Walking the 'open education' talk

For some years I have been talking about open access and open educational resources. I think it is essential for midwifery sustainability, growth and professional support to make as much of what we do and teach open to all in the online environment. By working in this way, we foster collaboration and communication with midwives all over the world, as well as improve communication with pregnant women and families. This is why Deborah Davis and I have developed the concept of the Virtual International day of the Midwife with the format it has - open and free to all midwives.

Recently I have challenged myself about my practice, and realised that I do not necessarily walk the talk, especially in relation to publication of my work. So I have asked myself this question:

I talk about open access and open access journals, but how ethical am I being by submitting my work to closed midwifery journals?

Where should I submit my work for publication?
This question has come to a head over the last few months for several reasons.

Access to journal articles
The first reason is my ongoing frustration about the difficulty of accessing journal articles. I have talked about this issue more than once, recognising the difficulty midwives have in accessing evidence-based information, especially if they are geographically isolated or do not have access to medical libraries or databases.

There are a number of open access journals that midwives should find useful, but all of the main midwifery journals are closed to all but subscribers. And for many midwives, subscription is prohibitive.

Here are a few online journals that may be of interest to midwives:

• Canadian Journal of Midwifery Research and Practice
• International Journal of Nursing and Midwifery
  
• Rural and Remote Health
• Journal of Medical Internet Research
• Internet Journal of Gynecology and Obstetrics
• International Breastfeeding Journal
• New Zealand College of Midwives
  

Role Models
The second reason I have started questioning my practice is the influence of strong role modelling that I see around me. The Second Life Education Project, Leigh Blackall and his open PhD and Wayne Mackintosh with his work in Wikieducator have all got me looking at how I can be a role model to the midwifery profession. My open work and research in this blog has been noted by other midwives, but I feel it is time to take a real step of faith into open access publication.

Open access does work
I spoke to Professor Terry Anderson (a professor who specialises in education) a couple of weeks ago at a conference in Wellington and he told me he only published in journals that had open access. Of course, he has the luxury of being able to take this decision - he has the international name and resources to support his work. Nevertheless, he has put his money where his mouth is, and published a number of open access books that have reached far larger audiences than those he published using conventional methods. It goes without saying that I am barely on the same planet as Terry, but I do feel I can contribute in my own way. I believe that if we all do our small bit and move to open publishing, closed midwifery journals will be forced to respond.

Invitations
The third reason I have started thinking about this whole issue is that I have recently had several invitations to publish articles. I also have a back log of work to publish including the work I have done with eMentoring, Second Life and the Virtual International Day of the Midwife.

Problems
The problem I face is that because there are no specific international open access midwifery journals, I don't know how I can get my work read by the wider midwifery audience in an academic, peer-reviewed way that will give me the brownie points I need as an academic.

What's good about open access journals?
A couple of things stand out for me about open access journals, especially if they include an open access review process. The first thing is that the review process will be more transparent and rigorous. The second and most obvious, is that open publishing increases access to information, which goes some way to support disadvantaged midwives.

Benefit for authors
As an author, my question is "will my work be cited more often if it is in an open access journal?" It looks like the answer to that question is "yes", although as you can imagine, it is quite a complex issue. Alma Swan has just reviewed a number of studies that has looked at this issue and found that the majority of studies found open access increased citation impact ie if you publish in an open access journal, you are more likely to have your work cited in other articles. But... let's face it, if my article is rubbish, it won't get cited wherever it is published!

Where does this leave me?
I have just declined an offer to write an article unless it is published under a Creative Commons licence. I am concerned that taking this stance will restrict my publishing opportunities and reduce the opportunity to get my work out to 'Mrs Average Midwife'. However, I am so committed to the philosophy of open access that I am prepared to take that risk.

The obvious answer to my problems is to start an open access midwifery journal....I'll just quickly do that after lunch!!

Seriously, if anyone is interested in discussing this further, please let me know.

References
Swan, A. (2010). The Open Access citation advantage. Studies and results to date. School of Electronics & Computer Science, University of Southampton. Retrieved 9 May, 2010, from http://eprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/18516/2/Citation_advantage_paper.pdf

Wagner, A. (2010). Open Access Citation Advantage: An Annotated Bibliography. Issues in Science and Technology Librarianship, Winter. Retrieved 9 May, 2010, from

http://www.istl.org/10-winter/article2.html


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A broken promise

I am afraid I have to admit I have broken a promise that I made a couple of years ago.

Exactly two years ago I promised that I would only submit articles for publication in open access journals. The reason for this was that I am very committed to making research openly and freely available to everyone, especially colleagues who live in resource-poor countries. But the reality has been more difficult that I thought it would be.

Results
Over the last nine months I have submitted five articles to six journals for publication. One was flatly refused, so I submitted it to another journal.

• One article has just been published in the Australasian Journal of Educational Technology:  On the MUVE or in decline: Reflecting on the sustainability of the Virtual Birth Centre developed in Second Life. This journal was chosen because it is open access, and because it was calling for articles about Second Life, so the timing for submission was fortuitous.
• One article has been published in the International Nursing Review: International networking: connecting midwives through social media. This journal is not open access, but the article is freely available at the moment. 
• Another article about the Virtual International Day of the Midwife has been accepted by the Nurse Education in Practice, subject to changes - we're still waiting to hear what the outcome is about this article. This is not an open access journal, but was chosen because it best suited the article.
• The fourth article about my e-mentoring project with aged care has been submitted to the Health Informatics New Zealand journal. I am waiting to hear if this has been accepted or not. This is an open access journal.
• My last article has been submitted Women and Birth, and I am waiting to hear if it is accepted or not. This is the only "quality" open access midwifery journal that I am aware of.

Why it is difficult to publish in open access journals
There are several reasons why it has been difficult to publish in open access journals. The main reason is because there are so few suitable, quality open access journals for midwives and nurses to publish research. This is concerning for me as a midwifery academic, especially in view of the pressure put on me to publish in "top rated" journals. I want to support open access journals, but at the same time, I have to think about my academic career progression, which highly driven by publications, as far as universities are concerned.

I have also turned down requests to write opinion pieces in magazine-type journals, which  are not open access. But I do wonder if I have shot myself in the foot by taking this decision. If the greater midwifery audience reads these types of journals, how can I get any message across if I do not engage with them? How do you balance deeply held beliefs with every day pragmatics? 

The future?
For all my angst, I think the future is looking very good for open access journal publication. Only the other day, Harvard announced it is encouraging its staff to publish in open access journals because it cannot afford the incredibly expensive journal subscriptions it pays. Another glimmer of hope is the Australian Health Research Council has mandated that any research it funds must be made freely available within a year of publication, as from July 2012.

As for nursing and midwifery, the time is ripe to start exploring how to support open access research publication. Any ideas?


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CCK08: Who owns the knowledge?

If my experiences in open courses like 'Facilitating Online Communities' and 'Connectivism and Connective Knowledge' are anything to go by, I could be forgiven for saying that online open access education had well and truly arrived. Indeed, educators such as Graham Attwell, who has talked about the 'explosion of open learning' in his latest blog post, appear to agree. And my own boss, Phil Ker has recently announced that my institution, Otago Polytechnic, will be anchoring an International Centre for Open Access Educational Resources.

But I am wondering if we are deluding ourselves about open access in the formal education context?

Concerns about open access courses
Over the last few weeks I have heard a number of comments about open access courses.

There are what I considered to be superficial concerns like students being overloaded with information if the course gets too big eg too many emails. That is an issue that can be managed, which in itself is part of the learning experience. Another concern is about the extra work that having an increased number of students, formal or otherwise, may place on the teacher. Certainly I don't want to take on extra 'work' that I am not being 'paid' for. And we may need to re-think what we consider to be 'work' and 'teaching', and that will have to be debated at an institution level.

More significant are the concerns about privacy and confidentiality in health education. I have talked a number of times on this blog about the issues we face as health professionals, and how the legal and professional requirements for confidentiality between practitioner and patient reduces what we can do in an open environment. For example, how safe would our undergraduate midwifery students feel to explore their beliefs and attitudes, knowledge and experiences if they knew they were exposing themselves to people other than their classmates? Those very personal learning experiences that student midwives have in the clinical setting are miles apart from the undergraduate English student who is exploring his understanding of a written text. At the same time, being open to completely different perspectives could be a hugely beneficial in terms of learning and reflection.

Impact on fee-paying students
A large concern about open access courses is the impact on fee-paying students. I think the concern is that fee-paying students will feel disadvantaged compared to the people who are receiving the education, but not paying for it. The implication being that if you are a paying student, you somehow own the knowledge or at least, you own access to it. But the problem is, if you refuse to 'share' and network, you limit your opportunities to connect and learn. And if you refuse to be a node in the network you will be bypassed, to your detriment.

What are students paying for?
What I suggest we need to do to do is change how we see the provision of education. What students are paying for in open access courses is the provision of assessment and accreditation; they are not paying for the knowledge. Knowledge does not belong to any one person - it is freely available to everyone. Indeed, the course I am currently teaching is about reflective practice, and anyone can freely access the material on the Internet that I am using, in books and journals.

The other thing the student is paying for is the name and reputation of the institution they receive their qualification from.

Working with the challenge
I have benefited hugely from open access education. I joined an open access course last year and eventually ended up enrolling in the course, completing the assessments and receiving the qualification. I cannot see open access courses becoming main stream until attitudes have changed about knowledge being something that is bought.

But I am convinced that networking, and in particular online networking is vital for health professionals to keep up to date so that they can provide evidence-based practice and provide support to each other. And that should be modeled in our education programs, at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels.

Feedback from students and educators
I would really appreciate hearing from students who have been fee-paying students in open access courses. How have you felt about being in the same course as non-paying students? What were the advantages and disadvantages.

As for teachers, what feedback have you received from students? How have you felt as a teacher in an open access course. Has it been extra work for you? Any other comments?

More about my experience of Open Access education

This is a response to Leigh, who wanted to know more about my experience of taking part in an Open Access education course. Leigh wanted to know my ideas about about Open Access education based on my experience including potential and barriers, and whether I am going to include it in my own teaching.

*Warning: rambling, muddled and long post ahead!

The positives of Open Access education courses will very much depend on your philosophy of education. If you are the one responsible for the budget, then Open Access appears on the surface to be a great marketing strategy. How fantastic to get more 'bums on seats' based on a program that is already being delivered. And it certainly worked that way in this instance because the institution gained a further two students: myself and Carolyn who did the course with me.

If you have a more altruistic approach to education, Open Access will suit your way of thinking down to the ground. The amount of learning and development that Carolyn and I underwent during the course was phenomenal, and certainly has been life-changing for me. So knowing that the course you made freely available had that sort of effect on a person would be extremely satisfying. Leigh often talks to me about how gratifying it would be to make a significant difference to the lives of women and midwives in Outer Mongolia by making my midwifery courses freely available. And yes, he is absolutely right. But the other way of looking at it is that it is unlikely to boost our students numbers, and if we do not make enough money, I will not have a job.

Reflecting back on my experience, as I have already said, it was an amazing ride with ongoing benefits which you will read about in the future. But certain things had to happen before I actually turned my experience into a concrete enrollment. It was almost as if all the planets had to be in alignment for this to happen - in other words, it had to be the right time and place to be a experience that resulted in a financial commitment to the course .

The timing had to be right. If the opportunity to join the course had come at another time, I probably would not have been so keen. As it was, I had just started my own investigation in social networking so the course was extremely timely for me, and it also has helped my thinking about my PhD research into e-mentoring.

The second thing to happen was that I had to hear about the course and know where to access it. This came about following face-to-face conversations with Leigh. He knew of my interest in incorporating social networking into my teaching and suggested I follow the course. If I had not had those conversations, I would not have known about the opportunity.

I had a mate to work with which helped provide motivation. Carolyn and I were already exploring things together so we urged each other on and supported each other, not only in participating in the course but also in enrolling.

As for how many people are likely to take up an Open Access course and turn it into a concrete enrollment? I would imagine the numbers would be few, keeping in mind what we know about the numbers of people fully engaging with social networking. And I have to be honest and say that I have enrolled as a result of a significant amount of 'encouragement' from the course facilitators who are personal friends and colleagues. The other huge external motivating factor is that I need the credits that this course will provide to go toward a teaching certificate which I am required to have. Without this sort of encouragement and external motivation, I would suspect it unlikely that Open Access education programs become a lucrative source of funding.

I did worry a little about how the official students felt about our involvement in the course, especially as Carolyn and I were rather...enthusiastic...shall I say... about the course. Did they feel it was unfair that we had access to the same resources as they did but without paying? I do not know. I hope we made a contribution that enhanced their own learning experience, and if we had not enrolled they'd still be better off than us because they had the qualification at the end of the course.

The other question I am left with is how the learning outcomes of the enrolled students differed from ours. We were able to really enjoy ourselves without worrying about assignments. I do not know if the enrolled students' experience of the course differed because of the expectations of assignments.

My final thought is about how to recognize the learning that people have done in Open Access courses once they have enrolled. Do you make them complete the official assignments or do you have another way of assessing learning outcomes? Because my involvement in the course was not 'dictated' by assignments, my progress and learning took slightly different directions than the enrolled students. Now I am an official student it is important me that this is recognized, although at the same time I appreciate my work must meet the course learning outcomes.

As for the future for me, as a teacher. Certainly I plan to make my teaching materials freely available like PowerPoint lecture notes. I also plan to move out of BlackBoard and onto this blog with my dissemination of information and resources. But until such a time that the institution agrees to Open Access of courses, then that is as open as I am likely to get...unless anyone has other suggestions.

I would be really interested to hear you views on this post. Do you think Open Access is a good idea? Do you teach in an open access course - what has been your experience? Does Open Access lead to more enrollments?

If you are a midwife: how would you feel about joining a postgraduate courses, say on diabetes, for the 'fun' of it?

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Writing a proposal for Open Access midwifery education

I have been asked to write a proposal to make two courses Open Access that we run at Otago Polytechnic School of Midwifery. Both courses are aimed at overseas midwives who emigrate to New Zealand and who are required by the Midwifery Council of New Zealand to complete modules that will prepare them for practice in New Zealand: 'Pharmacology and Prescribing', and 'New Zealand Midwifery for Registered Midwives'. They have to have completed these courses before they are given full midwifery registration here.

Otago Polytechnic is one of several institutions in New Zealand that run these courses. Both courses are delivered online in BlackBoard, which means they are only accessible to the enrolled students. The Pharmacology and Prescribing course also attracts New Zealand midwives but on the whole, the number of enrolled students are very small.

The courses are continuous or roll-over enrollment: they deliver material which the student works her way through, and the student's knowledge is assessed by assignments which she submits for marking. There are also formative worksheets that the student can work through for her own learning and development. There is little or no interaction with lecturers, and because the enrollments are continuous rather than a fixed time frame, there is no interaction between students.

I have to admit I do not know much about Open Access apart from my own personal experience of joining an Open Access Course. I know that Otago Polytechnic has an Open Access policy but haven't really looked at it in any great detail. So here's my chance to find out more.

I have been asked to include in my proposal:

• what the advantages are;
• what would be involved with moving to Open Access
  
• why would Otago Polytechnic School of Midwifery want to do this?

My initial thoughts are that it:

• would give midwives free access to information that will inform their practice and professional development
• may help increase our enrollments, although I am skeptical about this
  
• will help us to maintain our claim that we are 'a leader in midwifery education' because as far as I can see, there are very few Open Access midwifery courses available
  
• will provide research/evaluation opportunities and outputs for us as we monitor the success or otherwise of this venture
• will allow midwives to prepare their assignments before they emigrate, which will save them time when they get here. Many midwives find they are very busy settling into their new homes/jobs when they arrive and it takes them ages to complete these courses.

How would I do it? Not too sure. Would probably move all the material over to a blogging platform.

So I would be grateful for any suggestions or feedback about what to include into my proposal, including any great references or research.

Is Open Access really as desirable or achievable as it is being mooted at the moment?

What evidence is there to support the idea that people interact with Open Access education material for their own professional development and learning?

What is the best way of presenting Open Access material for people who have only basic computer skills?

Do you know of any Open Access midwifery or health courses?

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Open access education at Otago Polytechnic

Otago Polytechnic, the institution I work for, is a tertiary education provider in Dunedin, New Zealand. It provides a range of vocational courses from Certificate in Automotive Engineering to MA Midwifery.

Otago Polytechnic has a policy of open access intellectual property in conjunction with creative commons with attribution. I was very interested to find out more about this, especially as I am currently developing a paper that supports the development of open access midwifery education courses.

So I asked Deputy Chief Executive Dr Robin Day a couple of questions to explain more about why and how Otago Polytechnic supports open access.

What is Otago Polytechnic's Open Access policy?

Otago Polytechnic has considered the issues around open access to information and Intellectual Property over the past couple of years and have come to the view that to be consistent with our strategies around teaching and learning and research, we need to have a much more open view. The recognition of Creative Commons with attribution as our default position has been widely accepted and feedback has been that it has been instrumental in building OP's reputation as an educational provider.

Why did OP come up with this policy?

We struggled somewhat with the traditional views of controlling ownership / copyright and found these to be very restrictive. Significant feedback from staff was that we needed to be more open to support creative thinking and application of theory to practice in a way that was less constraining. This debate took a significant amount of time with key stakeholders and the outcomes were a change in our position to be less restrictive and more open. Similar moves of course are happening in many areas including things like Wikieducator, open source learning / software and so on.

What are the benefits for OP?

The benefits are many - including reputation as a quality place of learning. We are much more open and collaborative and the networking of individuals is not constrained artificially. Individuals are less likely to feel that their creative works are going to be taken from them and indeed will, and are feeling supported in developments

What about the danger of other institutions using OPs material and running the courses themselves in competition with OP?

Well they might do that - however we will gain the reputation over time of being a quality provider especially since under CC they have to attribute the source to OP. Those institutions will do that anyway - they will just go somewhere else. It's better to work with them, I think.

I would love to hear what people think of this. What is your institution's policy about open access and intellectual policy? Do you know of any open access midwifery education?

Image: Otago Polytechnic F Block http://wikieducator.org/Otago_Polytechnic

Talking about an open access midwifery journal

I have been thinking more about the possibility of starting up an online open access midwifery journal and as a result have started a little research into the notion. This has resulted in a really useful chat with Dr Eric Repphun of the University of Otago. Eric is one of the editors of a new open access journal called Relegere: Studies in Religion and Reception. Several things came out of this conversation that no doubt will lead to further discussion.

1. Open access journals is the way to go - people just cannot afford to subscribe to print journals any more.

2. Online journals can have a much quicker turn around of review and publication than paper journals, which is a good selling point for authors.

3. I need to do my homework. There's no point in setting up an OA midwifery journal if the need is already being met by other online journals.

4. Need to think about how to show credibility right from the start ie how would I attract a quality editorial board?

5. Need to be patient - it takes time to build up a solid readership and reputation.

6. Can be done very cheaply. There is a free open access journal software that I could use called "Open Journal Systems" - I would only have to pay for a domain name and local hosting.

7. Would I want to be aligned with an institution or be completely independent? How would that impact on perceptions of quality and credibility?

8. Need nine to 12 months lead up time to call for papers. This could work out really well and tie in nicely with the Virtual International Day of the Midwife 2011. We could ask midwives to submit conference papers (this would be voluntary) which could become the first issue.

There are a lot of other things to think about so I'll continue my research and see where things take us.

What do you think of the idea of an online open access midwifery journal? If this something you'd read...submit articles to...be involved with as an editor or reviewer?

If you are interested in the idea of an open access midwifery journal, please let me know. I'd also be really interested in hearing from people who are involved with open access publication and authoring.


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How to decide which open access journal to submit your midwifery research

I have been looking into open access journals to see what journals are out there that will meet the academic needs of midwives who wish to publish their research, commentaries and clinical case studies.

Criteria
Here is the criteria I have used to help me choose appropriate open journals for midwives to publish in.

1. Relevant to midwives.
   
2. International journal.
3. Free for authors to publish, and free for readers. A large number of open access journals charge a publication fee which significantly reduces options to authors who are not funded.
   
4. Credible, academic editors and editorial board.
5. Clear peer-review process.
6. Cited in databases used by health professionals such as Pubmed and Cinalh.
7. Having an 'impact factor' is an advantage but not necessary. If it does not have an impact factor, it needs to be found easily in a Google search.
8. Preferably an established journal that has been running at least a couple of years.

Score
I have come up with a few suggestions of journals for potential authors like myself, and given each suggestion a score to help us decide where to submit our work.

1 = Meets only a few criteria and may be a poor publication option for midwives.
5 = Meets all criteria and is an excellent publication option for midwives.

NB: This score is subjective - I would highly recommend that you check out each journal before you decide where to submit your articles. I must also acknowledge that I have taken a white, English-speaking approach to my choices.

Open access journals for midwifery publications
Here are some suggestions for journals that midwives may wish to submit articles for publication with a few comments that may help you decide if this is a journal for you.

Midwifery
New Zealand College of Midwives Journal: This bi-annual journal is published in paper form and eventually makes its way online quite a few months later as a pdf. This journal focuses mostly on New Zealand midwifery issues, but is indexed in Cinalh.
Score: 3/5 This journal is published online but it takes a long time before it becomes available.

Women and Birth: This is the journal of the Australian College of Midwives published by Elsevier. There are four issues every year and full text articles are available from 2006. Has a very credible academic editorial board, but articles have mostly Australian focus. Indexed in Pubmed and Cinalh.
Score: 4.5/5 Needs to be more international but otherwise a great open access journal.

Canadian Journal of Midwifery Research and Practice: This is the journal of the Canadian Association of Midwives. It is not clear if the peer review process is blind and there is minimal information about the editors. There are two issues a year with only a few articles per issue that focus on Canadian midwifery issues. No information about indexing on databases.
Score: 3/5 Fabulous to see this journal in an open access format but a lot of work needs to be done to raise its profile.

Health
Rural and Remote Health: International journal dealing with research, education, practice and policy with a rural/remote focus. Fully indexed with peer-review process.
Score: 5/5 My only complaint is that this journal does not have a Creative Commons licence which means the journal retains copyright, not the author.

International Journal of Qualitative Studies on Health and Well-being: This journal is free for authors this year and is edited by an international team of academics. There are four issues per year and topics range across health including pregnancy and birth. Authors retain copyright with a Creative Commons licence. The journal in indexed in all the health-related databases.
Score: 2/5 Likely to have an appeal to only a small number of midwifery researchers and authors.

Pimatisiwin. Journal of Indigenous and Aboriginal Community Health: This journal currently has no articles related to midwives or maternity, but it could attract midwifery research.
Score: 2/5 Good choice of journal for midwives whose research is focused on indigenous issues.

International Perspectives on Sexual and Reproductive Health: Peer-reviewed journal for research carried out in developing countries, including issues pertaining to pregnancy and birth. Editorial board is made up of Americans and does not have international members. Abstracts are also in French and Spanish. Has a blind peer review process but I cannot see where the journal is indexed.
Score: 2/5 I have given this journal a low score because of its reduced appeal to midwifery authors.

Education
International Journal of Medical Education. This is a new journal that has started this year. It has an international editorial board and is free to publish. It focuses on medical education but will receive submissions from other health professionals. There is no information about indexing but that is probably because this is a new journal.
Score: 3/5 I am in two minds about the score for this journal. I hope it will become inter-professional as time goes by. If it does not, then it may not be a good option for midwifery educators.

Practice and Evidence of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education. This journal has been around for a few years. The editorial board is British and there is no information about indexing.
Score: 2/5 This journal would not be my first choice for publishing midwifery education research.

The Educational Research Journal. This is another new journal. What I like about this journal is that it is hosted in Pakistan with an international editorial board. Time will tell as to how useful it will be for midwives.
Score: 1/5

International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning. I have included this journal because of the increasing number of midwifery programs turning to online and distance delivery. This journal is highly respected in eLearning circles with an international readership and indexing. It uses a Creative Commons licence which means you retain copyright over your work.
Score: 5/5 This journal is very worth looking at if you want to publish research and commentary around online/distance midwifery education.

Journal of Online Learning and Teaching. This is another journal that midwifery educators could submit articles to if they are involved with eLearning. The emphasis is North American but there are a number of articles with a health focus. I could not see any information about indexing but the journal uses several social networking tools to disseminate information about the journal.
Score: 3.5/5

Other
International Journal of Qualitative Methods. Contains a number of articles relating to health so may be of interest to some midwives. Has blind review process and international board of editors. Downside is that I could not see any information about indexing.
Score: 2/5

More journals
You can find full details about open access journals in the Directory of Open Access Journals, Royal College of Midwives, co-action.net, BioMed Central, Bentham Open and PubMed Central.

Have you ever thought of publishing your thoughts or research in an open access journal? What do you see are the advantages? What would stop you publishing in an open access journal?


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Free online seminars that celebrate Open Access Week

This coming week is "Open Access Week". This is a global activity to try and raise awareness about making scholarly outputs such as journal papers, and research more available in an open way to the general public.

To celebrate Open Access Week, the Open Education Resources Foundation has organised a series of free, open online seminars from 18th - 22nd October.

I will be talking about my experiences of running an open access course, 'Facilitating Online', with my colleague Bronwyn Hegarty on Thursday 21st October at 11.00 hours New Zealand in a talk called "OER: Beyond the rhetoric".

Here is full information about the program, the link to the Elluminate meeting room, and instructions on how to access meeting room.


Image: Banner for Open Access Week 2010
http://wikieducator.org/File:Open-Access-Week-2010-banner-OERF.png

Trying to work out a research question for my OER project

I am still trying to get my head around the research project I am currently involved with. What we want to do at Otago Polytechnic is make our Graduate Certificate of Tertiary Learning and Teaching freely accessible on the Internet in an open environment such as Wikieducator.

Funding model
We've been delivering a couple of the program courses already in Wikieducator, such as Facilitating Online. Now we want to develop a funding model that continues to support free open access to the course materials but also allows people to enrol as formal students, and ensures sustainability of the program.

We have already developed a funding model for Facilitating Online that starts next week, as a pilot. But alongside that, I want to find out more about experiences of students in open access courses to inform our future work.

How to turn informal students into paying enrolments
Over the last three or four years, this has been our experience with the course Facilitating Online:

• large numbers of people enrol as informal students, but few complete
• very few informal students pay to become formally enrolled students
• the facilitator spends too much time working with informal students as facilitator/mentor - the amount of time spent is not cost effective or sustainable.

What I want to know is:

1. how to increase retention and completion;
   
2. how to support informal students to become formally enrolled students;
3. how to effectively support formal/informal student learning in a cost-effective and sustainable way.
   

What we know already

• The popular open access courses that have been around for the last couple of years start off with large number of participants but these rates soon drop (Fini, 2009; Mackness et al, 2010). Question: Why is that? Is it a motivation issue or pedagogical (Siemens, 2010)?
  
• Students learn by making connections with each other (Siemens, 2004) but they still want support from facilitators/teachers in the online, learning environment, especially those who are used to using technology or working in an "open" environment (Siemens, 2010; Mota, 2010). Question: How do we support students to develop the appropriate/relevant digital literacy skills; to facilitate learning without increasing teacher workload (McAuley et al, 2010)?
  
• Facilitator/teachers use volunteers/fellow students to help support, mentor and/or teach other students (Downes, 2007; Couros, 2010 a. and b.). Question: Does this reduce the teacher's workload? How reliable and ethical is it to rely on other students or volunteers to teach students, especially considering the majority of students drop out from the "sharing" experience ( Mackness et al, 2010)?
• There are a number of models of open access courses whereby students can participate as informal students with the facility to enrol as formal students, under-going assessment and gaining accreditation (Blackall, 2010; Taylor, 2011). Question: How is this working in actuality? How many students in these open courses actually enrol as formal students? What are the barriers, especially in terms of process (Cormier & Siemens, 2010)?
• There are a number of funding models that are mooted to ensure sustainability of open access courses, including the "conversion" model (Downes, 2007; Wiley, 2007). Question: How many informal students do we need to participate and then enrol as formal students to make open courses sustainable, especially in light of the high drop-out rate?
  

I still haven't quite formalised my research question but the plan is to engage with past students of 'Facilitating Online' in order to answer some of the questions above.

I'd love to hear from anyone who has any ideas about this topic or is doing similar research. In particular, I'd really like to hear from educators who are offering open courses - what is your retention rate and how many informal students enrol for assessment and accreditation?

My recommendation for a free, open midwifery journal

I have been thinking about how midwives can publish their research. In the front of my mind has been the question: is there a need for an open access international midwifery journal ie a journal that is available online for readers to access without having to pay a subscription charge.

My analysis of open access midwifery journals has shown there is a limited choice for midwives and the market could probably cope with a journal that focuses on open access as a primary aim and managed as such. On the other hand, the Australian College of Midwives journal "Women and Birth" meets my needs - it is open access, has a very credible editorial board and review process led by Professor Kathleen Fahy. The only drawback is that it does not have the same international profile as some of the subscription midwifery journals.

So where does this leave me...and midwives. I do not have the time or energy at the moment to drive the development of an open access journal. And in view of the excellent work that is already happening with "Women and Birth", I am going to recommend that midwives support this journal. If we support it with our work, the journal's profile will increase on the international stage.

What journal would you prefer to publish your research in? If you are a midwife or student who has never published an article before, what support would you like to help you do this?


Image: 'road trip journal' lecates
http://www.flickr.com/photos/23688516@N00/307250887

The Cape Town Open Education Declaration & midwifery education

Last week Otago Polytechnic was the first educational institution in Australasia to sign The Cape Town Open Education Declaration.

Open access
The Declaration supports the principle of free and open access for all to education resources. The underpinning philosophy is that open access will support educators and learners to "create, shape and evolve knowledge together, deepening their skills and understanding as they go".

I have taken the Declaration at face value but I believe that there has been some concern about it, and people such as Stephen Downes have pointed out that the process of developing the Declaration has not been an open one. And the Declaration does not take into consideration the millions of people who do not have access to the Internet.

However, Otago Polytechnic has decided to support the Declaration because it agrees with the spirit of open and shared access to resources, collaboration and learning.

Implications for midwifery education
Quite how the Declaration will impact on midwifery education has yet to be debated. However, we are making small but positive steps to sharing resources starting with the web seminar that Sally Pairman hosted last week.

I would love to hear from any midwives or midwifery educators who are interested in the concept of open access education and professional development. How do you think the Cape Town Declaration is likely to be taken up in midwifery education?

Image: 'Table Mountain panorama' coda
www.flickr.com/photos/51035677132@N01/353570180

How to write a paper for publication in 6 weeks: Week 3

1. Decide which journal you want to submit your article

• Make sure it is peer-reviewed.
• If you are a beginner researcher and want to submit an article that is quickly and easily accepted, you may wish to consider a professional magazine as opposed to journal.
• Find out if the journal is indexed in common databases - if it is not, it is not likely to be easily found by readers which will have an impact on its citation rate and rankings.
• Check the publication turn around time - if you want your article published quickly, do not submit to a journal that has a long turn around time.
• Make sure you know what type of articles the journal accepts eg it may be a waste of time submitting your opinion piece to a journal that publishes only primary research.
• Check out the journal you wish to publish in and read a few articles - it is important to format your article to suit the journal you wish to submit to. Make sure you know which reference style to use. Read the instructions the journal produces for authors very carefully.
• Contact the editor to introduce yourself and tell him/her what you are thinking about writing. It is useful to get feedback from the editor about your idea before you start to write.
• To help you decide which journal to submit to, work your way through a review form for each journal - the review form has been developed by Wendy Belcher and can be downloaded from her website: http://www.wendybelcher.com/pages/documents/Belcher_Journal_Review_Form.pdf

2. Have a look at journal rankings and citation indexes to see which is an appropriate journal

• The higher the citation index and/or ranking, the more "credible" the journal is considered and the more brownie points you will score in the eyes of academia if you get your article published in that journal - whether this is acceptable or not is an argument for another day
• If you are an academic in Australasia, the best place to check out journal rankings is the ERA index - the rankings go from A+ which is the top ranking down to unranked: http://lamp.infosys.deakin.edu.au/era/

3. Consider submitting an article to a journal that is open access
Open access means that anyone has free access to the journal and can read it online. Research has shown that articles that are published in journals that are openly available are cited as frequently if not more so than traditional paper journals.

• Some open access journals charge fees to authors, so check this out first before you plan your article because the fees can be very expensive.
• Make sure the journal meets all the other criteria of a credible journal.
• A list of journals that are open access can be found here: The Directory of Open Access & Hybrid Journals

4. Think about your word count.
It is important to think about word count which will help you plan your article. Here is a calculation of word count by Dr Linda Wilson which may help you see your writing in perspective.

• Check to see if your references and abstract are included in the word count.

Words, including references	3000	3500	4000	5000	6000	7000
Abstract	150	150	150	150	200	200
Introduction	200	250	300	350	400	450
Background/literature review	550	600	600	700	750	800
Methods	200	300	300	350	450	500
Results/body	850	1000	1250	1650	2000	2500
Discussion/implications	550	650	700	1000	1250	1500
Conclusion	200	250	300	350	350	350
Words, less references	2500	3000	3350	4300	5150	6050

5. Over the next two weeks write the whole body of your paper

• Have half of it ready by next week.

6. Keep a list of the references you use as you go along

• Use only references that are quick and easy to access - do not use references that are difficult to to get hold of as that will cost you time.

Image: 'November dreaming'
http://www.flickr.com/photos/24364103@N04/2944479527

The good news...and the very bad news

I have been looking around for a credible open access midwifery journal to submit a number of articles. I am committed to the concept of free, online availability of publications for midwives, especially for those who live in developing countries, and rural and remote areas.

The good news...
The good news is that the International Confederation of Midwives is starting up a new journal called the "International Journal of Childbirth" edited by Dr Denis Walsh and published by Springer Publishing. I don't have much information about it because its website isn't going live until October. However, it looks like it will be a fabulous international journal covering a range of topics that will interest anyone associated with childbirth.

...and the very bad news
When I emailed Dr Walsh to ask if it would be open access, his reply was that after much discussion with the publishers, the decision is that the journal will be by subscription. Members of the ICM who live in developing countries will pay a reduced rate.

Very disappointed
I am very disappointed by the decision for the journal not to be open access, especially considering it is representing the ICM who is working to service midwives on an international level. It is fair to say that I know nothing of the behind-the-scenes discussion so I should not rant on too much. However, I feel this is a missed opportunity for advancing international collaboration and communication, which surprises me considering the mission of the ICM.

Back to the drawing board
So, here I am, still on the look for an open access midwifery journal. I'm not having a lot of luck so far. But in the next few days I will talk about the journals I have found.

I am resisting the idea of starting up a open access journal myself because I know it will be a lot of work. But if there really is a need, it may be something I need to look at.

What are your views on this issue?

Teaching...where I am and where to from here?

Another thing I have been asked to do for the Learner Centred Learning course I am taking is to reflect on my own teaching context. We spend a lot of time considering the students' context but often do not take time out to think about our own context and how that can affect our teaching, and ultimately the learning experience of students.

Where I am today
This is a timely activity for me because I am at a bit of a cross road as far as my teaching career is concerned. I am no longer employed full time by one educational institution. Indeed, I am doing very little direct teaching at the moment other than facilitating the Facilitation Online course, which I am contracted to work 50 hours until November.

I have made a decision this year that I do not want to teach undergraduate midwifery students any more. After 10 years I am ready to take on other challenges. What I am really interested in is professional development, facilitating and supporting life-long learning in a wider sense.

Being a self-employed consultant
It looks as if I am heading toward being a self-employed consultant or education contractor, although the next few months will tell if that is a viable plan for me. The advantage of being self-employed is that I am not tied to institutional educational policies and procedures that I have a philosophical objection to - I can pick and choose what I want to teach and the environment I teach in. On the other hand I may be out of work for periods of time, and my long term career may suffer, especially if I want to be an academic researcher...but then again, I'm not sure that that is what I want to do in the long run.

Systems approach
Using a systems approach, here is a look at the environment I currently work in.



Where does the learner sit in relation to this?
At a local and national level in New Zealand, one of the main impacts on students is access (or lack of) to resources...access to decent Internet bandwidth...and access to flexible courses that suit needs of life style and so on.

At a wider level, the desire and drive of educators and educational institutions to communicate and collaboration, share and research will either open up many doors to learners or restrict all opportunities to just their local area. This is one of the reasons I endorse the open education resources movement - the more we are willing to open up our resources and courses, the more resources learners have access to and opportunities for flexible learning.

How does awareness of this knowledge impact upon creating a learner centred environment for the students/learners that you work with?
The main things this makes me think of how I overcome barriers of technology and access. Here's a couple of previous posts that discuss this.

• CCK08: Who owns the knowledge?
• The joys of open access education
• Working with an open access intellectual policy

Where are issues of gender, race and diversity placed in your consideration of your context?
The main issue is how people of different ethnicities, especially in the international context, are able to access the Internet and thus the opportunities of accessing educational resources and joining communities of learning. Here are a couple of posts that consider this further.

• Flexible learning, eMentoring, cultural differences and sustainability
• What has web 2.0 got to do with catching babies?
• Putting Web 2.0 into perspective

How are you going to use this information to create positive, challenging and supported learning environments?
To my mind, it keeps coming back to openness and flexibility in terms of myself and my teaching. This is not easy to achieve when you're working in educational institutions that do not support these approaches to education. However, by continuing to model, network with like-minded educators, develop, reflect, experiment and push boundaries, and strive to improve my teaching I hope to create as as supportive learning environment as I possibly can for students.

The joys of open access education

This week I am feeling a tad vindicated with regards to my enthusiasm for blogging and open access education.

Nutrition in pregnancy
One of my colleagues Megan Gibbons, has been running a short course on nutrition in pregnancy for midwives. It was only seven weeks long, but during that time she used an open blog for a role play scenario. I joined in, mainly to support Megan and the students. But I found it to be a really useful way of revising my own knowledge about nutrition.

What was even more fun was that hbacmama joined in the discussion and brought a very different perspective as a ' real woman' as opposed to midwife. She made some wonderful contributions and got us all thinking.

The students really enjoyed themselves and felt they became far more engaged with the subject matter and discussions than they did using a similar format in BlackBoard.

Small beginnings
OK. So in the grand order of things, you might ask what I am getting all excited about. After all, what are we talking about - three students - six of us all up - that's hardly going to break records or completely change the world view on open access education.

And that would be a fair comment.

At the same time, this small event perfectly illustrates the opportunities for open access education. At the very least the outcome been one updated midwife and three happy students who have had a positive learning experience.

Another fine mess, Stanley
The other outcome has been that we have all wanted to continue the dialogue about nutrition, so Megan has been 'forced' into continuing the debate on her personal blog: Megan's Mutterings.

So if you have any questions or comments about and nutrition and diet, in pregnancy or in general, drop in on Megan.


Image: 'A Vintage Kind of a Day' Niffty
www.flickr.com/photos/7928333@N03/2470876897

Google Documents versus Open Office

I have just bought a new lap top and refused to pay for $200 plus for Microsoft Office. So I have been using Google Documents, and now Open Office for all my "office" work. Both systems are free and are worth considering if you do not want to buy into Microsoft Office. Jerry Brockmeier has written an in-depth comparison of the two systems "Small Business Software: OpenOffice.org vs. Google Docs". Here are some thoughts I have from my own personal experience.

1. How can I integrate Google Docs and Open Office with Microsoft Office?
The main concern I had about moving to Open Office was how I was going to manage the huge amount of work I have in Microsoft Office formats? And further more, how can I collaborate with people who are still using Microsoft?

The beauty about Google Docs and Open Office is that they convert Microsoft files into formats you can work on, and then convert them back to Microsoft. And I think (but don't quote me before I check this) that you can now save files in an Open Office format in Microsoft.

2. Google Docs and Open Office are integrated
The beauty of both products is that you can switch back and forth and save documents and presentations in formats that can be opened in both Google Docs and Open Office.

3. Google Documents is portable
This means you can take your work wherever you have Internet access - this is particularly useful if you move between a number of computers. The downside to this is you're stuck if you have no Internet access. In contrast, Open Office is embedded in your computer, as is Microsoft. So you have to install Open Office on every computer you work on.

4. Which is more secure?
Any data you store in Google Docs is hosted on a server somewhere in the world. This means that if the server goes down for whatever reason, you will not have access to your data. I have to say that I have never had this problem in the two years I have been using Google Docs but the potential is always there.

The other potential problem is that your data is not as secure in Google Docs as it is when it is stored in Open Office on your own private computer.

5. Which is best?
I think that Open Office is better than Google Documents for what I call 'long term' work. It has more functions and is easier to manage. But Google Docs is brilliant for collaborative work - more than one person can work on a document at the same time which gets rid of emails going back and forth with track changes and so on.

What are your experiences of using Google Docs and Open Office? What would motivate your move to Open Office? What do you feel are the benefits of staying with Microsoft Office?

10 years of open access - a Slideshare case study

I have been passionate about open access and open access education for many years, and have been committed to sharing my content using creative commons licenses; allowing people to download and re-use, for over 10 years. So I have decided it is timely to review the responses to my online content, using Slideshare as my case study.

What is Slideshare?

Slideshare is a platform whereby you can upload and share PowerPoint presentations; it is similar to YouTube for videos. I published my first presentation on the 4^th October, 2007 and as of the 16^th April 2017, there are:

• 76 uploads, with
• 289,699 total views, and
• 3624 downloads.

What presentations are most popular?

The 10 top presentations with the most views can be found in Table 1. These statistics are based on the Slideshare analytics on April 16^th 2017. 

Table 1. Top 10 views

However, the number of views isn't necessary helpful because you would expect the longer a presentation has been published, the more views it would receive. So to get a better sense of what presentations are more popular, I divided  the views of each presentation by the number of days it had been published to find out how many views a day each presentation had received, in Table 2.

Table 2. Top 10 views per day

Which presentation is most useful?
Views are one thing, but what I am really interested in is how useful my presentations are to the wider community. To measure that, I have looked at the total number of downloads of each presentation – my 10 top download loads can be seen in Table 3.

Table 3. Top 10 downloads 

As with the total number of views, the total number of downloads is skewed by the number of days each presentation has been published. Therefore, I looked at the number of views of per download, with the theory that the smaller the number of views per download, the more "useful" a presentation is. In my mind, a presentation that has 1000 views with 10 downloads is more “useful” than a presentation with 10,000 views and only one download.

Table 4. Top 10 must useful presentation (number of views per download)

You will see with both views and downloads that the picture changes a little when you drill down to views per day and views per download. For example, 'My midwifery philosophy' is in the Top 10 list for most views, but it is 'Introduction to midwifery documentation' that is in the list for most views per day, which is arguably the more accurate measurement. That being said, the presentations that were in all four lists were, which makes them, in my mind, my most popular and useful:

• Intravenous cannulation
• Amniotic embolism
• What is evidence-based midwifery?

The topics of presentations that appeared in both of the two top views lists were the above, plus:

• How to prepare a portfolio
• Journaling and reflective practice
• Types of reflection
• Social media, birth and midwives

The theme starting to emerge here is reflective practice and midwifery. This surprises me on the one hand because I would have thought that people, especially midwifery students, would be able to access information about reflective practice from textbooks and course materials. On the other hand, reflective practice is a core principle of midwifery education, so I am making an assumption (but have no proof) that a lot of people accessing these presentations are midwifery students or involved in education.

What does this tell me?
To be honest, I cannot conclude anything much from this exercise because of the small numbers. However, it is interesting that my most popular presentations have a midwifery focus, as opposed to a more general teaching and learning. 

The questions I am left with are:

• Does the number of views make a presentation more popular, or number of downloads?
• Who are the people downloading my presentations?
• Why do people download presentations?What happens to the presentations?
• Should I endeavour to meet the apparent needs of the audience based on statistical analytics eg if it appears that clinical topics are most viewed and downloaded, should I deliberately publish presentations that address those topics, as opposed to the approach I have taken thus far which is to just publish presentation I give at conferences, tutorials, lectures etc. 
• How does open education/access theory stack up 10 years or more down the line, when looking back at the reality of open content?

What is next?

The next activity I plan is to drill down more into the analytics of the downloads to find out what, if anything, that tells me. Depending on the quality of information I find via Slideshare, one idea worth exploring may be to contact the people who downloaded my presentations with a short survey to find out more about the whys and wherefores.

Do you have a Slideshare account? What are your most popular or most viewed presentations? Is there any other information I should look at to inform my research? Have you ever downloaded one of my presentations? Why, and what did you do with it?