Three BA level Open Classes have all been delivered both in terms of their face-to-face versions and more importantly, as online presences, which curate a diversity of resources into openly accessible ‘hubs’. Each of the open classes has a slightly different feel; each makes use of, and makes available, particular kinds of resources and web/social media platforms. Picbod (“Picturing the Body”) makes extensive use of twitter and its hashtag logics as research discussion tools – as well as using podcasts,,vimeo and flicker to collate talks and images. Creative Activism has quickly established itself in peer-to peer networks – as well as using vimeo twitter and itunesU. Living in a digital world has focused on student content creation and using blogging – with flicker etc, - as a means of archiving pan-European research projects.  The Open Masters level photography ‘class’, is about to  be launched on a quick start basis  - classes will run as soon as there are enough subscribers. (COMC Final Report)

The Blog collates all these resources, such as the lectures and seminar activities – each open class session also include notes, recordings and student annotations - both sequentially as a series of post and under specific categories and through linking to additional external site, such as Vimeo, or Podbean. The over-arching aim of making this material available is to lower the barriers to anyone accessing these classes and resources. The blog acts like a ‘hub’ within a networked community.   (COMC Final Report)

Alongside this, the tutors run a #Picbod twitter feed which collates ideas events commentary and discussion. The face-to-face class has about 30 students, and through the twitter feed, 276 followers - who obviously continue to follow the class. During the live period of the class about 10,000 people access the blog or one of its spaces.  This communication feed becomes more interesting when used in conjunction with the Hashtag, #Picbod. This hashtag of course acts as a connective – aggregating device – pulling anyone using, or searching for the tag into the community and discussions. The use of hashtags is a key aspect of the move towards the collaborative production of content within this class (and others) – so students and other contributors might tweet notes, thoughts, comments, questions, or requests for help /advice to their peers. This conversation therefore, hugely enriches the original ‘class content of notes, tasks and briefs.     (COMC Final Report)    

Mike Caulfield says

On the other hand, EDUPUNK technologies (varieties of cMOOCs, ds106, FemTechNet, Open Course Frameworks, P2PU) have continued to engage their users, asking the the users to experiment, remix, hack, and redistribute. They are, in the words of von Hippel, "user innovation toolkits" which encourage users to alter, and even subvert, given designs. Because they codify much practice in convention rather than code (see, for example, the use of tag-based RSS and the harnessing together of readily accessible technologies) they retain a fluidity that promotes experimentation. They are, in a word, so EDUPUNK.  http://www.educause.edu/blogs/mcaulfield/educational-technology-and-sources-innovation

And on this question the historical record is fairly clear -- open frameworks which allow lead users to hack are the systems that will produce long-term gains. http://www.educause.edu/blogs/mcaulfield/educational-technology-and-sources-innovation

If we wish to engage in ongoing innovation, we need to focus on generating conditions that foster more communities of more such people, not less. That means making sure that educational technology is as hackable as farm equipment, shampoo, and skateboards. That means choosing technology for your campus based on what your most creative and effective users need, so that they can advance your local practice, and steering away from lowest common denominator technology. It means looking to our practitioners to lead the way, and then asking industry to follow. And ultimately it requires that we cease to see innovation as a set-and-forget product we buy, and engage with it as a process and a culture we intend to foster.  If we wish to engage in ongoing innovation, we need to focus on generating conditions that foster more communities of more such people, not less. That means making sure that educational technology is as hackable as farm equipment, shampoo, and skateboards. That means choosing technology for your campus based on what your most creative and effective users need, so that they can advance your local practice, and steering away from lowest common denominator technology. It means looking to our practitioners to lead the way, and then asking industry to follow. And ultimately it requires that we cease to see innovation as a set-and-forget product we buy, and engage with it as a process and a culture we intend to foster. http://www.educause.edu/blogs/mcaulfield/educational-technology-and-sources-innovation

Worth pointed me to a visualization of the Twittersphere to illustrate the kind of peer network he, his colleagues, their students share. Martin Hawksey built a Twitter social network visualization tool, TAGSExplorer, that shows the nodes and networks that Tweet about particular hashtags. Alan Levine, who is also instrumental in the evolution of ds106, a digital storytelling class that doesn't focus exclusively on photography, showed Worth how to use TAGSExplorer to see the reach of Tweets related to Phonar. "When I show this to students, I show them how to search and drill down to see who's talking about their work and who else those people are talking about."

Visualizing the networks on Twitter helped Worth make the power of online social networks more concrete to students. Another powerful tool for showing network power was TweetReach: "I remember the day when a student made a kind of back-of-the-classroom, semi-joking remark in our class at Coventry and someone Tweeted it with the #phonar hashtag. When we saw that it had reached more than 10,000 people, we all looked at each other – one of those penny-drop moments when everyone in the room understood how large the online part of the course had become." Howard Rheingold case study http://connectedlearning.tv/case-studies/phonar-transmedia-storytelling-through-openly-networked-learning

going 'where the fish swim' - using tools and resources that students and professioanls may be already familiar with

blog as hub

collation, aggregation and curation as key aspects of techologies to support this model

lead user innovation Eric von hippel

focus on the technology and not on pedagogy??

Further development of shared networks and mutually developed content with Researchers, professional practitioners, Colleges, Further Education and community education programmes is the only viable way to extend the remit of these classes/this approach into new arenas. This transforms/expands the idea of what a “class” is. (COMC Final Report)

Legacy / the visitor experience: there are profound issues, which we are just coming to terms with about the radically different experiences afforded to the users of our Open Classes when they are fully live Vs. when they are dormant. We had been acutely aware of these differences but the challenges of the latter are profound. (COMC Final Report)

The Digital formations class was initially not set up to be an Actively Open Class – more an Open archive/open resource, this again raises the question of the relationships between content, format and signposting for external visitors. There has obviously been considerable effort invested in the project site and the student sites (to varying degrees) but the question has to be asked – how visitors outside the F2F class know of the site? Where is it signposted and how are others going to find it? One answer is that the tutor’s website http://europeandreamscapes.wordpress.com/) contains links to the student sites and to the module site, as well as details of other projects on this theme with which he is involved. The network associated with this project and site could have been more effectively used to direct attention/commentary and contribution back to the class site.   (COMC Final Report)

linking with other bodies within and without education world is where this model leads and creates viable structores and mechanisms to support in a long term sustainable way

significant resourcing issues and operational apsects to consider

long term open resource

needs a log in to access it now....

There has been significant spin-out from this project – the Media Dept. has established an Open/Innovative Pedagogies working group with one COMC project member as one of its leaders, but it also incorporates three other staff, new to the approach. (COMC Final Report)

Initiatives adopting the Open Approach are now being developed in the BA Media and Communications course, the MA CCM and the BA Journalism and Media.  (COMC Final Report)

Evidence of transferability within and outside the institution

The idea behind the archives was to provide an enduring set of resources on each project topic, e.g. the cultural impact of the war in the Balkans, representations of Palestine, etc. As indicated some of the archives appear to fulfil this role better than others; some appearing as little more than relatively short-term ‘student projects’ produced as coursework. The best of the archives provide an impressive range of interpretation and narrative as well as statistics, video links, photographs, audio recordings etc. on the particular topic addressed and these could be of a genuine value to others looking into or researching such a topic. The central hub archive digital formations is an attractively produced site with a significant amount of tutor produced content  (COMC Final Report)

It was pleasing to see that the twitter/facebook pages remained active beyond the end date of the course. Also the fact that contributors were able to engage and generate content that was curated for discussion in a number of online spaces including Facebook, P2PU, Twitter and on the course website aided this level of participation. During the running of the course the #creativact hashtag seems to have been in use by a number of people on twitter. The class team also made core material available through iTunes  collections and are monitoring its use on that platform  (COMC Final Report)

Eleanor: You’ve put most of Phonar’s content online too.

Jonathan: There’s very little I’ve held back. There’s nothing to stop people using the online material elsewhere but they can’t have me look through their portfolio, they can’t sit in a room with 10 other students and they can’t hang around with Simon Roberts. So you still have to pay for all that analogue stuff. The idea that we are giving our classes away for free is utterly terrifying for some. People think, “Well, students just won’t pay to go to uni” but within two years this course is the hardest to get into at the university. We only accept one in 10 of the students that we interview.

http://www.professionalphotographer.co.uk/Magazine/The-Business/Turn-on-tune-in-drop-in-to-Phonar  Jan 2011

Long term relevance for other learners

ongoing engagement by students

evidence of impact on increased student applications - despite alot of content being online - emphasises the fact that students don't buy the content - they buy the experience