Reflexive task 1, Delyth and dafydd

The potential synergy between the development of Welsh Medium HE teaching and the OER agenda is very strong indeed. Welsh Medium teaching is undertaken across a number of HEIs in Wales and is particularly embedded in Bangor, Aberystwyth and Trinity St Davids. However, even in those institutions with a strong tradition of Welsh Medium teaching initiatives in the past have been piece meal and dependent on the active engagement and enthusiasm of a small number of Welsh speaking staff who are committed to delivering education in Welsh. This context is changing as the Welsh

Below you will find excerpts from conversations during project meetings and responses to reflexive tasks which touch upon the impact of institutional context (teaching through the medium of Welsh) on OERs.

Government has committed to the establishment of a Coleg Cymraeg Cenedlaethol, which will provide increased resources and national strategic planning for the development of Welsh Medium HE

As part of the emerging Welsh Medium agenda colleagues have become increasingly interested in developing and sharing Welsh Medium resources – and in securing an effective repository for material developed for particular courses that may be retained and / or reused in the future. The desire for a national gateway to such resources has led to the development of ‘Y Porth’ – a national blackboard system hosting a range of resources – both open and restricted. C-SAP funded social science resources are already available on the Porth.

Meeting on 20^th Jan

Dafydd mentioned that in the Welsh medium context, colleagues are much more prepared to share as this is such a small community, also there is a sense that sharing resources is necessary to sustain the project of delivering university-level education in Welsh. Dafydd added that because there are so few resources in Welsh at the moment, there is a higher chance for reuse, but maybe a lower one for repurposing.

Dafydd also commented on issues around language study skills in Welsh – currently, no equivalent of IELTS for Welsh speakers; he also talked about the need to find some new terminology in Welsh for repurposing the SPSS resource (terms such as cross-tab)