Despite the increased ease of access and availability of open educational resources, actual efficient reuse of learning objects, learning resources and learning designs is still described as “a Holy Grail within e-learning” (Wills & Pegler, 2016). Current resources aimed at increasing blended learning and the use of technology in the classroom focus on detailing best practices and describing pedagogies and activity types by their characteristics. They also commonly provide examples at the course level but it may be difficult for a novice or even an experienced educator to see how these patterns/ideas could be transferred to their own context. These are useful resources as starting points but do not provide much guidance or time-saving strategies.

This session will introduce and reflect on a project that led to the creation of an open repository of successful learning activities, including sample stem language and examples to be remixed, reused and reshared. Learning activities are categorized by type (online discussion, group project, blog post, etc.), learning outcome level (according to Bloom’s taxonomy) and discipline to facilitate reuse by faculty, instructional designers and educational technologists. This results in a resource that can be searched according to widely known fields. For example, the resource can be searched for discussion activities appropriate for comprehension, analysis or synthesis.
Despite the attention paid to the design of the platform and the ease with which resources can be searched or shared, engaging the wider community in building the resource has been a challenge. This raises the question of whether or not it is worthwhile to develop these types of open resources when they are not well adopted. Other wider factors, such as lack of recognition or reward for working with OER, may also affect the use of the repository.

This reflective practice presentation will reflect on possible reasons for the difficulty in getting individuals to contribute to the resource and changes that have been implemented in an attempt to overcome this stumbling block. For example, revisions have been made in the design of the repository to streamline the processes for both searching for and contributing activities. In addition, the resource has now been embedded within another website dedicated to providing resources for faculty to design their face to face courses, as well as supporting subject matter experts in the creation of fully online course offerings. Initial feedback on whether or not these changes have increased use and participation in the open repository will be shared. Participants will also be asked to comment on the revisions and provide any further suggestions for modifications.