In our long overdue newest episode, we spoke to Patrina Law about her recognition with a 2023 Individual Open Education Award for Excellence in Leadership. We recorded this back in late September 2024 just prior to the announcement of the 2024 OEAwards. We are confident when you listen to Patrina you will find the wait was worth it!

Patrina shares her path from starting in the field of working in a charity organization, then joining the Open University where she ultimately came to lead OpenLearn, and recently circling back to charity in your current role with the Royal Society for the Arts. You will hear her passion for making educational opportunities available as widely as possible to society and her interests in digital badges, research, and aligning programs to documented impact.

Episode 77 Transcript Download

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In This Episode

FYI: For the sake of experimentation and the spirit of transparency, this set of show notes alone was generated by the AI “Underlord” in the Descript editor we use to produce OEGlobal Voices.

Join Alan Levine as he interviews Patrina Law, a renowned leader in Open Education Resources (OER), in this latest episode of OE Global Voices. Patrina, a 2023 award winner for leadership in OER, shares insights from her extensive career at the Open University, including her impactful work with OpenLearn.

Explore how Patrina’s passion for open education and inclusion has driven innovative projects and research, such as the introduction of digital badges and alternative learning formats. Learn how these initiatives have empowered diverse learners around the world and the significance of data-driven strategies in shaping educational content.

In this captivating conversation, Patrina also delves into her transition to the Royal Society for the Arts (RSA) and her current role in advancing the Digital Badging Commission. Discover the RSA’s mission and the potential of digital badges in recognizing and validating non-formal learning in the workforce.

Don’t miss this episode filled with inspiration, innovation, and a deep commitment to making education accessible to all. Tune in for a journey through Patrina’s remarkable contributions and her vision for the future of open education.

Intro music and highlight quote
Welcome to OE Global Voices
Conversation with Patrina Law
Patrina’s Background and Education
Journey to Open Education
OpenLearn and Its Impact
Challenges and Achievements
Digital Badges and Inclusivity

(end of AI generated show notes)

Additional Links and Quotes for Episode 77

I think the first side of it was having the freedom to develop the team that develop all the content. And I was very lucky that I had a really fabulous team when I was there of really dedicated and enthusiastic folk who were very good at making open educational resources.
And I think probably I would put that as down as one of the great successes because they had the skill set to work with academics who in some senses were often dealing with very challenging subject material or very deep subject material that was aimed at undergraduates Level Two, Level Three undergraduates, and they had to rework that material and make it accessible to all, and so I and they made wonderful animations, they made great videos, they made great audio they turned that material into real living, breathing, fantastic, engaging learning content, so I think one of the successes for me, although I can’t say that it was all my doing, but as a team, was the team.
Patrina Law on her team at OpenLearn

Open Education Award for Excellence 2023 Leadership Award (OEGlobal) https://awards.oeglobal.org/awards/2023/leadership/patrina-law/
- 2023 Open Resilience Award Winner Responsive OER for Ukrainians (OEGlobal) https://awards.oeglobal.org/awards/2023/open-resilience/responsive-oer-for-ukrainians/
- 2021 Open Resilience Award Winner OpenLearn’s response to the pandemic (OEGlobal) https://awards.oeglobal.org/awards/2021/open-resilience/openlearns-response-to-the-pandemic/
Institute of Educational Technology (The Open University) https://iet.open.ac.uk/
Open Learning: Bridge to Success (The Open University) https://oro.open.ac.uk/35734/
OpenLearn https://www.open.edu/openlearn/
Royal Society for the Arts https://www.thersa.org/
Nobody Tips a Scandiscope (Energyphile, story of chimney sweeps and the brush) https://energyphile.org/nobody-tips-a-scandiscope/
Cities of Learning https://www.citiesoflearning.net/
UK Digital Badging Commission https://www.badgingcommission.org/
Mozilla Open Badges (Wikipedia) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Open_Badges
1EdTech https://www.1edtech.org/
Open Badge standard https://www.1edtech.org/standards/open-badges
Ufi VocTech Trust https://ufi.co.uk/

Because so much of OER is really aimed at just everybody. And it’s, a whole point of it is to be totally open, but to have sat forward and undertaken some learning yourself, I think you should be rewarded for that at some level. And digital badges seem to be that happy marriage. So it’s great to be working in open badging again for the RSA, for all the right social good reasons as well.
Patrina Law on recognition of Open Badges

Our open licensed music for this episode is a track called Let the Flames Lead the Way by Jon Shuemaker licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. Like most of our podcast music, it was found at the Free Music Archive (see our full FMA playlist).

Finally, this was another episode we are recording on the web in Squadcast, part of the Descript platform for AI enabled transcribing and editing audio in text– this has greatly enhanced our ability to produce our shows. We have been exploring some of the other AI features in Descript, but our posts remain human authored except where indicated otherwise.