View source for File:POERUP D3.1 Report on in-depth case studies v1.0.pdf

This study is conducted within the frame of the [[POERUP]] project, funded by the lifelong 
learning program of the European Commission (POERUP, 2013). The POERUP project aims 
to enable the development of policies to stimulate the uptake of open educational 
resources. Within the POERUP project, partners from the [[Open University of the 
Netherlands]], [[Sero Consulting]], the [[University of Leicester]] and the [[University of Athabasca]] 
collaborated to gather the data with help from the OEP initiatives under investigation. 

The in depth analysis is written down in the IRRODL journal article "[http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/1905/3010 An investigation into social learning activities by practitioners in open educational practices]". ([[Schreurs]], [[van den Beemt]], [[Prinsen]], [[Witthaus]], [[Conole]] and [[de Laat]], 2014). 

=== Main case studies ===

1. [[Digischool]] is a national initiative in the Netherlands that was started by two teachers in 
1995 and resulted in a collection of virtual schools where primary and secondary teachers 
can share open learning materials. In 2000 they also added an online platform to enable 
teachers to discuss the use of the open learning materials in virtual communities. 70 
teachers manage the virtual communities. The initiative is closely linked with another Dutch
OER initiative, [[Wikiwijs]]. (http://www.digischool.nl/)

2. The first MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) in the Netherlands, titled “Introduction to 
Communication Science” is an initiative of the [[University of Amsterdam]]’s College of 
Communication and the Graduate School of Communication Science. It was first conducted 
in in 2013 and has also been run in 2014. The target group consists of college students and 
lifelong learners all over the world. (http://mooc.uva.nl/portal)

3. The [[OERu]] (OER universitas) is an international initiative of the Open Educational Resource 
Foundation, based in New Zealand set up in 2011, with the aim of widening participation in 
higher education by accrediting OER-based learning. The OERu is a consortium of over 30 
public post-secondary institutions (http://oeru.org/). Alongside the consortium, OERu is 
enhanced by a system of volunteers (Mackintosh, McGreal, & Taylor, 2011; Witthaus 2013a, 
2013b and 2013c) (http://oeru.org/ and http://wikieducator.org/OERu/Home) 

4. Canadian initiative [[BCcampus]] is a publicly funded organization that aims to bring together 
British Columbia's post-secondary system and make higher education available to everyone 
through the use of collaborative information technology services. BCcampus was 
established in 2002 by the provincial government to provide British Columbia learners, 
educators and administrators with a web-based portal to online learning programs and 
services across the B.C. post-secondary system. Within this study we investigated the open 
education subgroup of the BCcampus project. (http://bccampus.ca/)

5. [[FutureLearn]] is a private company fully owned by the UK [[Open University]] (FutureLearn 
2013). It has partnered with over 20 leading UK and a few non-UK universities to form the 
FutureLearn consortium. Since October 2013 the consortium has offered a range of MOOCs 
focused on informal learning in a variety of subjects typically taught at university level. In 
addition to partnering with universities, FutureLearn has partnered with three UK 
institutions with massive archives of cultural and educational material. 

6. [[Re:Source]] is an initiative of the Scottish Further Education Unit aimed at developing OER 
for Scotland's colleges. The initial development work took place during 2012 and it is 
currently managed by the (Scotland) College Development Network. All resources, with a 
few exceptions, are held under a Creative Commons 3.0 Unported 
licence.(http://resource.blogs.scotcol.ac.uk/)