Thing 9 & 10: Open Education and Algorithms


Thing 9: Open Educational Resources

What are Open Educational Resources? 

Open Educational Resources (OER) can help expand access to education, diversify teaching and learning resources, and improve knowledge sharing.  The UNESCO Recommendation’s definition is that OER are:  

“learning, teaching and research materials in any format and medium that reside in the public domain or are under copyright that have been released under an open license, that permit no-cost access, re-use, re-purpose, adaptation and redistribution by others.” 

There are many kinds of open educational resources; an OER might be an image, a piece of media, an open textbook, a reading list, a lesson plan, a 3D model, a simulation, or an open course. Most OERs are shared under a Creative Commons licence to enable them to be reused and repurposed. 

OERs are part of the wider domain of Open Education, which encompasses a broad range of practices and activities that aim to encourage collaboration and sharing to improve education worldwide. You can read some different descriptions of Open Education here: Open Education Definitions 

There are increasing numbers of courses at the University which include the use and creation of OER within assessments. Engaging with open education, OER and open knowledge through curriculum assignments can help to develop a wide range of core disciplinary competencies and transferable attributes including:  

  1. Digital, data and copyright literacy skills,  
  2. Understanding how knowledge and information is created shared and contested online,  
  3. Collaborative working and collective knowledge creation,  
  4. Information synthesis,  
  5. Critical thinking and source evaluation,  
  6. Writing as public outreach.   

OER enhances engagement with content and collections too, by open licensing content in University collections they become available to a wider audience. OER is a fantastic opportunity to contribute towards the development of open knowledge. Another great way to do this is to engage with the world’s biggest open educational resource, Wikipedia. You’ll have a chance to delve into Wikimedia in Thing 22. 

OER at the University of Edinburgh  

The University of Edinburgh has an OER Policy that encourages staff and students to use, create and publish OERs to enhance the quality of the student experience, expand provision of learning opportunities, and enrich our shared knowledge commons. You can read the policy here: 

Open Educational Resources Policy (PDF) 

The University also has an OER Service, based in Information Services Group, that supports staff and students to engage with open education and OER.  The OER Service website, Open.Ed, includes lots of advice and guidance on finding and using OER, blogs from some our prominent open practitioners, and a showcase of open educational resources created by colleagues around the University. 

How to complete Thing 9

Step 1

Explore Open.Ed and our showcase of Edinburgh’s OERs and find an OER that appeals to your interests or subject area. 

To do this, you can browse the resources in the Edinburgh’s OERs showcase, or alternately you can search for resources here:  Open.Ed ‘Where to find OERs’ page. 

Step 2

Share the OER you found on your blog with a reflection about how OER might be useful to you. 

Further Resources

Open Media Bank –  A collection of over 1200 high-quality media resources originally created for The University of Edinburgh’s MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) and free short online courses. These media resources have been made available under Creative Commons licence for sharing, reuse and remixing. 

 Open Media Stock Footage – A collection of free, openly licensed media snippets from the Online Course Production Team at the University of Edinburgh, for downloading, sharing, remixing and reuse. 

 TES Resources – An award-winning collection of interdisciplinary OERs for school teachers co-created by staff and students. 

Openverse – A tool that searches across more than 700 million openly licensed and public domain images and audio resources enabling them to be discovered and used by everyone. It includes a simple cut and paste tool for attributions! 


Thing 10: Algorithms

Technology is central to modern living and is used every single day by most of the population. It’s important then that we as ethical digital citizens critically interact with how we use technology, and the information offered to us from online sources. 

What are Algorithms? 

Algorithms are a set of ordered instructions within systems that take in information and produce information, known as ‘inputs’ and ‘outputs. For example, when you search for something online, search engine algorithms return and order results.  

However, it’s important to bear in mind that while search engine algorithms rank websites on a combination of their popularity and relevancy, empirical studies have shown various political, economic, and social biases in the information they provide. These biases can be a direct result of economic and commercial processes (e.g., companies that advertise with a search engine can become also more popular in its organic search results), and political processes (e.g., the removal of search results to comply with local laws). For example, Google will not surface certain neo-Nazi websites in France and Germany, where Holocaust denial is illegal. Biases can also be a result of social processes, as search engine algorithms are frequently designed to exclude non-normative viewpoints in favour of more “popular” results.  – Search Engines, Wikipedia 

Algorithms and Bias on Social Media 

Algorithms are used by social media companies and platforms to arrange the order of posts and information in your newsfeed and to recommend new content and accounts for users to interact with or follow. 

However, algorithms can also push content to users that compounds and increases social inequalities and bias. For example, the TikTok algorithm employs machine learning to promote suggested content for users and creators. The recommendations are unique to each user, but we can’t tell how they were generated. The algorithm might pick out characteristics, depending on how successful recommendations based on these characteristics are. 

  1. How TikTok Recommends videos for you 
  2. Instagram Ranking Explained 
  3. YouTube Search and Discovery 
  4. Google search result rankings (pay attention to the Context and Settings section) 

How to complete Thing 10

Step 1

Read or listen to at least two of the below readings/podcasts. 

  1. Podcast: Social Media Algorithms: How you’re curating a biased news feed, The Pie Economics Podcast, Mar 21 2023
  2. TikTok is opening a parallel dimension in Europe: People will soon be able to experience TikTok without its all-knowing hyper-personalized algorithm. Will anything change?, The Atlantic, Aug 16th  2023
  3. What TikTok does to your mental health: ‘It’s embarrassing we know so little’, The Guardian, Oct 30th 2022
  4. Social Media Algorithms: Dangerous Data (an OER on Open.Ed) 

Step 2

Using your normal web browser, log into your Google account if you have one and enter a search term on Google. Or use your browser search engine of choice. Make note of the search results. 

Step 3

Open an incognito tab and search the same term. Are the search results the same? If not, why do you think they came up with different results? 

Step 4

Reflect on your readings and the results of your search results using a logged in or used browser compared to an unused private incognito browser. 

Share