We have undertaken a small number of short F-2-F meetings and other in/formal events and are about to put together an online symposium. These are to enable debate, peer-evaluation, dissemination and promulgation of the concept of open classes, these activities will extend beyond the lifespan of the project.  A number of dissemination activities have been undertaken already – these range from small-scale focused briefings  - to institutional presentations – to international conferences. (COMC Final Report)

The appropriateness of platforms and measurability around engagement – beyond surface analytics it is difficult to evaluate the depth of interaction within particular content and communities. (COMC Final Report)

Alan Levine Cogdog - http://cogdogblog.com/2012/07/13/phonar-picbod/

While all the attention has been on North America, in the UK at Coventry University are two open online photography classes that have a lot of mass. Led by professional photographer Jonathan Worth, the two open classes #phonar (photography + narrative) and #picbod (picturing the body) have a close affinity to ds106 — they are centered on a smaller group of enrolled students how get direct instructor led experiences plus an overlap with a larger group of open participants who choose to do some of the work or engage with the students in a supportive fashion. Theses two courses also run as an aggregation WordPress hub, pulling in content from individual student maintained blogs.

What is extra special about these classes is that because of Jonathan’s professional connections, he is able to bring in and connect his students out to practitioners (who come into class too), and students have ended up interning or doing projects with this pros. Also interesting is that these are not just “online learning” for the students at Coventry- they are doing printing and hands on assembly, creating exhibits, going out into the community. The online portion is an augmentation, not a replacement, of teaching.

The outside participants (I think) submit their stuff via tags, etc, and you can sense the international reach by the inclusion of audio translations of parts of the site. Again, this is unlike the mass scaling of the Big Time Money MOOCs, where it is the same experience for all– the Coventry students get the closely attended and in person experience they pay for; the outside participants pick and choose their participation, but it is not a carbon copy. It is the mixing of the participants where magic happens

An essential part of this will be non-paying attendees (you) joining in with us, submitting your work, asking questions and contributing answers.

The heart of this is that phonar is not a course about the nuts and bolts of doing photography nor the high level art analyses (thought these happen), it is asking the students to become engaged and part of the projects they examine through the lens (e.g. dyslexia, personal relations, self-image social justice), but that the also explore the process of being a photography, and weaving it together in audio, visual, video format, published to the open web- what they describe as transmedia storytelling.

Any more gathered since COMC report. Massive increase in numbers engaged (30000)

External collaborators outside HE, with little or no experience of OER have been extremely difficult to engage with. The least successful aspect of the project has been our attempt to engage with local colleges.  We have made bridgeheads with a small number of Phoenix Partner Colleges – especially Finham Park School and Calunden Castle School,  but this has required high-levels of F2F commitment and (almost) ‘bribery’!  Beyond accessing the individual class contents – which after the meeting to set the contact up is almost impossible to identify – there has been almost no active participation in the classes. Team members visited the Colleges, walked-through the class sites discussed potential uses, emphasised the open and free nature of the content, resources and networks. The only ‘cost’ to these participant for enhanced access to the classes  and additional support was that they put some comments on the classes and especially the core COMC  project pages. In the event none did so.  This experience highlights the barrier that exists on our part on the transition from ‘broadcasting’ modes and on the part of potential external  participants if the arrive at the class after its development
(COMC Final Report)

issues around engagement of students around the open platform approach in terms of their digital literacy skills (fluency) - when digital literacy was not the focus of the class’ activities (COMC Interim Report)

However, in this class (Creative Activism) some Coventry students expressed concerns about external participants having access to the class. Their initial perception being that for ‘normal’ fee paying students – their “Paid for ” and “Open access” shouldn’t go together; also that their work should not be “given away. This was somewhat ironic given the value they also attached to the input of external contributors – who were not paid. These perceptions did shift through the class. It is notable that some of the same students were also not happy about the Activist stance of the module – there was clearly some difference of expectation about what their film-making direction should be and the team’s view that it should be informed by diverse experiences.    (COMC Final Report)

student skill levels

student perceptions, student ownership, shifting perceptions

Eleanor: What’s been the response from the outside world?

Jonathan: It’s been overwhelmingly positive. All of a sudden the network started to tune and people started contributing ideas. Suddenly the course is full of the type of content that I would have loved to have followed.

Eleanor: The course content is constantly honed then?

Jonathan: It doesn’t stop and it’s getting better all the time. Once people have bought into it they want to see things through.

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

There is a broad range of OER resources available both to Coventry Students and to external participants, who are interested in the class; with links to a range of professional organisations and social enterprises. In particular the series of podcast interviews help to provide working examples of practitioners who are involved in Creative Activism projects and show the range of collaborators from around the world who took part in the open aspects of the course. (COMC Final Report)

Each Open Class is working with a slightly different emphasis, different process of content generation and a distinctive balance of media/platforms; but all students have very actively contributed and participated. This is evidenced within each of  the Open Class sites. The staff have also been very highly engaged with these projects. All the sites have a richer range depth and mix of resources than has been the case with conventional modules. (COMC Final Report)

Legacy / the visitor experience: there are profound issues, which we are just coming to terms with - the radically different experiences afforded to the users of our Open Classes when they are fully live Vs. when they are dormant. (COMC Final Report)

Anyone who throws themselves in will be well-rewarded as the interactive side of the class is key. Worth can see comments from students both in the room and online via Twitter or Facebook in real time, as well as allowing others to drop in, or suggest links to relevant material. It's a fluid learning experience, well suited to those who will be working in an industry that, like many others, is undergoing radical change.

Although Worth had not built it into the course, the first cohort of Picbod students spontaneously decided to mount an exhibition of their own: "We had all these people joining the class online who were submitting pictures from all over the world. Very few of them were practicing photographers at that point. They were architects, librarians, undergraduates, musicians, printers, chicken farmers – a bunch of different people." They were all pitching and sharing images, then the Picbod community decided to "show what they could do that an iPhone photographer couldn't." The community of learners was taking ownership of their co-learning because Worth gave them the tools, freedom, guidance, and encouragement to do so. Howard Rheingold case study, 2013 http://connectedlearning.tv/case-studies/phonar-transmedia-storytelling-through-openly-networked-learning

Not many photography students will have Jon Levy, the director of [photography company] Foto8, reviewing your work and talking one-on-one with you.

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

There are also many issues around engagement of students with the open platform approach not just in terms of their digital literacy skills (fluency) - when digital literacy was not the focus of the class’ activities – but also their awareness of the changing Media and HE landscape, their attachment to old models of both, their resistance to collaborative learning, etc. etc.  (COMC Final Report)

Students are now treated as digitally literate but frequently aren’t (they are autodidacts and are specifically and highly capable) but they are not fluent in the professional use of digital media. This raises issues for the open platform approach in terms of their literacy skills- when digital literacy was not the focus of the class’ activities. (COMC Final Report)

Getting student groups to present their archives professionally (in terms of layout, design, organisation and visuals) from the outset – this is not a technical but a communications issue – if “you are visible” you need to communicate professionally consistently.  (COMC Final Report)

The students have been very engaged with each of these classes – it is difficult to quantify precisely, because numerous factors inform students perception of the value of any one class (most are subjective and all are experiential factors, which are necessarily affected by complex and multiple factors. Nonetheless, it is safe to say that these classes enjoyed some of the best module evaluations of the year and also produced some of the most interesting and exciting student work. For many students and more so in specific classes, there was little sense they were participating in an “Open Class”. Students were informed, but this ethos had relatively little value to them, what mattered was the quality and richness of the experience our approach enabled. In one case there was some anxiety over / resistance to the Open Class approach. (COMC Final Report)

In addition to these resources the class tutors have established and actively maintained/curated an active social media (especially twitter)  network around the class. This enables a lively conversations surrounding their “learning objects”  - the interviews, podcasts, lectures, tasks and task-responses. These conversations together with the visitor stat.s/analytics for the class site – indicate high levels of Coventry student an external visitor participation (COMC Final Report)

One of the most salient benefits of the class operating within an architecture that integrates with the student’s existing social media environments (as well as the networks of practitioners) is that the reach and exposure of the “learning objects” is maximised. These OER’s are located exactly where the communities are most active though still aggregated and contextualised within the picbod class framework. (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)

Overall the outcome of the Open Classes project has been an excellent student response. Students have been hugely engaged with the classes and the projects they have undertaken within them. It is right to acknowledge that this may not be the same thing as being highly engaged with the Open Class ethos -  or with OER/OEP per se.  In all three classes students were very engaged with the projects undertaken within them, they achieved good results and recorded high levels of student satisfaction.    (COMC Final Report)

In particular, the class has shown that, around the lectures and practical workshops – given by both Coventry Tutors and visiting practitioners and Scholars – the collaborative production of content can be both fast, and can drastically expand the experience and learning of students. This often began with the simple aggregating of hash-tagged, tweeted, notes, questions and observations. But when connected through the various social media platforms these notes became powerful means of articulating themes and learning the students want to pursue. The Lecture is a collaborative production rather than a ‘broadcast’ artefact which students respond to.   (COMC Final Report)

Worth's classes live on blogs and on Twitter (hashtag #phonar), and are proving a popular resource amongst photography enthusiasts and professionals alike. Their accessible nature is appealing and the list of contributors impressive. What's more you can book one-on-ones with guest tutors such as photographer Chris Floyd, artist Robbie Cooper and author Timothy O'Grady.

student comments….

My time on the photography course made me see my world and understand the way I learn, and perhaps how much of the population learns. It also taught me to believe in myself. I am dyslexic, and through my time in education it has been a battle. At Coventry University they helped me understand that dyslexia can be a positive attribute in this multimedia world that is being created by us around us. I learnt that reading and writing weren't the only way to communicate and that visual language, audio and limited writing can for many people be an even better way of communicating. They taught me how to use images, sounds and video to tell a story. I might not be able to write a sentence or even read it, but I can communicate powerfully through the visual language. I have used sound, images and videos to document issues of personal interest to me and to help others understand better. My most recent work was to publish a piece of work that gave voice to students in education with dyslexia. Through my work with #phonar I have learnt the world is filled with lots of different people and we all think and learn differently. Coventry University has shown me it doesn't matter what disability you have, anything is possible. I truly believe if it was not for the great staff I wouldn't be standing here today with a degree, they believed in me. I will carry on my storytelling work on issues that are important to me and hopefully make them proud. Larissa Grace

The photography course at Coventry University and especially the open classes have totally changed how I operate as a photographer. It's made me think about how I define myself as a 21st Century practitioner and helped me understand the importance of networking in order to find or tell a story. It's opened up my eyes to the quantity of online platforms which can benefit me professionally, and has really kept me reflecting on myself in the role of author and storyteller. As well as focusing on such online and digital tools, it has also promoted to me the idea of the importance of the physical artefact, something which has made a big impact on me and what I produce. The skills I have learned and developed from the open classes have given me the confidence in my work to distribute it and enter it into national and international competitions. From this I won an honourable mention in the non-professional photo essay and feature story category of the International Photography Awards and was also was selected to exhibit at the recent Brighton Photo Fringe. Sean Carroll

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/in-pictures-20495489 dec2102

Eleanor: Do you feel your students are well prepared to face the real world?

Jonathan: In lots of degree courses you go in, the door is closed behind you and you stay inside for three years. Then on graduation day they open the door and spit you out again. We don’t do that. The first year is an incubation year where the students are closed off. In the second year we introduce this idea to the students of a broader community and by the third year the students are engaging dynamically with the broader community.

Eleanor: So the real world is opened to your students rather than hitting them right at the end?

Jonathan: Precisely. One of our students got an internship with Annie Leibovitz last year. Another has been nominated for a Luceo [student project] award – that is a year’s funding.

Eleanor: The Phonar course is coming to an end for this academic year so what’s next?

Jonathan: Now that they’ve followed this course, the students would normally be spending the next two terms preparing for their degree show but our guys, they could be talking about books, magazines, newspapers, viral strategies... hopefully something I haven’t even thought about.

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

In characterizing the challenges faced by his students, he observed that “the hardest problem is that they arrive having been pumped out of a system that is an educational factory based largely on tests.”  Such students are “are used to being given an answer and then shown the correct way to arrive at this answer, which is algorithmic learning – not heuristic problem-solving, which is what they face with me.”

At the start of his classes he announces that “I don’t have the answers to the problems that we are going to deal with.  We are going to have to make you a job, because there is no rigid or defined career structure, and for the portfolio we are going to build every single student has to take a unique path through the learning process,” which is “philosophically a big deal for a seventeen-year-old.”

In making the transition from “algorithmic learning” to “heuristic learning,” Worth emphasizes the importance of being attentive to social norms about “being a good person.”  As Worth says, “everything that is important in an analog situation still applies.”  For example, “a student will come to me and say ‘no one commented on my blog.’  I have to explain that you can’t expect Valentine cards or Christmas cards if you don’t send them yourself.”  He also emphasizes consistency.  “What if you come to a pub every night, and you are really friendly the first night.  Then Tuesday and Wednesday you speak to no one and start asking for favors on Friday, what do you think people will think of you?  On one level digital fluency is about humanizing all of these different kinds of experiences.”

In talking about how the MOOC student experience in more impersonal massive open online courses differs, Worth stresses the importance of “inculcating a culture of peer support in which there is always a face and an identity on the issue.  Generally people want to help people.  If people fall over, you catch them.”  Although celebrity culture and controversy draws many to the course, because Worth recruits “people who have a social media following or have relevance within a moment” to be guest participants, he insists that such star power only demonstrates “the value of the network” and “involving people in the process of the class.”

http://dmlcentral.net/blog/liz-losh/phonar-massive-free-open-photography-class Jan 2104

In the case of a student who got an internship with Annie Leibovitz, how much time, and therefore how much cost would that have entailed had we actually tried to make that happen in a conventional way, the number of hours on the phone, the number of email exchanges, the negotiations backwards and forwards – even if we could have brokered that opportunity –  which I doubt that we could, the kinds of attention to our classes that this is bringing, can I tell you that we’ve got 10% more applications because of this particular open class? No, there’s no way that I can say that, but I do see in the faces of the students who come on every open day, their reaction when we talk about this way of working; and I do know for instance at a time when most courses in the UK, most courses in the UK, are experiencing a small drop, a smaller than everybody expected, but a small drop in application numbers, on average our courses have experienced about a 15-20% increase this year. And I don’t think that’s a coincidence, I think this is because of the approach that we’re taking, I think that potential students understand that what we’re trying to do is work in this way and that it is appropriate to the media environment now, so is that a cost or is that a benefit? To me it’s absolutely a benefit, but I couldn’t tell you how much it’s worth and how much I’ve saved, maybe at some point in the future we will be able to. Shaun Hides

Jisc on Air Radio recording - Delivering Free online courses - how open can we be? http://jisconair.jiscinvolve.org/wp/transcripts/delivering-free-online-courses-how-open-can-we-be/

Oliver Wood Final reflections - http://oliver-wood-photography.co.uk/wp/?page_id=1626

Throughout the module I have analysed and picked up on various points from the information presented to us, as well as carrying out research from reading books such as 'After Photography', getting in touch with industry experts such as Fred Ritchin and Phil Coomes, and doing broader more image based research of various projects which draw upon the information I have picked out from the module. These are evidenced in various blog posts. This is however something which I will constantly be exploring, especialy in regards to my FMP and Symposium. It all links.

The various tasks and guest lectures as well as discussions within the module have made me realise the importance of the narrative in conveying a message, and also how different mediums can be used to convey this narrative. Issues such as the audience the message is aimed at, and the methods in which they use to gain access to media are different from narrative to narrative. This is an important part in the communication process. Context behind the message is also a key element, and this can be built up through layers of infomation through various methods such as online links, or text alongside images to create their context. This is also something which I am still learning about through my discussions with Phil Coomes. The other KEY issue which I have taken away from the lectures by Dalia Kamisy and Sarah Davidman is the importance of a collaborative work process, and the respect which is needed within that process.

I have taken away the fact that photography is no longer a static medium. Regardless of which specialism I choose to persue, I will need the technical skills evidenced in this module, and I will need to explore how different ways of telling narratives depening on which audiences I am telling them too. This also applies outside of the photography field, to a much broader comercial aspect. This is something which I need to carry on pushing forward with as new narrative forms evolve and come to light, and it will be something constantly evolving as my practice as a photographer / narrative teller, moves forward.

Throughout the module we have spoken about the issue of data and metadata, we have all this information but how do we make sense of it? By using the image as an interactive 'map' linking this information, I wanted to explore how we can make sense of things, and explore things in more depth.

Whilst Phonar is a module in its own right, I have explored various different concepts and ideas, as well as technical skills which I want to push forwards. Ten weeks sounds like a long amount of time, yet it really isn't long enough for me to explore the ideas sparking off in my head.

Before phonar, I thought of a final major project as a book, a print, maybe a video - certainly not an online interactive storytelling experience. I want to create something much more fluid, like Pine Point.

I find this starting point to launch into my FMP exciting, and can't wait to crack on!

on Metadata

Something which has cropped up now and again in #phonar is the issue of the data contained within our images. This can range from the content of the image itself, through to who with and how we share the images we create. Something that I am particularly interested in is the metadata within these images. This is the hidden, technical data about an image; the recipe for how it was created.

I had the opportunity to speak to Phil Coomes, online photo editor for the BBC about his thoughts on how metadata is used to judge the trust of an image, and how this helps news organisations to choose images for publication.

Phil mentioned that many news organisations; including the BBC, strip out the metadata from images before publication. This is something which I did not know about before the conversation with Phil, but I can see why it could be useful. If certain harrowing images have come from a war zone for example, then information contained within them could be used to trace the subjects of the image and could lead to punishment. Whilst this might perhaps be an extreme example, it does highlight the point that news organisations have a duty of care of which they take seriously.

Fred Ritchin mentioned previously that people don’t care about the metadata of images and that they are only useful for evidential purposes. This is something that Phil seems to agree with. He wrote “I think for most people who view photography online then it's [metadata] not really something they notice, or perhaps even know about.” People might not know about this hidden layer of data which they create every time they take an image, but it is something which can be used to tell us a lot about the photographer.

on trust

Over the last couple of years of the course, we have been told again and again about the importance of online networking through social media, websites and other forms of communication. Whilst I understood the importance of this, something which I didn't understand as fully was the importance of building up a trust with these connections. This is something which I feel #phonar has allowed me to understand and develop in order to maximise the credibility of my online presence.

I would like to clarify, when I talk about an 'image' I refer to a picture on a screen. When I refer to a photograph, I am talking about the traditional view of photography as a printed object.

"...when it went online, people didn't even know to click on an image, because you were used to not touching it with your finger in the middle of an image. We had to explain that you could click on the image yourself. It was a new idea." - Fred Ritchin (2013)

This quote is important as it demonstrates how recently the idea of an 'image' has come about. As a digital native myself, I haven't known a time when images were not used to create stories, but equally, I haven't really thought about the importance of them as narrative tools.

Holly Constantive final reflection - https://hollyconstantinephotography.wordpress.com/2014/11/28/351mc-phonar-final-reflection/

I found that throughout the #phonar module, I personally focused on the idea of having digital natives as an audience, due to the fact that the module focused mainly on concepts surrounding the digital age. In a number of different weekly reflections, I therefore discussed different ideas about how appealing to the changing, digital native audience has transformed throughout the digital era. (For example, in week three I discussed how creating a photographic narrative has become slightly more complex within the digital age due to the audiences increasing understanding of the photographic and digital mediums and its relation to the multiple point perspective; in week six I discussed Shahidul Alam’s idea on transportation mechanisms and suggested that these must have changed within the digital era due to the increasing accessibility of digital technologies and the layering of digital aspects making the digital age a more complex viewing medium for the audience; in week seven I discussed the ideas put forward by Marcus Bleasdale and Aaron Huey about experimenting with the boundaries of our photographic practice as a way of appealing to different audiences; and finally, in week eight I looked at how the reading of the image and using the image as a stimuli for action has changed within the digital age as the audience’s involvement has changed

Overall, I feel that the #phonar module has benefited me in a number of ways. This module has allowed me to gain and enhance my knowledge of different theories and concepts surrounding photography within the digital era, whilst also providing me with the opportunity to critically engage with these themes, allowing me to explore my own take on what has been discussed. This, in turn, has enabled me to become a more digitally literate photographic practitioner, allowing me to successfully differentiate myself from the amateur photographers of today. Throughout #phonar, I have also gained and increased a number of different experimental skills through exploring different resources that photographers can now access in the digital age. By doing this, I have also been introduced to a number of techniques regarding appealing to and immersing different audiences in my projects, which has allowed me to identify a sparked interest in the idea of “Photography for your ears” and cinemagraphs, which I am now considering incorporating into my Final Major Project as a way of creating a more immersive (and personal) experience for the audience.

Rebecca Woodall - final reflection  - https://rebeccawoodallphotography.wordpress.com/2014/12/03/phonar-500-word-evaluation/

David Campbell stressed the importance of context to inform a piece of work and I believe that my research through this module has assisted in the creation of a piece with more substance and meaning behind it instead of the decorative work I had been producing previously. The ideology I have most engaged with is that of Fred Ritchin and Stephen Mayes with their apparent polarisation of ideas, I have analysed their information and it is a structure I am basing my symposium script around.

Approaching Phonar I had the ideology that the photograph was the same as the image, digital photography and video were completely separate mediums and the key issues involved with photography didn’t stretch much more than the limitations of commerce and commercial manipulation. However after being introduced to practitioners such as Fred Ritchin, Stephen Mayes, David Campbell and Shahidul along with many other contributors, I have been able to identify and reflection the key issues associated with post-modern photography following the paradigm shift from analogue to digital.

The Phonar module has been responsible for the change in my ideology and practise from visualising and producing ‘decorative’ work to identifying key issues and responding with the most appropriate tool available to me; whether it be photography or another practise such as video, sound or even the written word. I understand that my work in the most case is a starting point; a raw thought to be developed on however I have been able to interpret and reflect on the key concepts, which will undoubtedly form the basis for my future practise.

J Stonely final reflections  - https://jstonelyphotography.wordpress.com/2014/11/27/final-reflection-on-learning-outcomes-of-phonar/

It was also Huey that made me aware that, by placing my work online it is assessable by most people. For my “Post photographic portrait” I am expanding whom I reach with my work. By collaborating with Laura Ritchie’s cello piece I am engaging an audience from a music background. By talking to motorcyclists I am engaging with them and their friends surrounding motorsports. This all expands on my audience for my work. I realise now that it is imperative that we show our subjects story how they want to show it. It is the collaborative part of the work that makes it successful.

Victoria simkiss final reflection - https://victoriasimkissphotography.wordpress.com/2014/12/03/phonar-reflection-and-meeting-the-learning-outcomes/

Overall, #phonar has been a thoroughly enjoyable class. To begin with, I really struggled to understand where it was going – I knew I was enjoying the first talks and identifying the points which stood out to me but I was struggling to grasp the concept of where everything was meeting. However a few weeks in, I was able to begin making connections between the talks and the concepts and I really began enjoying #phonar. I have loved listening to the different talks each week and discussing the ideas as a class, I particularly think tweeting our notes has been brilliant as it has made us all a lot more involved as well as making me more confident in sharing my ideas. The tasks have also been really interesting and engaging, there were some which I struggled with however in the end it has enhanced my learning and understanding as well as allowing me to produce my post-photographic piece which I am quite proud of. I will now be able to take these thoughts away with me and potentially bring them to my other modules such as my final project and continue thinking about them in my professional practice.

Jenny Swerdlow - final reflection  https://jennylucyswerds.wordpress.com/2014/12/02/phonar-end-of-module-summary-and-reflection/

Looking back, Phonar has been a great module, introducing us to many different practitioners, themes and ideas.

So what does it mean to be a 21st century photographer? My take on this is; to create something of substance, understanding the visual literature, adapting with the times and the second paradigm shift away from the photograph to the digital image. Now there is no single point perspective with photography, we have to offer something different to stand out amongst the masses that are also image makers. Photography is now a means for communication and an experience, rather than a form of evidence as it was pre the digital era, all these elements i’ll be taking into consideration when I leave university and join the world of image makers, but distinguish myself as a photographer, creating something of substance, understanding the digital image and who my audience is, and how they receive their media and information.

Digital literacies

Media awareness

Resistance to collaborative learning

Wedded to old models

Focus on presentation of themselves as professionals

Impact on learning experience and outcomes

high levels of interaction and visability for their work

ongoing engagement after end of course

engagement

collaborative aspect - impact on learning experience and learning outcomes

student access to professionals

powerful statement re learning, building confidence and understanding

real world interaction and preparation

are students ready for this kind of education

reciprocality

the value of the network and peer support

Eleanor: The course has attracted quite a lot of attention.

Jonathan: I had a phone call out of the blue from the Royal Society of the Arts saying they’d like to make me a fellow. I thought, that’s great, I get access to the bar and restaurant! They are probably sick of me now. And shortly after that I got another call from someone saying the European Parliament was discussing a change in copyright legislation and was interested to hear what I had to say about it. They also wanted to talk about the Cory Doctorow project and how that worked. I told them all about it and put all the details online. I was quite honest about what I felt I hadn’t done well, and what I’d do differently next time. However, the bottom line was that two years previously I’d taken a picture of Cory Doctorow for Wired magazine; the resell on that image was about £200 in two or three years whereas with this project I made £2,000. So as a traditional supplier [photographer] I’d made £200, but as a publisher I’d made £2,000 and I’d given away the picture for free, apparently.

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

That’s about us building that network, building that community, building that trust, if the things that we say in these spaces prove to be unreliable, not interesting, not challenging, off the money, then people simply won’t trust us, and they won’t stay in our networks. As a head of department I began this story with the question of  research.

I think that we’re on the cusp of a transformation of the landscape of academic publishing, I think the idea that, for much longer we’re going to have a situation where scholars in universities are going to subject themselves to peer review, fellow scholars, negotiated and managed through an academic publisher that then charges them for the privilege of reading their own research, and worse than that, charges libraries and thereby students a huge amount to have access to that information, I think that whole network and that whole framework is going to be radically transformed. Shaun Hides

Jisc on Air Radio recording - Delivering Free online courses - how open can we be? http://jisconair.jiscinvolve.org/wp/transcripts/delivering-free-online-courses-how-open-can-we-be/

The fear of ‘free-ness’: an unexpected reaction, particularly from schools and colleges - the anxiety over whether they can - use and re-use ‘our’ material. (COMC Final Report)

Team members visited the Colleges, walked-through the class sites discussed potential uses, emphasised the open and free nature of the content, resources and networks. The only ‘cost’ to these participant for enhanced access to the classes  and additional support was that they put some comments on the classes and especially the core COMC  project pages. In the event none did so.  This experience highlights the barrier that exists on our part on the transition from ‘broadcasting’ modes and on the part of potential external participants if the arrive at the class after its development (COMC Final Report)

A second aspect of this ‘fear of free-ness’ is the nervousness about social media networks and their absence in some context. Our most effective ‘actively-open’ classes, have learnt the social media lesion of going to where the fish already swim and connect with networks that already exist. In the case of some contexts that we would wish to engage with, those peer communities/networks are under-developed, only just forming or non-existent. This has proved to be the case with regional Colleges (Phoenix Partners) – there is little educational networking amongst them and less use of social media - this leads us back to an ineffective broadcasting model. The broadcasting of Open resources ‘at’ colleges creates its own resistances.     (COMC Final Report)

The ‘digital noise wall’: making large amounts of content freely available online and within a open-access frameworks (which can be largely ‘passive’), can in itself be intimidating to those outside the OER world. We see this, in part, as a symptom of our own transition from a ‘broadcast’ culture, to a collaborative (actively Open) one.   (COMC Final Report)  

As part of the COMC project we have been keen to improve our awareness of the general trends that form the context of OER/OEP. The department has committed its own resources (external to the JISC project) to this activity. We have worked with an external partner to produce a draft scoping report on the field. This will inform a publication in the near future. Together with our own growing awareness of related projects and developments – acquired during the deliver of the COMC project we are aware of some major trends which are influencing our thinking during this evaluation phase. (COMC Final report)

The rising tide – there is a series of very large organisations e.g. News Corp – via  Amplify; Coursera; Kahn Academy etc etc - often funded by the largest player in the web (e.g. Google) which are moving quickly into the field of education – often using Open Resources as a lever. This change will profoundly affect the nature of the voluntary educational landscape – which in turn will significantly impact universities. There is an approaching transformation of the higher educational landscape – either directly through approaches like ours, or indirectly by virtue of the profound transformation of the expectations and assumption of participants in (higher) education. Given the direction from which this tide is coming and the strength of those driving it a simple response would be that we must ‘learn to swim /surf’, rather than running. Put otherwise, we can indeed must acknowledge and anticipate this large-scale trend and actively manage our position with reference to it.    (COMC Final Report)