A hybrid Organizational Framework for Open Course Design - version for openSE project

open educational Framework for
computer science Software Engineering

This project has been funded with support from the European Commission. This document
reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use
which may be made of the information contained therein.

503641-LLP-1-2009-1-PT-ERASMUS-ECUE

OpenSE Organizational Framework

Andreas Meiszner

Oxford Meeting

4 – 5 of February 2010

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» Aim
● To develop the openSE organizational framework
» Activities
● Develop a requirements specification document (RSD) for the
organizational structure, this includes ways of interaction and
collaboration scenarios of the various stakeholders: educational
institutions, open source projects/enterprises and formally enrolled
students / free learners outside of formal education. The framework will
also consider the interplay of humans and technology.
● The framework will be revised and adapted after each pilot round to meet
actual user expectations and draw on the lessons learnt.

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» Rationale
● The framework will introduce a hybrid approach to SE that builds upon
the way learning and knowledge creation at the participatory web takes
place, in particular within the Open Source communities. This is to say
that on the hand the openSE environment will be open for participation of
any individual interested at the subject (inviting in), and on the other hand
SE students are engaging at students driven small scale learning
projects, with each of those being associated to an open source project
(sending out). This combination of ‘inviting in’ and ‘sending out’ is what
we like to call a hybrid approach.

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» Outline
● Fundamentals of hybrid Open Course Design
● Motivations & Gains
● Layers of hybrid Open Course Design
● The concept of Learning Projects, Directories and SVN type Systems

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» Point of view: Course Perspective

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» Fundamentals of hybrid Open Course Design
● Start from traditional course design and be aware of the ‘core’
● Commitment to Openness & Inclusivity
● Accept an extended Group of Stakeholder to be involved
● Prepare for less Control and constant Change
● Consider Co-operation & Collaboration Arrangements
● Consider Legal Aspects

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Fundamentals of hybrid Open Course Design
» Start from traditional course design and be aware of the 'core'

● Keep the structuredness of traditional course design with regard to:
● clearly articulated learning objectives and outcomes,
● instructional materials, a set of learning materials that would allow to
master the course, assignments and practices, and lectures or
tutorials.
● Analogue to the Open Source case this ‘basic’ course might be seen as a
‘core’ that should only be changed by the ‘core developer’, e.g. the
course team.
● Such a core does not only provide the level of structuredness participants
likely require, but it also facilitates to deal with less control and constant
change.

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» Commitment to Openness & Inclusivity
● Pre-requirement to any type of hybrid Open Course provision
● Free access, transparent structures, openly accessible, access not only
to learning resources, but also communications, discussions and
interactions, e.g. through forums, mailing lists or chats sessions.
● However, openness and inclusivity might be limited within a number of
ways.
● To assure assessment of formally enrolled students, ‘openness to
change’ might be limited for the works that formally enrolled students
engage at.
● Inclusivity perhaps will be limited with regards to guaranteed support
provision through educators, which likely can be taken as granted
only for formally enrolled students.

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» Accept an extended Group of Stakeholders to be involved
● Possible stakeholders are: (1) fellow students and educators, (2) ‘free
learners’ learners outside of formal education and (3) practitioners.
● Accept that free learners might have different expectations and
motivations than their formally enrolled counterparts, that they perhaps
only view what is going on, or engage in self-studying activities, but
perhaps might also be very active, or that they decide to not follow the
overall course but only some of its parts.
● Identify and involve practitioners of a given online ecosystems and their
communities that might be involved within an Open Course scenario,
such as Open Source projects.
● Considered how each stakeholder group might impact the course or
engages at it, or which type of co-operation and collaboration
agreements might be established.

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» Prepare for less Control and constant Change
● The involvement and use of external spaces or communities within a
given Open Course might come at the price of giving up a certain degree
of control or certainty.
● External communities and spaces have their established structures,
practices, rules or culture and formally enrolled students that wish to
engage at those would be required to behave in accordance.
● External spaces might also relate to those ones established or
maintained by course participants themselves and brought into the
course as a part of their active co-designer role, therefore ownership and
control remains with those course participants and not the course team.
● This must be considered within Open Course design scenarios and core
course components should preferably be kept within the control of the
course team.

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» Consider Co-operation & Collaboration Arrangements
● Embedding external and well-established online ecosystems and their
communities within Open Course scenarios comes as well with
advantages as potential drawbacks.
● Potential drawbacks are a lower degree of control of those external
spaces or a non-optimal use of resources, be it of a human, technological
or learning resource nature.
● For this reason it might be considered to agree on certain types of
collaboration and collaborations, or at the very least to be well aware
about the way those ecosystems and their communities function and
what the potential risks are.
● The same holds valid for courses of fellow institutions that might form a
part of a given Open Course, though likely cooperation and collaboration
options are more predictable.

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» Consider Legal Aspects
● Such as licensing aspects, copyright, quality assurance, or formal degree
and certification aspects...

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» Motivations & Gains

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Motivations & Gains
» Formally enrolled Students
● Motivations likely relate to exams, assignments or evaluation.
● Ex-ante those factors seem to be the strongest motivational factor for
formally enrolled students to participate and become active, meanwhile
ex-post it could be seen that ‘the learning experience and outcome’
appeared to be also of a high value.
● For this reason a right balance must be established between voluntary
and mandatory participation.
● For formally enrolled students the submission of concrete outcomes,
such as work on assignments and projects, should be an element of their
overall evaluation, with clearly outlined and defined dates on what they
are expected to 'deliver'.

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Motivations & Gains
» For Free Learners outside of formal Education
● The basic motivation seems to be ‘personal interest at the subject area’.
● In addition to this there must be the opportunity ‘to gain something’ and
that this ‘gain’ must be visible; therefore adding a value to their CV.
● Such gains might be provided through visualizing the learning outcomes
of participants within such an Open Course scenario and that might
include a number of parameters that feature learning outcomes and allow
others to assess what has been learned.
● Individual performances and commitment, artifacts created, or review of
peers and crediting good contributions might be possible elements of
such a portfolio.
● From a more traditional perspective, one gain might be to allow free
learners outside of formal education to obtain some type of formal
certificate issued through an educational institution.

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Motivations & Gains
» Formally enrolled Students & Free Learners
● The opportunity to produce something that participants see as their own
work and can showcase to others is also a motivational factor.
● Participant should be enabled to actively shape their own learning space,
so it would match their expectations and they see it as 'their' own
product.
● Involvement in the openSE environment, e.g. Through wish-lists or
roadmaps or co-developing opportunities, is therefore suggested.

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Motivations & Gains
» Educators & Practitioners
● Need to provide a win / win solutions for both of the sides involved – the
formal educational side as well as the virtual community.
● The interest of both sides must mach, as well as the willingness to accept
and draw on established best practices.
● Thus practitioners should be involved in the openSE design process and
asked for their feedback on the pilots.

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» Layers of hybrid Open Course Design

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Layers of hybrid Open Course Design
» Layers might be looked at from a course or overall openSE
environment perspective and include:
1. Content layer
1.1 Static resources internally provided
1.2 Static resources externally provided
1.3 Dynamic resources
2. Teaching / Lecturing layer
2.1 Educator / Lecturer layer
2.2 Practitioner layer
2.3 Peer layer
3. Learning layer
3.1 Pedagogical layer
3.2 Assignment & Practice layer
3.3 Studying (silent) layer
3.4 Motivational layer
4. Assessment layer
5. Social layer
6. Technological layer
6. 1 Internal technological layer
6. 2 External technological layer
7. Economic layer
7.1 Financial economic layer
8. SER layer

See WP2 draft document for details!!!

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» The concept of Learning Projects, Directories & SVN type
Systems

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The concept of Learning Projects, Directories & SVN type Systems
» Learning Projects
● The projects have to be small and must be easily to fulfil within the given
time and participants should be able to complete the projects with a certain
degree of study and scaffolding from the educational material.
● Every project should also have a strict deadline.
● Establish a 'release early' culture and provide rewards for early releases
and frequent updates.
● Explain participants at the beginning that they will be expected to
showcase and present their project and to make all outcomes available
(e.g. within the learning project directory).

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» What students want – lessons learnt @Aristotle's ISE course (1/3):
(1) Roadmap for each project type
● Guide through each step of the project and possible solutions for common
problems
(2) OSS project list of previous years students
● List with projects that previous years students have worked with and
comments about the way the community faced them
(3) “Marketplace”
● A place where OSS projects can ask for collaboration with students
(4) RSS Feeds
● Instant update of other students activity/ OSS project looking for
contributor

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(5) OSS project members as mentors of students
● Space where students will be able to find names of OSS developers that
are willing to guide the students through the project
(6) OSS project environment simulation
● Environment where the student will be able to experiment on how OSS
projects are organized before getting involved in a real open source project
(7) Learning clubs creation
● Students can create groups in order to exchange opinions about their
project
● Gathering of students with same project interests
● Avoid isolation of student

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(8) SVN-like repository for students' activities
● Students will be able to report gradually their “achievements”
● Automatic report extraction of their project

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» What WE want for the students and lessons learnt @Aristotle's ISE
course
● We want basically the same than the students suggested
● The overall purpose and concept of the space and how it shall be used
needs to be better explained to the students
● Provision of sample learning projects that allow students to easily
understand of what they are expected to do.
● Include MANDATORY elements - the submission of concrete outcomes,
such as work on assignments and projects, should be a mandatory
element of their overall evaluation, with clearly outlined and defined dates
on what they are expected to 'deliver'.

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» So how should the openSE space ultimately look like?
● Perhaps a bit like Sourceforge?!?
● With better integration of underlying courses?!?
● Else?!?

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» The Sourceforge case (1/3)

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