UTA and Lumen Learning organize Massive Online Open Course on open education, costs and learning outcomes
The University of Texas at Arlington has partnered with Lumen Learning for a Massive Online Open Course or MOOC that aims to introduce graduate students, faculty and learning designers to open education concepts and equip them to use these resources within their own institutions.
Open education involves the production and sharing of knowledge freely so that everyone can contribute and benefit. With increased adoption at higher education institutions, open education holds the potential for creating broader systemic changes including reducing costs, promoting transparency and improving student outcomes.
“The public invests significantly in education. States and taxpayers should receive the benefit of that investment by being able to freely access learning materials and these materials should be available to all without restriction,” said George Siemens, executive director of the UTA’s Learning Innovation and Networked Knowledge or LINK research lab and one of the course instructors.
“We are now in a knowledge economy and learning resources are the electricity of this economy, enabling people to access new opportunities and build new services and companies,” he added.
Hosted by edX, the online learning destination founded by Harvard University and MIT in 2012, Introduction to Open Education is a free, six-week course that will examine the current educational landscape and provide an introduction to elements of open education, an understanding of copyright, Creative Commons, and other permissions, competency mapping, and much more.
The expected outcome of this MOOC is that as more educators learn about and share open education resources or OERs, greater collaboration and shared knowledge is possible. This will lead to an increase in access to quality educational possibilities, particularly in places that have not historically had these opportunities.
Registration for Introduction to Open Education is now open, with the course set to run October 1st through November 12th, 2017. To learn more and register for the course, please visit www.edx.org
UTA’s LINK Lab is a research laboratory where researchers, educators, and graduate students connect, share, and collaborate in advancing social and technological networks, designing future learning models, and exploring the future of higher education.
Lumen Learning leads the way in increasing student success, reinvigorating pedagogy, and improving the affordability of education through the adoption of open educational resources by schools, community and state colleges, and universities. It offers instructors access to materials to help their students learn without the economic burden of textbook and subscription costs. Dr. David Wiley, chief academic officer of Lumen Learning, is a course instructor for this MOOC.
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