 Can we start by just you telling us your name and what you do or who you're with? Okay, awesome. My name is Vivienne Rolf. I'm from the University of the West of England which is in Bristol in the UK. I've been involved in open education for 10 years. I'm a science teacher. I teach biomedical and medical sciences. So I've got a background in creating open educational resources and I carried that through to Bristol where I live now. So you come from the faculty perspective would you say? I think I do, but I think I don't do so much teaching anymore but I'm more interested in the wider picture and in the UK I'm more interested in now the policies and sort of influencing wider communities. So obviously it's a great conference to come to because there's so much inspiring work that's already gone on where people have had those challenges and those battles so you've just come away oozing with ideas and approaches so it's a great place to be isn't it, the open ed conference. And anything in particular that has sparked to your then really interesting? I think the conference has been interesting this I think. There is such a breadth of stuff going on. I think in previous years there's been maybe a focus on one approach or one year there was just lots of people evaluating and case studies about what they're doing. And there's such a breadth right from we're hearing about perspectives from library staff perspectives on really just cool and simple bits of technology to use right through to the economics and the business models. So I think it's just been a thorough education for three days in terms of all the different facets of things that you can pick up but of course it's about the people as well and you meet just increasingly sort of more awesome people that you've kind of met before but no sorry that's a bit rubbish isn't it. So yeah no the conference is also about the people and connecting and making new networks which is what it's all about. And I'm not talking by the way that's why I'm not talking. Okay. So why do you think open matters I guess since we're talking about in the educational context for students, faculty and institutions? Why it matters. It's just such a fundamental thing isn't it. Everyone should have a right to getting the best advantages in life and I've never seen open as all this new thing we've got to do. It's just what makes me ticking away. It's always made perfect sense to me. So I think where it's been really exciting is where it's sort of widened the opportunities for students and people can maybe learn a bit more flexibly if they're holding down part-time jobs. You know you used to work with nursing students that were out on the ward but you still wanted access to materials. Just gives people more choice. So I think it's vital for students. I love the textbook idea. You know it is about costs isn't it but it's more about just making things more accessible also. It's vital for students. I just can't see anyone involved in education any more working sort of behind closed doors. It's just so counter-intuitive. From a staff perspective I think it's amazing. I think people start to be terrified. Oh my God, I've got to find out about licenses and what technology to use. But I think for me it's been one of the most powerful things that I've ever seen in terms of getting colleagues to think about their own practices and enhance what they're doing and learn about licenses. So I think it's amazing for staff development. I think every teacher in the world should develop an open educational resource. I just think it's great in that respect. And for universities, institutions. Well I think sometimes they see it differently and I think sometimes it's more of a reputational badge. I think the further you sort of go up in seniority open change is quite dramatically in people's perceptions of it or what they think of it. And then the business models behind it become more important and you kind of lose sight of the students. I think the further you go up the chain. So yeah, it's a really interesting area to be involved in. Great. Can I just ask you to move that to the other side because I'm picking it up a little bit. Sorry. Yeah. So you need to redo anything? No, it's okay. It's not too bad. How can, you know, do you think the open sort of culture should increase at universities and do you even think it should be a default? Yeah, it should open be a default. I mean I personally do think so. I think that's so challenging though. I think particularly in the UK at the moment where we're developing more of a competitive marketplace. So students are paying high volumes of fees. Universities are competing for students. So I don't think I can answer for the UK but I don't think that it will ever be default but I think there's just not really the desire at that senior level to really collaborate and share and it's mind-blowing to come and hear about what they've done in Vancouver and British Columbia in terms of getting institutions to collaborate. I just don't think that would happen in the UK but I think certainly within universities there are pockets of activity where it does become default but I don't think we're going to see some of the national sweeping changes that we see in other parts of the world just yet but I think it would be lovely to aspire towards that. Cool. And how do you maybe think that we can engage our faculty, upper administration, government, students, people to embrace students? Do you want to see us at the door? Stop and let's tell them to be quiet. How are you? I already know that kind of burning question. I really like your tweet yesterday about faculty that we tend to obsess about learning analytics or analyze rather than actually the quality of the tools. So maybe I thought it might be a good idea to maybe talk a bit about that. Oh, okay. I mean if you think something you guys have done. No, it's fine. Do you want to answer that or do you want to go back to the next question? You've got one more question, have you? Yeah, the one I was just asking. So how can we engage more faculty or students? Students are getting on board but the upper administration, governments to embrace more open education practices. That's just the million dollar question, isn't it? I don't think I have struggled for 10 years with that one. I think it's actually one of the presentations yesterday might been Paul Stacey talking about business models of open education. Actually it's really important to know who the stakeholders are. And I think it was Nicole as well. So to really think, okay, who are the people I'm going to talk to? And what's their perspective? So you just got to find a hook for people, haven't you? And to create an argument for your different stakeholders that it's going to win them over. And I personally find that really difficult because I just let my enthusiasm come out and suddenly I'm not being very persuasive or coherent. So I find that really hard. I think the confidence to be good actually is maybe think about how can I create some arguments for myself to persuade people at different levels and maybe you're not going to. Maybe you're just not going to be able to be that influential within your organisation but maybe you start by sort of creating your virtual networks and finding like-minded people in your country and draw them together, which is certainly what we do in the UK through our various open education communities. But yes, ever-ending challenges, isn't it? And just when you think you've convinced one person, they leave the university, that's a quite a common problem people moving on and career progression. So your argument to lose traction and you have to start again. But yes, it's being persistent and keeping going with what you believe, I think. It's the way forward. That works even better. That's your question again. Yeah, I mean, you see it as a pattern. I mean, with us at UBC, this obsession about big data and what am I throwing into that? I don't think there's about the quality of the tools or the kind of actual ecosystems that we're running. Yeah. So I just thought, I loved your tweet yesterday. So maybe you can comment on that. No, I think... Is it a similar pattern in the UK or generally? Yeah. I think just saying the UK's gone very sort of almost market-driven and there's quite a competitive climate between universities and everything's league tables and metrics and what can we measure and it kind of distorts what you're trying to achieve and you know, you're strategising to deliver the metrics that are all nice and shiny and positive but actually losing sight of actually learning and teaching and working with students. So I think... And it's a real danger and attention, which is an overused word, isn't it? But I would also say sometimes that's quite a battle. It's a battle crowd between sort of staff and faculty and your senior executive. You know, you might just have completely different approaches and aspirations.