P2PU

Last updated
Peer 2 Peer University
Formation2007;17 years ago (2007)
FoundersPhilipp Schmidt, Delia Browne, Neeru Paharia, Stian Haklev, and Joel Thierstein
Website p2pu.org

Peer 2 Peer University (P2PU) is a nonprofit online open learning community which allows users to organize and participate in courses and study groups to learn about specific topics. Peer 2 Peer University was started in 2009 with funding from the Hewlett Foundation and the Shuttleworth Foundation, with its first of courses in September of that year. An example of the "edupunk" approach to education, P2PU charges no tuition and courses are not accredited. [1] However, some courses in "The School of Webcraft" provide the opportunity for recognition of achievements through the Open Badges project. [2]

Contents

P2PU offers some of the features of massive open online courses (MOOCs), but is focused on people sharing their knowledge on a topic or learning about a topic offered by another user with a DIY wiki-type mentality. [3] Unlike typical massive open online courses, anyone can create a course as well as take one. [4] Additionally, because of its less hierarchical nature, P2PU activities need not necessarily be Courses; the admin of the learning environment can select from Study Group and Challenge as well as creating their own term.

Academic profile

P2PU's peer-to-peer philosophy is meant to put a "social and pedagogical wrapper" around open access and educational materials. There is some evidence to suggest that greater social participation in P2PU may lead to more invested learning than other online education. [5] For instance, in an early P2PU course on cyberpunk literature, research noted "a shift from the subject-authority pattern of relations generally associated with teacher-led education to the agential pattern of relations associated with peer-led education." [6] Class participants communicate live through technologies such as Skype and IRC as well as asynchronously through the P2PU website, allowing geographically dispersed classmates to have discussions. [7] P2PU is organized into Schools which include:

P2PU's school of Webcraft courses were early adopters of a badge reward system, [8] and with their task completion system there are elements of gamification and gamification of learning.

Some of the courses that have been or are currently being offered include:

Infrastructure

The main learning management system for P2PU courses is called Lernanta (the Esperanto word for "learning"). It is written in Python using the Django web framework, and is developed and maintained by P2PU's community and staff. One P2PU study group, "Introduction to Contributing to Lernanta", is designed to help people become Lernanta contributors. [9] A fork of the Mozilla Foundation's Batacuda software that powers drumbeat.org, Lernanta is available under the Mozilla Public License, the GNU GPL, and the LGPL. [10] P2PU also hosts a wiki and an OSQA server for questions and answers.

Projects

P2PU is hosting and coordinating the MOOC joint-venture Mechanical MOOC which is a blend of open online resources. The first Mechanical MOOC class will be “A Gentle Introduction to Python,” which is part M.I.T. OpenCourseWare, instant-feedback exercises and quizzes from Codecademy, and study groups organized by OpenStudy, while P2PU handles central communication such as email and discussion. [11] Mechanical MOOC is less tightly structured than traditional MOOC offerings that are backed by universities, and offers no accreditation. Yet the initiators claim that this comes with an advantage they will capitalize on: if a student falls behind, they may repeat units at their own pace to catch up. [11]

History

The founding members of P2PU are Delia Browne, Neeru Paharia, Stian Haklev, Joel Thierstein and Philipp Schmidt. The organization is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit with funding from The Hewlett Foundation, The Shuttleworth Foundation, and University of California Irvine. [12]

Schmidt explained in a video interview that P2PU came to be when he and his friends, later to become his co-founders, attempted to put the championed open educational resources to the test, and try to learn from them. They selected a topic they were unfamiliar with, Psychology, and set up weekly calls, to try to learn as a group with the materials. Schmidt says it was "incredibly hard," and "what's more important is the social aspect, that bond that forms between people, and the content is really just the beginning of the learning experience." [13]

Plans for P2PU were announced in October 2008. [14] The first set of courses was originally planned to begin in January 2009, but the official launch was delayed until September 2009. The project was initially supported by a $70,000 grant from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. [15]

In September 2009, P2PU ran seven pilot courses with a total of 227 participants. [16] As of September 2011, P2PU claims "a community of about 1,000" and has over 50 courses open for sign-up. [12] [17]

Related Research Articles

Distance education, also known as distance learning, is the education of students who may not always be physically present at school, or where the learner and the teacher are separated in both time and distance. Traditionally, this usually involved correspondence courses wherein the student corresponded with the school via mail. Distance education is a technology-mediated modality and has evolved with the evolution of technologies such as video conferencing, TV, and the Internet. Today, it usually involves online education and the learning is usually mediated by some form of technology. A distance learning program can either be completely a remote learning, or a combination of both online learning and traditional offline classroom instruction. Other modalities include distance learning with complementary virtual environment or teaching in virtual environment (e-learning).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">MIT OpenCourseWare</span> Web-based publication of MIT course content

MIT OpenCourseWare is an initiative of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to publish all of the educational materials from its undergraduate- and graduate-level courses online, freely and openly available to anyone, anywhere. The project was announced on April 4, 2001, and uses Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license. The program was originally funded by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and MIT. MIT OpenCourseWare is supported by MIT, corporate underwriting, major gifts, and donations from site visitors. The initiative inspired a number of other institutions to make their course materials available as open educational resources.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Open educational resources</span> Open learning resource

Open educational resources (OER) are teaching, learning, and research materials intentionally created and licensed to be free for the end user to own, share, and in most cases, modify. The term "OER" describes publicly accessible materials and resources for any user to use, re-mix, improve, and redistribute under some licenses. These are designed to reduce accessibility barriers by implementing best practices in teaching and to be adapted for local unique contexts.

Peer production is a way of producing goods and services that relies on self-organizing communities of individuals. In such communities, the labor of many people is coordinated towards a shared outcome.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hasso Plattner Institute</span>

The Hasso Plattner Institute for Digital Engineering gGmbH is a information technology non-profit company affiliated with the University of Potsdam in Potsdam, Brandenburg, northeastern Germany.

OpenCourseWare (OCW) are course lessons created at universities and published for free via the Internet. OCW projects first appeared in the late 1990s, and after gaining traction in Europe and then the United States have become a worldwide means of delivering educational content.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Open education</span> Educational movement

Open education is an educational movement founded on openness, with connections to other educational movements such as critical pedagogy, and with an educational stance which favours widening participation and inclusiveness in society. Open education broadens access to the learning and training traditionally offered through formal education systems and is typically offered through online and distance education. The qualifier "open" refers to the elimination of barriers that can preclude both opportunities and recognition for participation in institution-based learning. One aspect of openness or "opening up" education is the development and adoption of open educational resources in support of open educational practices.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Andrew Ng</span> American artificial intelligence researcher

Andrew Yan-Tak Ng is a British-American computer scientist and technology entrepreneur focusing on machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI). Ng was a cofounder and head of Google Brain and was the former Chief Scientist at Baidu, building the company's Artificial Intelligence Group into a team of several thousand people.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gamification</span> Using game design elements in non-games

Gamification is the strategic attempt to enhance systems, services, organizations, and activities by creating similar experiences to those experienced when playing games in order to motivate and engage users. This is generally accomplished through the application of game design elements and game principles in non-game contexts.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Massive open online course</span> Education service on the web

A massive open online course or an open online course is an online course aimed at unlimited participation and open access via the Web. In addition to traditional course materials, such as filmed lectures, readings, and problem sets, many MOOCs provide interactive courses with user forums or social media discussions to support community interactions among students, professors, and teaching assistants (TAs), as well as immediate feedback to quick quizzes and assignments. MOOCs are a widely researched development in distance education, first introduced in 2008, that emerged as a popular mode of learning in 2012, a year called the "Year of the MOOC".

Digital learning is any type of learning that is accompanied by technology or by instructional practice that makes effective use of technology. It encompasses the application of a wide spectrum of practices, including blended and virtual learning. Digital learning is sometimes confused with online learning or e-learning; digital learning encompasses the aforementioned concepts.

Digital badges are a validated indicator of accomplishment, skill, quality or interest that can be earned in various learning environments.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mozilla Open Badges</span>

Image files that contain verifiable information about learning achievements, Open Badges are based on a group of specifications and open technical standards originally developed by the Mozilla Foundation with funding from the MacArthur Foundation. The Open Badges standard describes a method for packaging information about accomplishments, embedding it into portable image files as a digital badge, and establishing an infrastructure for badge validation. The standard was originally maintained by the Badge Alliance Standard Working Group, but transitioned officially to the IMS Global Learning Consortium as of January 1, 2017.

One of the most visible approaches to peer learning comes out of cognitive psychology, and is applied within a "mainstream" educational framework: "Peer learning is an educational practice in which students interact with other students to attain educational goals." Other authors including David Boud describe peer learning as a way of moving beyond independent to interdependent or mutual learning among peers. In this context, it can be compared to the practices that go by the name cooperative learning. However, other contemporary views on peer learning relax the constraints, and position "peer-to-peer learning" as a mode of "learning for everyone, by everyone, about almost anything." Whether it takes place in a formal or informal learning context, in small groups or online, peer learning manifests aspects of self-organization that are mostly absent from pedagogical models of teaching and learning.

FutureLearn is a British digital education platform founded in December 2012. The company was acquired by Global University Systems in December 2022 and previously jointly owned by The Open University and SEEK Ltd. It is a massive open online course (MOOC), microcredential and degree learning platform.

openSAP is an Enterprise MOOC platform for massive open online courses, or MOOCs. It is provided by SAP and hosted at the Hasso Plattner Institute in Potsdam, Germany. Everyone can enroll in openSAP courses, which are provided free of charge.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mike Feerick</span>

Mike Feerick, an Irish social entrepreneur, is the founder and CEO of Alison, an e-learning company based in Ireland.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gamification of learning</span> Educational approach aiming to promote learning by using video game design and game elements

The gamification of learning is an educational approach that seeks to motivate students by using video game design and game elements in learning environments. The goal is to maximize enjoyment and engagement by capturing the interest of learners and inspiring them to continue learning. Gamification, broadly defined, is the process of defining the elements which comprise games, make those games fun, and motivate players to continue playing, then using those same elements in a non-game context to influence behavior. In other words, gamification is the introduction of game elements into a traditionally non-game situation.

Language MOOCs are web-based online courses freely accessible for a limited period of time, created for those interested in developing their skills in a foreign language. As Sokolik (2014) states, enrolment is large, free and not restricted to students by age or geographic location. They have to follow the format of a course, i.e., include a syllabus and schedule and offer the guidance of one or several instructors. The MOOCs are not so new, since courses with such characteristics had been available online for quite a lot of time before Dave Cormier coined the term 'MOOC' in 2008. Furthermore, MOOCs are generally regarded as the natural evolution of OERs, which are freely accessible materials used in Education for teaching, learning and assessment.

Online credentials for learning are digital credentials that are offered in place of traditional paper credentials for a skill or educational achievement. They are directly linked to the accelerated development of internet communication technologies, the development of digital badges, electronic passports and massive open online courses (MOOCs).

References

  1. ↑ Katie Hafner (16 April 2010). "An Open Mind". The New York Times. Retrieved 15 January 2013.
  2. ↑ Watters, Audrey (8 September 2011). "Master a new skill? Here's your badge". O'Reilly Radar. Retrieved 15 January 2013.
  3. ↑ Hafner, Katie (April 16, 2010). "An open mind". New York Times. Retrieved 30 October 2012.
  4. ↑ Brazil, Jeff. "P2PU: Learning for Everyone, by Everyone, about almost Anything". DMLCentral. Archived from the original on 3 October 2012. Retrieved 25 October 2012.
  5. ↑ Panagiota, Alevizou. "Distributed mentoring: peer interaction and collaborative learning in P2PU" (PDF). Open ED 2010: Seventh Annual Open Education Conference, 2–4 November 2010, Barcelona, Spain. Retrieved 30 October 2012.
  6. ↑ Ponti, Marisa (January 2011). "Socio-Technical Relations in the Creation of an Interest-Driven Open Course". Symposium Journals. 8 (4): 408–422.
  7. ↑ Sreevatsan, Ajai (10 July 2010). "P2PU organises learning outside institutional walls". The Hindu. Retrieved 16 January 2013.
  8. ↑ Eisenberg, Anne (Nov 22, 2011). "Now, digital badges for job hunters". Business Standard . Archived from the original on November 23, 2011. Retrieved 30 October 2012.
  9. ↑ "Contributing to Lernanta". P2PU. Retrieved 16 January 2013.
  10. ↑ "LICENSE.txt". Lernata. Retrieved 16 January 2013.
  11. 1 2 Lewin, Tamar (21 August 2012). "Free Online Course Will Rely on Multiple Sites". New York Times. Retrieved 14 November 2012.
  12. 1 2 "Org". About Page. Retrieved 14 November 2012.
  13. ↑ DML Research Hub (2011). P2PU: Learning for everyone, by everyone, about almost anything (http) (Flash). Vimeo. Retrieved 2012-11-14.
  14. ↑ YOUNG, JEFFREY R. (24 October 2008). "Proponents of Online Education Plan to Start Peer-to-Peer University". The Chronicle of Higher Education. Retrieved 16 January 2013.
  15. ↑ YOUNG, JEFFREY R. (19 August 2009). "P2P U., an Experiment in Free Online Education, Opens for Business". The Chronicle of Higher Education. Retrieved 16 January 2013.
  16. ↑ "Update on P2PU – We are on our way". P2PU Blog. 1 September 2009. Retrieved 16 January 2013.
  17. ↑ "P2PU | Learn". p2pu.org. Retrieved 15 January 2013.
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