About us
Open Education Austria Advanced is a project of Austrian universities for the joint development of a national infrastructure for Open Educational Resources (OER) (project duration 01.03.2020-28.02.2024)
For the first time, services from e-learning centres, central IT services and libraries of the partner universities are linked in order to support teaching staff in the creation of OER materials for self-study and teaching. The project aims to gradually improve the quality of teaching and learning and the visibility of good-practice materials within the respective discipline.
The work packages create the basis for high-quality Open Educational Resources (OER) that are freely available to
- all teachers
- all students
- everybody else interested
The participating universities will realise an overall concept for the sustainable anchoring of OER and Open Educational Practices at Austrian universities. OEAA offers services and solutions for teachers for the development of OER including
- an OER-training concept
- a national OER certification body
- the development of the technical infrastructure of the individual partner universities
A focus lies on a meta-search enginge - the OERhub - with a search function for OER that a provided via the decentralised OER repositories at the participating universities. In addition, modular system architectures and open source software developments facilitate the (technical) participation of universities beyond the project.
The certification body is operated by Forum Neue Medien in der Lehre Austria (fnma).
WP1: Further technical development and connection to OERhub
This work package includes the technical development of the OERhub and the interfaces, including documentation, as well as, together with work package 6, consulting and support for the connection of source systems to the OERhub. In the course of the further development of the OERhub, usability tests and accessibility checks will be carried out. The system landscape for teaching at the individual institutions will also be surveyed and the optimal integration of the interface to the subject portal will be analysed on the basis of the data flow.
Members
- Peter Toth: IT system architect for the further development of the OERhub for open educational resources (i.e. inter alia: Development and implementation of interfaces from and to LMS and streaming infrastructures; integration of local systems of partner universities, documentation).
- Eva Gergely, BSc: Operational management and coordination
WP2: Local technical development of the respositories
Work package 2 focuses on establishing local open source repositories with emphasis on usability and smooth integration into existing university services. Defining metadata profiles for local repositories based on LOM is of particular importance in this context: It facilitates the searchability and thus reuse of OER beyond local repositories and the OERhub, e.g. in international metadata aggregators or the library sector. Open standards are used for interfaces and metadata. In work package 2, the technical solutions of all project partners will be coordinated, collected, documented, and made available as a knowledgebase for other institutions that plan to set up local OER repositories.
Members
- Stephan Lorbek, BSc: Technical implementation of the repository at the UG
- Andreas Parschalk, BSc: Head of repository development at the UIBK, Technician-Team
- Mag. Dr. Michael Raunig: Head of repository development at the UG
- Mag. Julia Schindler: Organisational management (planning and controlling) of repository development at the UIBK, Coordination Technician team
- Ing. Markus Schmid, BSc: Technical implementation of the repository at the UIBK, Technician-Team
WP3: Establishment of the national OER certification body
The aim of the sub-project "Establishment of the national OER certification body" is to start the establishment of a national OER certification body for teachers and universities at the Forum Neue Medien in der Lehre Austria (fnma). The necessary procedures and processes will be developed in close cooperation with stakeholders and put into practice: Austrian higher education institutions should be able to certify both their teachers and the higher education institution itself during the project period.
Members
- Dr. Sandra Schön, MA
- Mag. Dr. Alexander Schmölz, Bakk.
WP4: OER-Training
Based on the previous experiences and offers from the previous project "Open Education Austria", the further OER-training measures will be intensified and expanded in this work package. First of all, existing OER-trainings will be researched and analysed. Based on this, further training offers for teaching staff (e.g. in the form of a MOOC and a workbook) will be created, used within the framework of the project and evaluated. Subsequently, a train-the-trainer concept for the use of the further education materials will be developed. This concept will also be tested and evaluated as a model within the framework of the project. At the end of the project, the training materials and the train-the-trainer concept will be available for general use.
Members
- Dr. Kristina Neuböck: Conception/coordination of the OER-training programme
WP5: OER-Production
Work package 5 focuses on the creation process of OER by teachers at universities. Together with the partner universities, we strive to establish quality OER production processes according to local conditions and to use open products (e.g. open source software) in the sense of Open Educational Practices for the development of OER. In the network, both the workflows of OER creation and the good practice for the integration of OER (e.g. legally secure and sustainable) are to be disclosed. Together with work packages 4 and 6, the aim is to promote OER development at the partner institutions and beyond through the free provision of materials and willingness to cooperate, and thus to reach a critical mass of teachers
Members
- Felix Berkmann, M.A., OER-Production at the Uni Innsbruck
- Dr. Jana Herwig: OER-Production at the Uni Vienna
- Dipl.-Ing. (FH) Roland Radlinger: OER-Production at the Uni Graz
- Michael Stöger: OER-Production at the Uni Graz
- Mag. Christoph Winter: OER-Production at the Uni Vienna
WP6: Knowledge transfer and project management
The task of this work package is on the one hand to carry out project management, as well as organisational support and implementation. In addition, targeted support is provided in change management and knowledge transfer by means of advice and recommendations for other universities, among other things. In addition, active networking and interface maintenance with comparable international OER initiatives and relevant inter/national open data projects is anchored here. Dissemination measures for the entire package in the European Higher Education Area should contribute to the visibility of this flagship project.
Members
- Dipl.-Ing. Markus Ebner, Bsc: Projektmanagement at the TU Graz