ROC Amsterdam-Flevoland increases the impact of Team Content Creation through the OpenUp scheme

ROC Amsterdam-Flevoland consists of two educational institutions, twelve large vocational colleges, seven secondary schools and one secondary school for adults (vavo). In total, nearly 40,000 pupils and students attend classes at this ROC. Due to its size, it was possible to start our own Team Content Creation (TCC), with Jamie de Vré as coordinator. Jamie explains: "We want to take more control over our own learning materials. Of course, we also use teaching materials from publishers. But if we collaborate with other ROCs and make our materials available to them as well, we can reduce costs. Our goal is to create a community of ROCs that develop and share digital content with each other."

Because the focus is on maximising the use of the learning materials, the team initially focuses on general skills that are taught in all vocational education programmes, such as Dutch, mathematics, digital skills and citizenship, as well as on elective modules that are common to many programmes, such as design thinking.

Taking the next step into maturity

TCC is a young team and is still working on establishing its position within the organisation and the broader ROC field. The OpenUp scheme is helping with this. Jamie explains: "Our team consists of more than six FTEs and various areas of expertise: we have content creators, AV specialists, a coordinator and a teacher support staff member. A colleague of mine set up the team and when she left, I was given the opportunity to lead it. At that point, we actually had to design all the processes: how do we approach a project? Which areas of expertise do we involve in which phase of a project? How do we gather feedback from teachers and students as early as possible? How do we ensure that the learning materials we develop are used by as many students as possible?”

Collaboration helps accelerate progress

The team's visibility within and outside the organisation also needed to be increased. Jamie: "There were already collaborations with Graafschap College, Curio, Summa College and the DNA partnership in the north-east of the Netherlands (Drenthe College, Noorderpoort and Alfa College). We see that these partnerships help to accelerate projects and stimulate the use of the learning materials we have developed ourselves. So you would actually want to do this on a larger scale. The OpenUp scheme is a huge help in this regard.”

Thanks to the OpenUp scheme, we can strengthen our collaboration even more easily. The scheme helps to accelerate projects and encourage the use of self-developed materials.

Impactscan

TCC has benefited greatly from OpenUp's approach, which focuses on impact assessment. This allows you to measure structural impact based on six pillars: vision and policy, professionalisation, culture, collaboration, support and infrastructure. Jamie: ‘We already paid attention to those six areas before, but the great thing about the impact scan is that we now make that explicit. That creates more awareness and focus.’

He cites the Infrastructure pillar as an example. "If you want the materials you develop to be widely used, you need to think in advance about what is required to achieve this. Take ICT landscapes, for example, which are very diverse. Obviously, we don't want to develop something that doesn't work for half of all vocational colleges because the software is incompatible with their systems. Nor should it be the case that another ROC cannot adapt the materials because we have built the modules with an application that is not used anywhere else.”

Making an impact by seeking connection

With the OpenUp scheme, the TCC aims to achieve three objectives:

• Creating as much open content as possible for as many students as possible;
• Supporting as many other teams and teachers as possible in creating content;
• Aligning with national developments and entering into as many partnerships as possible, so that volume is created and different teams can make use of each other's strengths.

OpenJamie sums it up: "The bottom line is that we want to make an impact. You don't do that by operating as a team on an island, but by seeking connections with others. Although we obviously have content creators in our team, creating content is not the only thing we do. We also support teachers and encourage them to develop their own materials, with a little help from us where necessary.” With this scheme, the TCC wants to achieve three goals:

Adoption plan

One of the areas where TCC can provide support is adoption. "From the moment we at TCC start working on a request, we already start thinking about adoption: what can we do to ensure that the materials don't end up on a digital shelf, but are actually used by as many teachers as possible in their lessons? Adoption is a very broad concept. It ranges from developing a prototype as early as possible in the process, which students and teachers can give their opinion on, to communication in newsletters and at study days."

He cites as an example a project that the TCC carried out for the design thinking elective. "This elective is used in three domains, but there is also a programme that does not use it as an elective but weaves it into the entire programme. We have designed the e-learning modules and interactive videos in such a way that teachers from all these study programmes can use them in different ways in their lessons. Teachers can use the materials in class and discuss them with the group, but they can also be used for self-study."

Furthermore, most content is created for different levels. ‘Suppose you are at level 3 but still struggle with certain material. Then you can practise a little more with the content created for level 2. But if, on the other hand, you have already mastered that material, you can move on to level 4 content. This gives both teachers and students freedom,’ says Jamie.

School boards realise that they have a choice: they are not completely dependent on teaching materials from publishers and can take matters into their own hands.

Force a breaktrough

“The momentum is there, and the extra resources enable us to force a breakthrough now. This gives the development of open educational resources a huge boost. At ROC Amsterdam-Flevoland, we already had a board that believes in open digital learning resources and supports us. Thanks to the attention that other ROCs are now also paying to this theme, other school boards are also becoming aware that they have a choice; that they are not completely dependent on materials from publishers, but that they can take more control into their own hands. That's great to see. I really believe in this and it gives me so much energy. I am firmly convinced that we are now at a tipping point. Open educational resources created by educational institutions themselves are the future.