Open Educational Resources from Government and Parliament

Mentioning to a colleague yesterday that the UK Parliamentary library published research briefings and reports on topics of emerging interest, as well as to support legislation, that often provided a handy, informed, and politically neutral  overview of a subject area that could make for a useful learning resource, the question was asked whether or not they might have anything on the “internet of things”. The answer is not much, but it got me thinking a bit more about the range of documents and document types produced across Parliament and Government that can be used to educate and inform, as well as contribute to debate.

In other words, to what extent might such documents be used in an educational sense, whether in the sense of providing knowledge and information about a topic, providing a structured review of a topic area and the issues associated with it, raising questions about an issue, or reporting on an analysis of it. (There are also opportunities for learning from some of the better Parliamentary debates, for example in terms of how to structure an argument, or explore the issues associated with an issue, but Hansard is out of scope of this post!)

(Also note that I’m coming at this as a technologist, interested as much in the social processes, concerns and consequences associated with science and technology as much as the deep equations and principles that tend to be be taught as the core of the subject, at least in HE. And that I’m interested not just on how we can support the teaching and learning of current undergrads, but also how we can enculturate them into the availability and use of certain types of resource that are likely to continue being produced into the future, and as such provide a class of resources that will continue to support the learning and education of students once they leave formal education.)

So using IoT as a hook to provide examples, here’s the range of documents I came up with. (At some point it maybe worth tabulating this to properly summarise the sorts of information these reports might came, the communicative point of the document (to inform, persuade, provide evidence for or against something, etc), and any political bias that may be likely (in policy docs, for example).

Parliamentary Library Research Briefings

The Parliamentary Library produces a range of research briefings to cover matters of general interest (Commons Briefing papers, Lords Library notes), perhaps identified through multiple questions asked of the Library by members?, as well as background to legislation (Commons Debate Packs, Lords in Focus), through the Commons and Lords Libraries respectively.

Some of the research briefings include data sets (do a web search for site:http://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/ filetype:xlsx) which can also be quite handy.

There are also POSTnotes from the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology, aka POST.

For access to briefings on matters currently in the House, the Parliament website provides timely/handy pages that list briefings documents for matters in the House today/this week. In addition, there are feeds available for recent briefings from all three: Commons Briefing Papers feed, Lords Library Notes feed, POSTnotes feed. If you’re looking for long reads and still use a feed reader, get subscribing;-)

Wider Parliamentary Documents

The Parliament website also supports navigation of topical issues such as Science and Technology, as well as sub-topics, such as Internet and Cybercrime. (I’m not sure how the topics/sub-topics are identified or how the graph is structured… That may be one to ask about when I chat to Parliamentary Library folk next week?:-)

Within the topic areas, relevant Commons and Lords related Library research briefings are listed, as well as
POSTnotes, Select Committee Reports and Early Day Motions.

(By the by, it’s also worth noting that chunks of the Parliament website are currently in scope of a website redesign.)

Government Documents

Along with legislation currently going through Parliament that is published on the Parliament website (along with Hansard reports that record, verbatim(-ish!) proceedings of debates in either House), explanatory notes provided by the Government department bringing a bill provide additional, supposedly more accessible/readable, information around it.

Reports are also published by government offices. For example, the Blackett review (2014) on the Internet of things was a Government Office for Science report from the UK Government Chief Scientific Adviser at the time (The Internet of Things: making the most of the Second Digital Revolution). Or how about a report from the Intellectual Property Office on Eight great technologies: The internet of things.

Briefing documents also appear in a variety of other guises. For example, competitions (such as the Centre for Defence Enterprise (CDE) competition on security for the internet of things, or Ofcom’s consultation on More radio spectrum for the Internet of Things) and consultations may both provide examples of how to start asking questions about a particular topic area (questions that may help to develop critical thinking, prompt critical reflection, or even provide ideas for assessment!).

Occasionally, you can also turn up a risk assessments or cost benefit analysis, such as this Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy Smart meter roll-out (GB): cost-benefit analysis.

EC Parliamentary Research Service

In passing, it’s also worth noting that the EC Parliamentary Research Service also do briefings, such as this report on The Internet Of Things: Opportunities And Challenges, as well as publishing resources linked from topic based pages, such as the Digital Single Market them topic page on The Internet of Things.

Summary

In providing support for all members of the House, the Parliamentary research services must produce research briefings that can be used by both sides of the House. This may stand in contrast to documents produced by Government that may be influenced by particular policy (and political) objectives, or formal reports published by industry bodies and the big consultancies (the latter often producing reports that are either commissioned on behalf of government or published to try to promote some sort of commercial interest that can be sold to government) that may have a lobbying aim.

As I’ve suggested previously, (News, Courses and Scrutiny and Learning Problems and Consultation Based Curricula), maybe we could/should be making more use of them as part of higher education course readings, not just as a way of getting a quick, NPOV view over a topic area, bus also as a way of introduce students to a form of free and informed content, produced in timely way in response to issues of the day. In short, a source that will continue to remain relevant and current over the coming years, as students (hopefully) become lifelong, continuing learners.