3.2 What kinds of institutional and departmental structures, strategies, policies and processes can support these models?

Coventry Open Media Classes have been developed incrementally which has allowed iterative responses and small steps to be taken. This approach did not, therefore, require wholesale institutional buy-in in the early stages but allowed the team to test things out and take smaller risks.  The open classes are part of the UG BA (Hons) in Photography which already aligns with Coventry University Strategy and has undergone validation processes.  During the Jisc funded period in 2012 there was no specific Institutional position on open approaches to teaching but there was a general support of technology enhanced learning and to particpatory/ student-centred learning and teaching strategies. Senior Managers did show support for the project. In 2009 Shaun Hides developed and presented an Open Media Policy to senior managers which has underpinned the developments and innovations within the Department. This policy identified five key elements that underpin teaching on the Open Media Classes - Tactical, Sustainable, Engaged, Visible and Collaborative. Policies such as these are essential to support developments and can offer staff a tangible blueprint to support changing practice. As the classes progressed they were able to gather evidence and respond to any questions as they emerged

"The VC came to us and asked how we were going to raise the course profile, improve the experience for the students, grow their international opportunities and save money. Well, I was able to show how we'd been very successful attracting large numbers to #phonar and that we've had people go on to assist Annie Leibovitz, Trent Park, Steve Pyke, Elinor Carucci. It's now the hardest course in the uni to get onto, and by using existing social media environments it all came at no extra cost." Jonathan Worth (2012) http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/in-pictures-20495489

Using free online resources and tools negated the need for significant IT support but this approach needs to balance effectively with institutional technologies and systems. Initially, the University marketing team expressed concern about the use of a non-institutional wordpress blog, but the sheer volume of traffic provided tangible evidence that this approach was attracting visitors from all over the world and had potential for raising the profile of Coventry University. If the Institution had decided to prohibit the use of the blog it would have had a significant impact on how the classes were run. The classes made use of a wide range of different social media services but the wordpress site acted as the hub for the distributed network - a key principle of the approaches adopted.

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, 2012)

For open initiatives such as these the issue of ownership and licencing requires clarity of policy and practice at an institutional level and at the point of contact by course participants

The resulting success of the classes has led

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• issues around ownership of open content requires
• understanding of open licensing by all participants is important both in terms of participating in the course and for future professional practice of students - this needs to be integrated into the classes as part of the digital literacy element
• open courses need to be validated and supported institutionally through existing mechanisms - although Coventry started by adapting classes in existing courses they have reached a point now where they submitted a new open MA course based on the open course models which was accepted and approved institutionally
• the team are inroducing new courses which align with the institutional strategy on graduate enterprise and employability with a clear focus on ensuring that courses aim to equip students with appropriate skills for the changing creative media professions