Wikipedia:University of Edinburgh/Open Educational Resources conference

Wikimedia at OER16: Open Culture conference
Wikimedia featured heavily throughout the 7th Open Educational Resources conference in 2016. Hosted by the University of Edinburgh at the John McIntyre Conference Centre on 19th & 20th April 2016, we were blessed with some surprisingly good weather (not a cloud in the sky) and some stellar keynote speakers; all progressing the case for OER and examining what it means to be 'open'. In addition to the main programme, we also ran:
 * 1) Two Wikipedia editing training sessions.
 * 2) A Wikipedia editathon on 'Women in Art, Science & Espionage'.
 * 3) 'Ask a Wikimedian' drop-in clinic.
 * 4) A demonstration of Wikisource - the free content library.



Storify of Wikimedia at OER16 in pics & tweets

Keynote Speakers
Watch "Can we imagine tech Infrastructure as an Open Educational Resource? Or, Clouds, Containers, and APIs, Oh My!"
 * Jim Groom, Reclaim Hosting - an independent web hosting company focused on the higher education community.

[https://media.ed.ac.uk/media/Catherine+CroninA+If+%E2%80%98open%E2%80%99+is+the+answer%2C+what+is+the+questionF+%5BOER16%5D/1_51btjiam Watch "If ‘open’ is the answer, what is the question?" ]
 * Catherine Cronin - National University of Ireland, Galway.


 * Emma Smith - University of Oxford. Dr. Emma Smith is a fellow of Hertford College at the University of Oxford, and a Professor of Shakespeare studies. Watch "Free Willy: Shakespeare and OER"

Watch "Postcards from the Open Road"
 * John Scally - National Library for Scotland.


 * Melissa Highton - University of Edinburgh - Melissa leads the University of Edinburgh’s strategic priorities for open educational resources, digital and distance learning on global platforms, MOOCs, blended learning, virtual learning environments, technology enhanced learning spaces, digital skills and use of the web for outreach and engagement. Watch Melissa's closing keynote: "Open with Care"

Wikimedia-related speakers taking part in OER16
Martin's presentation was a critical look inside some of Wikipedia’s sister projects: "Wikibooks as a platform and community for creating open textbooks, Wikidata as a source of open data for educational resources and Wikisource as a way to add educational value to historic texts. All these sites have “Edit” buttons and depend on users to build, evaluate, and repurpose open content." Watch "Open Education on Wikipedia's sister projects" (from 21 minutes)
 * Martin Poulter - Wikimedian in Residence at the Bodleian Library, Oxford University.

Lucy's presentation focused on the ways in which Wikimedia UK is working with libraries, archives and museums to ensure greater access to educational content online, with a particular focus on the Wales collaboration but drawing on experience in other settings. Watch "Wikimedia UK, cultural heritage & education"
 * Lucy Crompton-Reid: CEO Wikimedia UK

In contrast to most residencies, where the resident is embedded with just one institution, Sara was tasked with working with the entire Scottish museums sector, with the aim of increasing open knowledge capacity and beginning to effect culture change with regard to open knowledge in a cultural context. Her presentation reflected on what can (and can’t) be achieved in a year, offers provocations with regard to the challenges faced by the museums sector, and suggestions as to the best direction for future activity. Watch "Opening Scotland: Museums Galleries Scotland’s Wikimedian in Residence & the diversification of engagement"
 * Sara Thomas - Wikimedian in Residence at Museums & Galleries Scotland.

GLAM is a global initiative for making cultural data open targeting galleries, libraries, archives and museums in particular. Subhashish's presentation was around the best practices of several GLAM initiatives and how these projects could lead to create useful OERs. Watch "Cultural institution AKA GLAM for more OER"
 * Subhashish Panigrahi - Cultural Institution aka GLAM for more OER

Antoni's presentation examined a case study where Wikipedia was used as a primary learning resource, and it was appropriately integrated with the existing learning materials. "Results support the idea that the student’s perceptions about Wikipedia change across knowledge areas, and also depend on the student’s academic profile. Added to this, we have found evidence confirming the hypotheses that Wikipedia has a positive effect on the student’s academic performance, and that the magnitude of this influence ranges from one course to another."Watch "Learning Effectiveness and Perceived Value of Wikipedia as a Primary Course Resource"
 * Antoni Meseguer-Artola - Open University of Catalonia

An editathon is "an event where people develop open knowledge around a specific topic" (Cress & Kimmerle, 2008; Kosonen & Kianto, 2009). Melissa & Allison's presentation explored learning in an editathon."All respondents reported that the editathon had a positive influence on their professional role. They were keen to integrate what they learned into their work in some capacity and believed participation had increased their professional capabilities... Overall, the editathon provided opportunity for professional learning, enabling people to learn a range of different types of knowledge useful for work." Watch "Learning to develop Open Knowledge"
 * Allison Littlejohn and Melissa Highton - Learning to Develop Open Knowledge

The road ahead
Martin Poulter ran a successful lunchtime session illustrating how to engage with Wikisource, Wikimedia's free content library, and we will be demonstrating Wikisource at a Repo Fringe event in August. Finally, given that Josie Fraser, Wikimedia trustee and educationalist, has accepted the baton and agreed to co-host OER17 (themed on the 'Politics of Openness') next year, the future looks extremely bright.


 * Watch Josie Fraser introduce Wikimedia UK, cultural heritage and education at OER16
 * Watch all the OER16 presentations on Media Hopper
 * View all the pictures taken at OER16 on Wikimedia Commons

Read more about the Open Education Resources conference on Wikimedia UK's page.