Reclaim Open Learning

better online learning for higher ed

The Facebook Academic

September 21, 2013 by Claudia Caro Sullivan

https://www.facebook.com/freeCYPmedia

Leigh-Anne Perryman, The Open University, UK
Tony Coughlan, The Open University, UK

The Facebook Academic project involves widening access to open learning by sharing targeted open educational resources in informal online learning communities that will particularly benefit from them. Since 2012 we have been developing and piloting the Facebook Academic role which
(a) identifies the needs of connected learners in subject-focused online communities;
(b) sources OER to meet those needs;
(c) shares these resources with the community and explains their relevance;
(d) encourages community members to evaluate OER and raises awareness of where to find them; and
(e) disseminates information about the community’s resource needs.

To date we have performed the role in a forum-based welfare community and in Facebook groups focused on autism.

To date we have learned: the importance of paying close attention not only to an online community’s expressed needs but also to the ways in which that community functions, communicates and works together. We have also found that small-chunk OER in mobile-friendly formats and languages other than English are particularly useful. We are now lobbying providers for more such resources to be released.

A number of questions have emerged from the project and we plan to address these both by continuing to perform the Facebook Academic role and through wider discussion of our work within the open education movement. For example, it remains to be seen how motivated other open academics will be to perform this role and while we have successfully done so with Facebook communities focused on health and wellbeing topics we do not know whether other online communities will be similarly receptive, nor whether OER are similarly widespread in other topic areas. With every new open academic performing the role the Facebook Academic project comes closer to answering these questions and our OER-release lobbying function gains added weight and reach.

The Facebook Academic project involves widening access to open learning by sharing targeted open educational resources in informal online learning communities that will particularly benefit from them. Since 2012 we have been developing and piloting the Facebook Academic role which
(a) identifies the needs of connected learners in subject-focused online communities;
(b) sources OER to meet those needs;
(c) shares these resources with the community and explains their relevance;
(d) encourages community members to evaluate OER and raises awareness of where to find them; and
(e) disseminates information about the community’s resource needs.
To date we have performed the role in a forum-based welfare community and in Facebook groups focused on autism.

Thus far we have learned: the importance of paying close attention not only to an online community’s expressed needs but also to the ways in which that community functions, communicates and works together. We have also found that small-chunk OER in mobile-friendly formats and in languages other than English are particularly useful, and we are now lobbying providers for more such resources to be released.

To date a number of questions have emerged from the project and we plan to address these both by continuing to perform the Facebook Academic role and through wider discussion of our work within the open education movement. For example, it remains to be seen how motivated other open academics will be to perform this role and while we have successfully done so with Facebook communities focused on health and wellbeing topics we do not know whether other online communities will be similarly receptive, nor whether OER are similarly widespread in other topic areas. With every new open academic performing the role, the Facebook Academic project comes closer to answering these questions and our OER-release lobbying function gains added weight and reach.

Additional Resources:
http://opencollection.files.wordpress.com/2013/08/list-of-6-facebook-groups.jpg
http://opencollection.files.wordpress.com/2013/08/nigeriansforautism-1july-tony-deposits-file-2.jpg
http://opencollection.files.wordpress.com/2013/08/twitter-exchange-cypmedia-educationscot-jul13.jpg
http://oro.open.ac.uk/37034/
http://oro.open.ac.uk/35934/

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