Congratulations to Alexandra Pounds and John Bostock from the Aquaculture Systems Group. Their publication on Open Educational Resources was one of the most downloaded articles from Springer journals during 2019
Aquaculture International volume 27, pages 695–710(2019) Springer
Authors: Alexandra Pounds and John Bostock Institute of Aquaculture University of Stirling.
Alexandra Pounds' research publication on Open Education Resources was listed as one of the most downloaded articles on Springer under the "aquatic sciences" category. Her article, "Open educational resources (OER) in higher education courses in aquaculture and fisheries: opportunities, barriers, and future perspectives", was funded under the EURASTIP project in 2017 as part of her MSc thesis work.
OERs are free online teaching resources, usually licensed under Creative Commons Licensing. This license allows users to modify, distribute, and reuse the materials in their own classrooms. A variety of benefits to using OERs include: saving teachers' time to prepare lessons, increase teaching efficiency, and reduce economic barriers to education.
Her survey work found that, among the aquaculture and fisheries higher education community, OER use is currently extremely limited, mostly due to lack of awareness and institutional support. Both educators and students reported that there was a need for these types of materials, given that higher education classrooms already rely heavily on online resources. Students also reported that they were more likely to enroll in a university that offered these types of resources.
To read the publication, please visit this link.
To learn more about Alexandra's work or contact her, please visit her website.
