School of Physical and Geographical Sciences

Reflections on Keele’s Contribution to the C-Change in GEES Project

Stephen Whitfield, Keele University

Project Co-ordinator – Dr Zoe Robinson Contributors –

Dr Richard Waller Dr Katie Szkornik Dr Ralf Gertisser Dr Stefan Krause Dr Deirdre McKay Dr Jamie Pringle

Project Support Officer – Stephen Whitfield

Stephen Whitfield, Keele University

Introduction Keele University has released 90 credits worth of teaching

materials (lecture slides, reading lists and activity sheets) as open educational resources.

Seven academics (across Physical and Human Geography, Environmental Science and Sustainability and Geology), contributed materials on the subject of climate change and environmental sustainability, across a multitude of topic areas, disciplines and undergraduate levels.

In this presentation: Outline of the process of producing these OERs Reflection on the challenges faced Useful information for others developing OERs

Stephen Whitfield, Keele University

REQUEST PERMISSION

USABILITY

PUBLISH

REVIEWING RESOURCES

REPURPOSING RESOURCES

PROJECT PLANNING

DONATION OF TEACHING RESOURCES

IDENTIFY COPYRIGHT MATERIAL AND COPYRIGHT HOLDERS

QUALITY CHECK

Wor

k F

low

Cha

rt:

Stephen Whitfield, Keele University

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USABILITY

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REVIEWING RESOURCES

REPURPOSING RESOURCES

PROJECT PLANNING

DONATION OF TEACHING RESOURCES

IDENTIFY COPYRIGHT MATERIAL AND COPYRIGHT HOLDERS

QUALITY CHECK

Init

ial S

tage

s:

Stephen Whitfield, Keele University

Material was chosen so as to represent a broad spectrum of topics and a range of undergraduate levels, with little direct overlap in content, while covering the multi-disciplinary nature of the GEES subjects taught within the School.

A full-time Project Support Officer was hired

Intermediate deadlines set for finishing work flow stages

Keele’s initial project outline involved 6 contributors and a target of 60 credits worth of material – through the duration of the project this has grown to 7 contributors and 90 credits

Initial Stages

Stephen Whitfield, Keele University

No reference for the graph

No explanation of what the graph shows

Low resolution image

Stephen Whitfield, Keele University

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Re-

Pur

posi

ng:

Stephen Whitfield, Keele University

Published in a textbook: Author: Schminke, H.U.

Publisher: Springer-Verlag

Contains data from 2 publications: 9 Authors: Zielinski GA, Mayewski PA, Meeker LD, Whitlow S, Twickler MS, Morrison M, Meese DA, Gow AJ, Alley RB

2 Publishers: Elsevier, AAAS

13 copyright claimants

Re-Purposing Material: An Example

Stephen Whitfield, Keele University

Average number of copyright claimants per image/figure: 6

Total number of images/figures per resource: 22

Total number of resources: 46

Copyright Claimants ≈ 6,000

Full copyright clearance for these resources is an endless and unrealistic task

Especially as non-response rate from publishers ~ 20% and from authors ~ 40%

So how did we move beyond this stage?

Re-Purposing Material: Some Figures

Stephen Whitfield, Keele University

1) Targeted Requests and Risk Management

• Request permission from publisher of figure

• Request permission from lead author if it is required by publisher

• Consider publishing under a separate licence

May be considered low risk if:

• If a primary copyright holder grants permission (i.e. recent publisher or lead author)

• Published more than 15 years ago

• Contains little/no empirical information

• Is significantly modified

Stephen Whitfield, Keele University

2) Replace with Copyright Cleared Images

The easiest and quickest way is to replace figures with ones that already have copyright clearance (i.e. those published under a CC licence)

Within Keele’s resources…

Source of Open Access Material No. of resources used

Flickr.com 173

NASA 32

NOAA 26

American Geophysical Union 6

USGS 15

Other US Public Funded Bodies 14

US funded research produces data, images and graphs that are released into the public domain

Stephen Whitfield, Keele University

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Rev

iew

ing:

Stephen Whitfield, Keele University

Peer-Review A peer-review procedure was adopted by the team working

on these resources to check the quality and usability of each resource.

Each resource has been thoroughly reviewed by one other member of the academic staff in the School of Physical and Geographical Sciences.

A checklist was drawn up to standardise, and ensure the thoroughness of this peer-review process.

The peer-review process is particularly valuable for answering the following questions: Is sufficient information provided for the resources to be

understood and used by academics from outside the particular specialism?

Are the structure, format and learning outcomes clear? Are sources of information clearly attributed and traceable? Are there spelling, grammar or formatting mistakes?

Stephen Whitfield, Keele University

Attribution to the author and the university

Simple, easy to read design

Full citation for the graph included the sources of data used to produce it

Explanation of the key point of the slide and direct link to the graph used to illustrate it

Stephen Whitfield, Keele University

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Pub

lish

ing:

Stephen Whitfield, Keele University

The Keele Repository and Web-Site

www.esci.keele.ac.uk/c-change

Stephen Whitfield, Keele University

Keele’s Output

• 7 Contributors

• 46 PowerPoint Presentations

• 38 Reading Lists

• 17 Activity Sheets

• 90 Credits-worth of teaching/learning material

Thanks to: Dr Zoe Robinson, Dr Katie Szkornik, Dr Deirdre McKay, Dr Richard Waller, Dr Ralf Gertisser, Dr Stefan Krause, Dr Jamie Pringle, Dave Emley, Tim Denning, Boyd Dufee