are your stories tell us?

CHIRS: Look, I think that this story tells us that when teachers

and potentially people in that third space

can have the time and resources to come together

and collaborate, then it can change the way

that we approach tertiary education.

Taking that, digitally led approach

and having time to sit back and reflect about

what's going to be best for students,

what's going to make a great learning experience for them,

how that might work, how it might integrate

with classes and assessment,

and really taking that holistic, big picture view

can produce really fantastic outcomes for students.

And we have talked about it being a lot of work

and we won't lie, it is, but front loading that work

means that a lot of the work down the track

and the teaching is already done.

The content creation is there.

It's a really great quality.

The lesson plans are there, in place

and things, you know, should run smoothly,

especially after a couple of runs.

So, yeah, just as a way of approaching the design

and development of learning content,

I feel like that digitally driven open mindset approach

is something, yeah.

I mean, you used the term evangelical, something

I'm extremely passionate and evangelical about.

LAUREN: My very last question, this one's actually the last one.

For anyone, what is your favorite part of the OER?

SIMON: Very obviously, Erin's pictures.

LAUREN: Any picture in particular?

SIMON: Yeah, the one that probably comes to mind

is for a sequences topic and she just

had all of the animals kind of in line.

It was always nice.

Yes, Erin did have to work with real people here

to give very vague ideas and just say,

"I just kind of do something with what we have."

And so, I don't know.

The intrigue of just kind of looking at her images

and saying, "First, what's the connection to the material?"

I think is very enjoyable for me

and I assume enjoyable for other people, but yes.

LAUREN: Chris, favorite thing about the OER?

SIMON: Well, how can I go past what Simon just said?

Definitely the imagery.

It took it to another level.

I mean, I enjoyed the experience of collaborating with others too,

but in terms of the finished product, absolutely.

I can think of another one, which is an underwater one,

a series of bubbles rising in the perfect bell curve,

which just shows how much time and effort Erin put into

developing those images because you'll be,

but I don't think it either of us sat down

and explained to her what a bell curve was

and what it was supposed to look like.

She figured that out.

LAUREN: Erin, do you have a favorite part of the OER?

ERIN: Maybe getting rid of my fear of maths a little bit.

No, I really just enjoyed talking to these guys

and figuring out how to make these banners

because the banners, I will say, are my favorite part,

especially making them because they had so many awesome ideas,

especially how to show the maths in terms of animals and space.

So that was really cool to work on.

LAUREN: I really want to thank the three of you so much

for sitting down with me today

and having this conversation.

I'll take us out with some credits, very short.

Stories of Openness is a limited series

from the Open Education team at Deackin University Library.

It's part of a research by Podcast Project led by me,

Lauren Halcomb-Smith, with Angie Williamson, Danni Johnson,

and Eddie Puvuna.

We choose Open wherever possible,

including Audacity for Editing, Castopod for hosting,

and Music by Scott Holmes Music.

This podcast by Deakin University

is licensed under a CC by NC 4.0 license.

For more information and full acknowledgments,

please see our show notes.

Thank you so much for listening,

and thank you again, Simon, Chris, and Erin.

(gentle music)

(gentle music)