Tell me what you want, what you really, really want

Open Educational Resources (OERs) are becoming a prominent tool to raise the profile of universities. Millions of pounds are being invested in Higher Education to enhance the quality of resources (Nikoi et al., 2011). However, it is debatable if this time and money is well spent (Littlejohn et al., 2008). It takes time for academics to learn the necessary skills to produce OERs, but are these fit for purpose from a students’ perspective? Richter et al., (2012, p.171) have argued that ‘one of the main barriers identified by professionals, policymakers, and learners for (re)using OERs is the uncertainty as to whether higher education and adult education resources are appropriate and match the learners’ own educational contexts’. At the University of Northampton, we have a very small maths/statistics support unit, (1 full time tutor). Therefore it is important we have an online presence to complement the face to face interaction. The majority of our online provision takes the form of educational videos. This paper will disseminate the results of research collaboratively undertaken on what students at the University of Northampton actually want from, and think about Educational videos. Essentially, our primary goal was to determine what makes educational videos appealing to students to support learning development, and in particular, SPSS/statistics support. Specific aims included: • Do students engage with these resources? • Do they impact on the learning / confidence of the student? • What are the key features (e.g. content, presentation, humour, music, production quality etc.) of ‘good’ educational videos? Data was collected initially from a questionnaire and subsequently from a focus group and, therefore, was analysed both quantitatively and qualitatively. Examining what made videos appealing to students, and equally, investigating what disengaged students provided an insight to improve our current offering, and what should/should not, be included in the production of future statistic/SPSS videos at the University of Northampton.