The Open Fieldwork Project

We’re making great progress uploading resources to our Open Fieldwork Aggregator, and with refining the search facility and licence information…more from Mike on this soon! An interesting issue has emerged concerning resources that focus on multiple locations, and how these are best represented on the map. For example, the Virtual Alps resource focuses on three field sites located in Switzerland, France, and Canada. Given the distance between these sites it seems reasonable link to the resource from each location – that is, to place three pins on the map each linking to the Virtual Alps website. So far, so straightforward. However, we have other resources covering multiple locations but on a much smaller scale, and herein lies our dilemma: at what scale does duplicating a single resource become unnecessary and/or unhelpful, and how can the geographic distribution of field sites be best represented?

This is best demonstrated in NW Scotland, which the map implies contains nine resources but in fact contains only two. The Rocks of NW Scotland resource covers a range of field sites featuring classic Scottish geology. Since this contains lots of useful information for field geologists we’ve duplicated the resource at several different locations. The advantage of this is that we can point people to the EXACT location referred to in a resource (in some cases the exact road-cut), the disadvantage being that the total number of resources located in NW Scotland is over-represented…the choice is in fact much more limited than implied by the map. In the same area we have a resource focused on the Moine Thrust Belt, which again covers several locations. This resource has been sub-divided by the author to focus on a northern and southern area, each with multiple sites within a realtively short distance (<10km) of each other. In this case we have chosen to represent the resource at two locations only, at the northern-most and southern-most parts of the respective field areas. So which of these approaches, if either, is the most helpful or appropriate? Should this even be an issue, if the focus of the aggregator is displaying the range of available resources, rather than the geographical distribution of field sites?

One further related issue we’re grappling with: assuming it is reasonable to duplicate resources at different geographical locations, should the markers all link to the home page for that resource, or directly to the location-specific information? There are pros and cons to both approaches, of course.

We’ll be exploring these issues further at our forthcoming expert seminar, but would be interested to hear anyone’s thoughts in the meantime.

While trawling the internet for fieldwork resources I came across an interesting OER portal developed by Tecnologico de Monterrey.  There are only a couple of resources which are relevant to the OF project – most notably Worldmapper, which offers a very unique way of viewing the world! What I really like about this portal are certain elements of the design which strike me as good practice, and which could provide a useful model for the OF database.

I particularly like the way in which supporting information is presented (click on the Worldmapper link above for an example). This is done using three tabbed sheets focusing on 1) basic information (date of creation, keywords, type of resource), 2) authors and permitted uses of the resource (including the type of licence under which the resource is released, together with usage permissions and restrictions), and 3) learning context (e.g. academic level, teaching recommendations, and end-user benefits). This seems to be a logical sub-division of the key information, and could be easily adapted to include geographical information (possibly using an additional tab?) for location-specific resources.

Another important issue that we need to consider with the OF datadase is quality control: do we need it, what should it involve, who will be responsible, how will the quality of resources be a) determined and b) signified to the community? The approach taken by Temoa is to use their community to undertake elements of the quality control process. A resource is tagged according to the level of quality assurance that has taken place, and to indicate if it has been ‘adopted’, i.e. incorporated into learning activities. Finally, users have the opportunity to assign their own review, and to rate the resource according to its perceived value.

The quality control / user review issue is one that we need to discuss in much more detail, but Temoa seems to offer an interesting and potentially useful model. What I particularly like is the involvement of the user community and the potential to assign individuals, or groups of individuals, to specific roles or duties. Community engagement is vital to the sustainability of the OF database, and this seems a good means of achieving it.

What do others think? Are there other examples of good practice or useful models that we should be considering?

Here’s an interesting situation which other OER users will probably recognise, but which appears to have no clear ‘answer’. Earlier today I was searching through an online database for fieldwork resources. I identified a likely contender, clicked the link, and was transferred to a second page with a link to the actual web-based fieldwork resource, together with links to further relevant information e.g. images, documents, further reading etc. At the bottom of this second page there was a CC BY-NC-SA logo. However, on following the link to the fieldwork resource, which can be freely accessed online, there was no CC logo / information to be found. So the question I asked myself was: is the actual fieldwork resource covered by the CC licence?

To anyone with experience of CC licences the answer is quite clearly ‘no’, but to the novice OER user the situation is far more ambiguous. With only a month’s experience I count myself in the latter category, and it took a lengthy discussion with Mike to clarify my understanding of what, exactly, the CC licence applies to, and how it should be interpreted in this particular situation. The next time that I encounter a CC licence on a page linking to a resource, I will know that the resource is not automatically covered by that licence. However, other (inexperienced) users may assume that the resource is covered, and use or re-purpose it inappropriately.

A phone call to a third colleague established that it was not technically ‘wrong’ to place a CC licence on the page linking to the resource, although we’re all intrigued as to the thinking behind licensing the page in the first place.

Another interesting question has begun to emerge concerning the potential life span of a fieldwork OER. I’ve spent the past few days interrogating the Digital Library for Earth System Education (http://www.dlese.org) and come across some really intriguing and interesting fieldwork resources, many of which were created back in the late 1990s and early 2000s. This is not necessarily a problem in the sense that factual information and physical landscapes (excepting perhaps those relating to human or urban geography, or in areas prone to natural hazards) are unlikely to have changed that much over the past decade. However, many of the websites look dated by today’s standards; the photography or image quality is relatively poor, the interactivity is ‘basic’, and there are broken links a-plenty. Many also lack any indication of if and how the resource can be used or re-purposed. All this leads me to ponder the extent to which the potential usefulness of a resource really be judged. Say, for example, that we link to a dated and half-broken virtual field course. One person might find it highly valuable because it contains crucial information about access to a site, or the perfect photograph for a PowerPoint presentation, while someone else perceives the same resource to be of absolutely no value, and consequently does not bother consulting our database in the future.

My feeling at the moment is that we should continue to collate usable resources regardless of their age, but filter out those with a significant proportion of broken links or very limited information (another question: at what point does a text-based web-page with a few photos become a ‘virtual field trip’? Is it VFT just because the author says so??). It will be great to get some community input on this issue – what are the most important criteria for determining which resources have something genuinely useful to offer, and which ones are perhaps best left?

One of my main tasks as Project Officer is to compile a database of fieldwork open resources already in existence. This involves trawling through OER repositories (e.g. JorumOpen), along with other “commons” and open/public sources trying to locate educational resources which could be re-used and shared within the GEES community (and beyond). An important question has emerged almost immediately: what, exactly, defines a ‘fieldwork OER’? Some are obvious, e.g. virtual field courses, field guides, and explanations or demonstrations of field techniques. Others are less clear, e.g. lab-based exercises which incorporate field data, identification guides for flora or fauna which might be encountered on fieldwork, or how to process GIS data collected in the field. This are all things which could feasibly, and usefully, support fieldwork, but are not specifically ‘field resources’.

Ultimately the usefulness of a particular resource will come down to the requirements of the individual, and the context in which it’s being used – neither of which we can (or should) second guess! The community consultation should help us out in this respect, by clarifying what resources GEES practitioners are most likely to search for, and why…..but any thoughts or comments on this posting will be gratefully received! In the meantime I’m thoroughly enjoying finding out what’s out there, and thinking about all the weird and wonderful ways in which some of these resources could be used in the GEES disciplines!