 So thank you for coming to this, just to say that that is the title, but because this session has been cut down to half an hour, we're not actually going to do that, so don't worry. You've come to the right session. We might just do a quick sound check with Keith, can we do that Martin? Just to see if we're online. We're going to do all sorts of things today that might go horribly wrong, so we're going to try and bring in Keith Smyth from UHI, and hopefully he has a group of people there in UHI as well. Because we're going to have a bit of collaboration, so you will all be working with people. So if you haven't met someone as Keith suggested, or as Sharon suggested, if you haven't spoken to someone that you don't know, this will be a perfect opportunity for you to do in this session. We might have to get you to squish in and work together as well, but I think, are we working with Keith? Yeah, okay that's great. So we will be handing over to Keith at some point as well. But yeah, let me just move this slightly. So yeah, because we're going to, we've only got half an hour, this is basically what we're doing today. So I'm going to hand over to Bill to give you a bit more of an explanation. I'll use that and you can hand make sure. Okay, although there's three of those different kinds of people, microphones, etc. We've tried to work over the pitch we've been working together as a thought collective, as we call ourselves. And so in the spirit of that, we use this little phrase here, let our numbers be unlimited, which is a kind of pastiche on the work of a group from the past called the London Corresponding Society. And that was from in 1792 in a pub by a guy called Thomas Hardy who originated in Stirlingshire in Scotland and then went down to London to make his fortune. And he got involved with other people in looking at the hardness of the times and they need to improve the position of the ordinary working man, as the phrase was in those days. But they also had a bigger ambition and that was very radical ambition of the time, which was to get political representation for ordinary people, to get the franchise extended. And life being life, this did not go unnoticed by the authorities and they all had up for high treason, which could have got them hung drawn in quarters, but they had a good lawyer and managed to get off. And it resonated to me down the centuries the idea of let our numbers be unlimited, which is kind of a spin on one of the rules of the corresponding society. They used letters, they sent letters to other societies in different parts of England and in some ways there's almost a kind of historical echo of what we are trying to do with the internet and so on and so forth. So that's the first thing I guess is our idea of openness and openness for today anyway until we change our minds later on is the idea that the numbers of people involved should be unlimited and that perhaps there should be a radical edge to it. It shouldn't simply all be about teaching people how to be capitalists or whatever. There should be a challenge there. So that's our own generative theme if you like, open as challenge. So just to explain what we're going to do today, we're going to give you the introduction and then we're going to do some group discussions with you. This work is based on a book that Bill Keith and I have recently published called Conceptualising the Digital University, which we'll talk a bit about later. One of the things that we have been exposed by in that, I think that's someone else just joining our collaborate room as well, is critical pedagogy and it was lovely to see the quotes from Jiru and Kate's session this morning because we've tried to put hope into our work and we have been actually trying to do some of the things that Kate suggested in terms of reimagining and giving an alternative vision to how universities can develop. So we're going to try and in the spirit of critical pedagogy, what we're going to try and do is have a digitally distributed culture circle which may or may not work. So exciting times guys, but we'll give it a try. Okay, so some of our ideas and concepts are captured on that slide, there's a lot more in the book, but a few things to pull out. What is a university for was one of the things that we organised a lot of our ideas around and a lot of our work and what's it actually for? Is it for the benefit of the rich and powerful or is it actually for the benefit of the vast majority of people who need an education and need to meet other people for learning purposes? So we're much influenced obviously by Stephen Collini who writes very cleverly and articulately about that question, what's the university for? And that's a thing that we focused on and one of our poll points and you can see it there and it's kind of big in blue is a challenge in neoliberalism. Somebody in Dave's session through that up challenge the neoliberal agenda and quite right too because if you don't you'll end up in a precarious contract if you're not already on one. That's one of the sharp points of the neoliberalism world which used to be seen as academic jargon a few years ago but I think more and more people are starting to say well that's that precarious employment isn't it? So that's telling students that the whole point of being a student and getting a degree is you can earn a better graduate salary and you really ought to use a special information system to find out which university to go to in order to get the best graduate salary later on. What that does for nurses is kind of beyond me because the labour market for nursing doesn't really operate quite the way that the theorists of neoliberal higher education would have you believe. So a couple of our values there, the idea of things being discursive, reflective, dialogic. Again I would think meet and drink to your good selves so say a little bit more about that. That I guess tries to sum up one of our key ideas that we work with people and pedagogy and not simply technology important as it is and definitely as a critique of managerialism which you couldn't say is the sharp end of the neoliberal approach to higher education in universities and it's been there growing steadily and developing its power and breadth and span for some decades. Now I'm retired but I talk occasionally to old colleagues and they ask them what it's like now and they say it's pretty much the way it was when you left only worse. And that's not a good message to be getting back from your colleagues. So I don't have time really to explain this in full but one of the I suppose part of our work and we've presented at OER I think a couple of times now certainly at OER 16 when we were just starting this work. We started with what we call the conceptual matrix was basically those four elements there. As a way to discuss this question of what is a university for and we tried to look at it in a slightly different way in terms of not doing some of the things that Kate was talking about in terms of you know just having I suppose data and spreadsheets and things but talking about what people actually did in a university. So we had notions of participation of information literacy of curriculum and course design and of the learning environment but the learning environment being the physical and the digital spaces that all our work takes place in. And we've expanded this through the book and again we can't explain this in the time that we've got. But what we very much see now and what we would like to propose is to think about when we're thinking about organizational development or reimagining a university or developing a university that academic development should be at the heart of that process as well. And it should be about people and that would be a way to engage and have the discussions and challenge some of the things that were coming through particularly in Kate's inspiring talk this morning. But as a way to focus back on people and what's actually happening in the institution. So we can then look at open education and open educational practice as a really really powerful way to do that. And we've been talking about praxis and getting people to understand what that actually means. And again using critical pedagogy to allow people to contextualize where they are. And actually to understand their place within the university whether you're a student or staff member and the wider political situation that we are all living in. And again what we're hoping although we have written very much from our context which is in the UK. We're hoping that this critical lens would allow people from other parts of the world to be able to have an engaged conversation as well. And then maybe we could have a different way of sharing our experiences but doing that more openly as well. So we're going to bring in Keith now. So I suppose one of the instantiations of this matrix is what we're calling the digitally distributed curriculum. And if Keith is there and if we can hear Keith, Keith is maybe going to talk through this. Can we get Keith? Do I have to swap over for Martin to the rescue? If Keith's not there we'll have to talk to this diagram so hopefully he's there. He just tweeted that he won't talk. Oh dear. Alright we're reconnecting. Oh no. He's not there. It was all working so well. I don't suppose Keith tweeted a new link. That's good. That looks better. We're going to be a bit better. Oh you're doing it? Yes. We're going. Good man. Yes we're going. Hello. Hi Keith, can you hear us? Yes I can. Okay Keith, over to you. Could you explain the digitally distributed curriculum? What we're going to talk about is that it isn't a problem that we don't really want to stay going so I'm back in most effective. So following what you're saying, it changes with some previous sessions as well. We're very much looking at values around reciprocity, practice. I don't know if you're picking up. We're basically on the website. Do you hear me? Yes we can still hear you. Okay sorry. This seems to be a connection problem. So in terms of what you've been starting to notice in relation to this concept, digital distributed curriculum. We're kind of really looking at the digital and digital space as a matrix and an extended higher education. We're going to look at all the databases of what we're good at. And then we're going to look at the digital universities and what they're doing. And one thing I know is that we're not going to be able to communicate with them. So in relation to digital distributed curriculum, we conceptualize this as involving extents and elements of your life. And one of the values that we think of in what communities we are. And this type of reciprocal practice and publication from the university. So values are really about practice and challenging changing things within a society isn't really going to be easily challenged and changed. And what we're going to do is we're going to think about the publication and the publication of what I mean. The walls and sidewalls of the distribution itself. The presentation which is really going to be something for us. The rest of us will conceptualize digital distributed curriculum. And values are really going to be dimensions. And dimensions of practice of your life. And that allows us to take those values and turn them into something tangible. And so the dimensions of, and making the dimensions of identify and prove that the scholarship, the production, philosophy and publication both have spaces. And both the formal and formal education space. And also the publication of the university and the film and alongside. And through public spaces. And something that's very important as we really conceptualize this. And it's to try to not go into the trap of intriguing people with just the online. And so you see in addition to the quality. And we're talking about open online engagement. Open campus engagement. And also open to the community. And for everyone to be able to distribute the curriculum. It's around how it's instantially, how it's impactive. And so these are really, and the path go. And I think it becomes a form of practice. Connection and design. And how we actually, in terms of money, make each of them. So what we're going to talk is a video. And we're going to talk about just that. Which is an agency. The major creation. And it's the same group I know about this. And it becomes a form of scholarship. We're talking about all this work. And now it just projects this digital path. Which is a very powerful project. And it's huge because it's got so much to do with progress. And it's a very powerful project. And in relation to the location of it's part of the path. And we need to take that as it is. It's going to build up in space. But also how we're going to self-select. Which are all like spaces. And so we're trying to develop and access the whole research. And it's going to be on spaces which will take place. Great, thanks Keith. So hopefully you got that. But what we would like you to do now. We do have, I tweeted out a link to a Padlet Wall. And what we'd like you to do is thinking about these. I'll go back to the URL that I tweeted out. And we can get that from this. Hopefully what we'd like you to do is look at these. The enabling dimensions of open scholarship. Co-location, porosity, and co-location. And we'd like you to in groups maybe think about how your work actually. If your work includes any of that. And so we've put some suggestions of enabling factors. But maybe if you have any instantiations of that. You could share that as well. Sorry, I'll just get that slide up. Why is it you can never use one of these keyboards. Like trackpad mice when you're presenting something. But basically we want you to look at the. Oh, it's not working. Oh, I'm going to get technical fail here. But we'd like you in your groups to actually look at that. Based on that diagram to have a conversation about these values. And see if they would work in your context. I don't feel so bad. He's had to plug in a mouse. So I don't feel I can feel your knife. Over here. So that's the path of wall. I'll give people and maybe look at that and get that. We'll go possibly more important to look at that diagram. So looking at open scholarship, co-location, porosity, and co-production. You might just want to take one of those elements. So in the diagram, we've got some instantiations and some suggestions of things that we think are examples of practice in that area. But we'd be really interested to see if you think that that's part of your practice. If you do something else in these areas. And also I think from different parts of the world. How can we actually have more porosity between different cultures and different countries. And thinking about some of the issues of privilege and ownership and control. How can we do that? And thinking about notions of third spaces. So how we in education work with different parts of society as well. So it might be a bit complicated. It might not work. But we just want you to share what you do. So I'll go back to the paddle link. We'll put this back up as well. So you can keep that in mind. If you have any questions, of course, do ask us. But please, we just want you to have a discussion as much as you can about that. And then we'll watch the paddle it will grow as you add. Well, happy that you've got the link. You're okay with that. Okay. There you go. Okay. Just shove it back to the main slide. There you go. Okay. Over to you. We'll give you a shout out at five minutes from the end. And perhaps have some live discussion as well. I'll have you with the time. Thank you. Folks, time is always against us. We're going to bring up the pablets and see what you did. Can we get you to focus a little bit for just a few minutes? We've got five minutes or so less. I think no, it doesn't look like it. Great. Well, as Bill says, it's great to see everything coming through on the pablet wall. And we will share this and we are going to follow up on this. But I don't know. Is there anyone that would like to make a comment about anything just now? Or how useful you find it? It seems to certainly generate quite a lot of discussion in the room. You might just have been talking about other things though. I don't know. Hopefully you were talking about this. But I think that's kind of validating what we were doing. I think it's interesting seeing things coming in about working with students. And I think that's absolutely critical and crucial. How do we do that? And Scott and I were just having a discussion about the confidence it takes to be an open practitioner within your institution. And again, we were just talking about privilege. And I probably am in a position where I have got the privilege of just saying, just be open because I've been able to develop my own open practice over many years. And at some points, I kind of think, well, I'm just going to do it anyway. I have a great phrase from a colleague who says, proceed until apprehended. And in dark times, you actually have to do that. Sometimes you just have to do things and see how it goes. But instilling that confidence to other colleagues and actually being able to have a discussion so people can actually not feel scared about doing something, but actually feel liberated by making a resource open. And as Kate pointed out, to create something, you do need support to do that. But we have to find creative ways and understand our own practice to be able to do that. And we need to be able to support staff and students to be able to do that. I think we miss out a huge amount in terms of what our students can do, particularly around co-production and co-location. And I think notions of expanding what a university is for. And again, fighting back against that kind of spreadsheet numbers. The students are just the data. The students are people. The students are our future. So we really want them to be creating and sharing as much as we can. That's a quick thing. One of the kind of key words for us was porosity. And part of the reason for that was a couple of years back at the University of Highlands and Islands in Burness where a couple of days on the idea of the porous university. And they got a lot of discussion going on. For me, anyway, it seemed to be a helpful word for destabilising and unfreezing often quite tightly structured notions of what are the boundaries, what are the openings so that people can get in. And it's obviously much easier from a corporate management point of view to restrict porosity, I would say, and try to keep everything on the basis of somebody's saying the form that says they want to come here or some such thing. So I think, just throw it out to you, it's obviously stuff coming up there. It's good the idea of the wider public. And if you think back to the example we gave of Thomas Hardy and his buddies in the pub, that's actually from our experience very close to a concept like the ragged university that's on the go in Scotland and we hope to do more work with the folk involved with that. And that was just ordinary guys sitting about the pub, something that was important to them which was getting political recognition and things went from there. So that idea of porosity I think is one we would throw out into the ether. And perhaps see if people have other ideas about it later on. I think again, cultural porosity, what does that actually mean between different countries, between the languages that we use, between the cultural values that we share, the assumptions that we make about the resources that we share, where we share them, expectations of how people can access them as well. I think we need to have more conversations about that and we need to be enabling our staff and students to have the space to have these conversations as well. Anyone want to say any comments from? The last couple of minutes. Well, we will follow up. Just a small point, thinking of how many of us are working undercover, if you like. Victor Bergen said this when restructuring reared its head in arts and humanities, 2009-10, how do you work within the institution which feeds us and some of us roof over our head. But the students are in the same position. Many of them are interested in this. Many of my students talk about this. However, they're paying for a brand. They're working nights, some of them, to pay for that. Some are privileged, but many are not. And so they're in that cash 22 if they can't damage what they're paying for in the hope there may be some employment afterwards. Yeah, absolutely. I think certainly very positive experiences I hear from students is when they can do something that then they can take outside the institution. And a lot of the work that we get our students to do, like the holes in our VLE walls, it's bounded, it's hidden, so they can't take it with them. So they can't use that experience to help their employability chances as well. And again, I think it goes back to confidence that staff being able to design curriculum and design assignments and activities that allow students those opportunities as well. And I think sometimes yes, there is that fear because we do think... Or actually it's not fear, it's time. We just don't have enough time really. We don't think about what we're doing in curriculum, design, activity, design as much as we should because we don't have the time because everyone's teaching loads are becoming heavier and heavier. We don't take enough time institutionally to say, you know what, every year we are going to have a review of our modules or our courses, whatever you might call them. And we're going to look at that and see what's working. And actually, let's try things. So I think there's a whole combination of things there. But I think that, yeah, we need to be able to have a way to start having the conversations about how we can do that. We might not do it with everything, but we can do something. Good job. Thank you. I'll take your hand up. Hi. Just Scott Conner from the University of Ireland. Good job on the same point in our own institution. A couple of things that restrict us. One is policies. And the policies tend to be quite restrictive. And because the policies are restrictive, we know that there's good practice going on in the institution. But the problem arises if you say you're doing a certain kind of practice that goes against a policy, you risk your practice being removed. So in effect, it's stifling innovation in the institution just by having the policies and being too strict on the policies. I think that's, sorry Bill, but I think academic development units can play quite a central role there. Because they're quite often involved in policy development as well. So actually, maybe starting from that can help. Won't all the time, I know. A quick, very, very quick response to both those points. If you're thinking about students, one thing that always helps me is to ask yourself and ask them, where do they get their ideas about beliefs from and so forth? And then you have that conversation. Do you get your ideas entirely from careers, masters and mistresses at school or from the careers unit at the university or wherever? Where is the space for people to think for themselves and get that going? I think if that could be instantiated, a word of learn from Keith, if that could be instantiated in practice, then you might start finding students with hands, all sorts of ideas. We all know that climate change is a big issue. A few weeks ago around the world, thousands and thousands and thousands of school kids just went out and we saw a good example. If you want me to stop being an activist, stop being a shite. I think that's what the Australian 12-year-olds were saying. So do you think about that? When we talk about students as people and humans, we mean it. And humans and people are distinguished from each other and from the stones and the trees and so forth because they have to think. Okay, we're going to have to call the stop there. I know some of you may be going on to the next presentation. So thank you to Sheila and Bill and Keith online. Thank you all.