Regrettably, it feels like we are no closer to critical mass and sustainability on the OER front than we were this time last year.
I was pretty cranky in August 2009 during the OpenEd 2009 conference that was held here in Vancouver for which my organization was a co-sponsor. My blog posts during the conference were critical of the primary OER advocates as marketers to teachers and faculty. My criticism was that they were miscast in that role. While they had done a masterful job of illuminating the concept, filling the blogosphere with good ideas, and marketing the promise to foundations that fund innovation, my belief was that it would take actual teachers, instructors and students who could demonstrate success in an OER context to bring consolidation and sustainability to the goals of the open movement. Further, it seemed that little real effort was occurring on the inclusion or promotion of teachers and teaching, and that OpenEd conferences continued to be conversations within an insular community of theorists and advocates – not the stuff of implementation, nor a demonstration of broad impact.
I hope that in 2010-2011 we will see a rise in the generosity of spirit that is promoted in the OER community, through a new focus on the nurturing of successors with implementation, consolidation and sustainability skills. If the best way forward is to give away knowledge for free, then maybe this is a good time to demonstrate a similar approach to marketing an open educational resource future, by identifying and promoting new advocates who are closer to the problem for which OERs are the solution.
Hi David,
I agree — and good reflection. In some respects a good sign of the maturation of the OER field. We’re starting to question implementation in a substantive way
Notwithstanding the tireless work of our OER advocates who have done a sterling job so far — OER is nowhere near being a mainstream practice and you’re right – -still lots of work to do before we achieve critical mass.
In addition to your point about the inclusion of teachers and teaching, I also think its important to cross the chasm from individual engagement to organisational implementation where institutions start aligning strategies and incentive systems which are more OER friendly. I think the best way to do this is through institutional engagement on focused collaboration projects with buy-in and commitment from the participating organisations. This learn-by-doing implementation approach will help organisations experience the benefits while gaining first-hand experience in preparing for these futures. Let’s focus on those dimensions which are important for organisations and show how OER does a far better job than traditional models.
I think OER futures are inevitable and in years to come when we look back at this juncture in history — will we wonder why it took so long?
Cheers,
Agreed, re. organizational strategy. We’ve long argued the case here in British Columbia that development investments can be leveraged many times over through an open and collaborative approach. Our government has been very supportive to the tune of $8.25M for such investments to date. The BC online program development fund (OPDF) and the SOL*R library of reusable resources demonstrate it can be done organizationally and systemically.
The open textbook approach is also a very pragmatic way of demonstrating economies of scale, and the cnx.org folks at Rice University have lead the charge on that front. FlatWorld Knowledge is another bold and helpful approach. Washington State’s new foray into open courseware/textbooks further demonstrates the value of an organizational strategy at a macro-level. For me, these approaches and our own are “low-hanging fruit type value propositions” for open development models. Easy to spot, straightforward to describe, and with clear intent that can capture both attention and financial support.
However, aside from your own WikiEducator initiative, I actually see very few outreach models that address teachers and instructors directly, and that demonstrate clear value or present a credible pain-for-gain argument. Surely, this is an important omission given that teachers and students are the primary targets in the OER value chain.
Where are the user stories of success, and who’s promoting them?
Ditto on the outreach models — in many respects this is what the OER Foundation is working towards — helping individuals and organisations achieve their objectives through openEd approaches. That said – -this relies on an open eco-system and OER value chain that’s open. Some links in the chain are still “closed” and we need to prioritise replacing the closed links in the OER value chain with open ones. (For example the weak linkages between open research (aka open access publishing) and open content / education. Leveraging the strengths of RPL for open mass courses presented using OER for formal recognition. Tackling the “endangered species” course challenge using OER models — every institution has courses with very low enrolments and expensive to keep afloat – -a good candidate for OER. I’m sure there are many more examples. Seems to me that we could design collaborative outreach models around these themes to help individual organisations and educators achieve their goals through openEd. mmmm good post — lots to think about.
I really like the thematic approach you’re proposing, Wayne.
For me, the intentionality of a thematic approach allows potential participants to quickly identify with a specific value proposition that fits their needs or interests, and compels them to join a community of practice, or even start their own.
Simply naming a few specific examples, as you have done, is a step forward.
Thanks.
d.
Thanks David —
The power of sound boarding ideas in the open. Yeah the notion of a “Thematic” approach for making the future happen is potentially a productive way forward …
W
Interesting discussion!
My perspective is primarily from the point of view of open textbooks but it also applies to many other forms of open content. I also do not see much reason to distinguish between educational resources and other types of intellectual property. An art gallery may be one person’s education, another’s entertainment, and someone else’s career.
I was feeling down about open content a few months ago. We had a high-tech CFO analyze the textbook industry and his prognosis was that open textbooks would never be a more than a tiny percentage. Then he made a startling recommendation: get the textbooks companies to help the open movement. Remember that IBM fought Linux until it embraced it. Already MacMillan is offering modifiable textbooks. Other for-profits are getting into the picture, e.g., homework programs that work with open textbooks.
One role the OER community can take on is gadfly. We can pressure the intellectual resources industry to change just as credit unions force banks to change.
Our Collaborative is also starting to talk with educational organizations that make top-down textbook decisions: private colleges and the military. Not only will adoptions be faster with these organizations, they will provide resources to update and improve the textbooks.
This only works if the open movement really cares about results rather than just being anti-industry. A big mistake is to approach OER as altruism. I strongly recommend two books:
* C.K. Prahalad: The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid: Alleviating Poverty through Profits
* James Tooley: The Beautiful Tree: A Personal Journey Into How the World’s Poorest People Are Educating Themselves
Regards,
Jacky Hood
Director, College Open Textbooks http://collegeopentextbooks.org
Director, Community College Consortium for Open Educational Resources http://oerconsortium.org
Jacky …
Many thanks for this response. I’m all for intentional strategies that drive value to end users, primarily learners and teachers. Your pragmatic approach with the Collaborative is one that I can certainly support.
Open textbook models stand as one of the best examples of how open can work in any higher education context. It’s hard to argue against a resource model that can both lower costs and provide a more flexible medium with which to study.
And, thanks for the references. We highlight Prahalad’s BoP concepts in a master’s course I co-teach called Ventures in Learning Technology, ETEC 522 at the University of British Columbia.
d.
Thanks David.
Your original post called for “actual teachers, instructors and students who could demonstrate success in an OER context to bring consolidation and sustainability to the goals of the open movement.”
Our research partner, the Institute for Studies of Knowledge Management in Education (ISKME) is interviewing dozens of instructors, students, administrators, bookstore managers, and librarians using or promoting open textbooks. ISKME’s research will be published in a peer reviewed journal,. Other research is available at http://collegeopentextbooks.ning.com/group/researchers
We publish lists of instructors and professors who have adopted open textbooks at http://cnx.org/content/m34356/latest/ and http://cnx.org/content/m18261/latest/
Anyone at any school in the world who has adopted an open textbook is invited to notify us at http://collegeopentextbooks.org/adoptedtextbooks.html
We are creating author/adopter communities. The pilot is for Ron Hammond’s sociology textbook. Instructors and students need ancillaries and these communities will create those essential items.
Best,
Jacky
PS: Barbara Illowsky and I were at OpenEd in Vancouver. The conference was great but it was preaching to the choir. We all need to go to conferences of people who do not know what OER is. Barbara recently gave a presentation at the Text and Academic Authors Association conference. Her topic: How Open Licensing Improved Our Textbook and Our Careers. She will give the same talk at a math conference this fall.
Now this is what is needed, and more of it. Bravo. These are definitely links, references and resources that I will share with others.
As a return, here is a reference on Open Educational Practices that my colleague Paul Stacey just sent me. This is another promising research direction.
d.
David,
This is an excellent research paper. Please join the College Open Textbooks Ning and our research group and post it. I would be happy to do that but it really helps if others post on the group.
If you cannot post it, we will do so.
Jacky
Done.
http://collegeopentextbooks.ning.com/group/researchers/
Hello David, I don’t think we met or talked in Vancouver, so I’ll trawl your blog for those critical posts you mentioned. My own at the time was the idea that OER might become a device for neo colonialism.. or the like…
But what I’d like to know here, is how you reconcile your appreciation for Illich, and your call for teachers here? Apart from OER being primarily a solution to the problems created by teachers, aren’t you ignoring the deeper prospects of OER: conviviality and deschooling?
I see OER (actually, drop the R or change it to R for Reform) primarily as a critique on education and the role teachers play in sustaining institutionalised learning. Teachers (institutionalised) should be the last group should want to engage with open education.
It seems to me your call is based on a respect for educational practice in its current form, and an expectation that OER should be demonstrated in those terms. Quite the opposite, I think OER shows that education (learning) would benefit with more radical rethinks, and opportunities outside the status quo. Looking to teachers to demonstrate that would be like asking prisoners to run the prison. Look outside. Look to communities online that support learning without any premise to “education”, or “teachers”. Rewatch an Anthropological Introduction to Youtube, and other works by Wesch. Most of all, reread Illich – particularly his recap on Deschooling – Imprisoned in the Global Classroom, I think listen more carefully to the “marketers and theorists” of OER who are attempting to channel this perspective.
I’ve posted a summary of our research published during the last year on these topics over at http://opencontent.org/blog/archives/1596. Hopefully they help fill the void a bit.
Many thanks for posting this link, David.
The new piece of research you recently announced on your own site re. open textbooks and the affordances for self-regulation in students will be something I look forward to reading.
Hello Leigh. Thanks for your comment, and prod with a sharp stick.
Yes, I’m a pragmatist. The people I deal with are primarily faculty, instructors and students who are in universities, colleges and schools. No doubt about it.
And, I don’t underestimate or dismiss the capability of university-based educators for doing a good job and enriching the lives of their students using resources of their own creation, or those of created and made freely available by others. The best of them assume that their students are largely responsible for finding their own way forward and intentionally point to intellectual foot and toe holds they’ll need to advance upwards. As “instructors,” they are only close to students for a fraction of the the students’ lives.
And, I don’t doubt that significant change is underway, or that radical shifts will occur. But to actively segment the primary actors (“prisoners running the prisons”) into those who “get it” and those who never will, seems counter-productive and anti-social. Why would you seek to actively ignore, or even drive away a talented population with a latent capability for positive change in the open sense?
I guess as an oldster of sorts, I find this notion that there is only one *real* way forward, well….. narcissistic.
d.
Interesting response Dave, I can see what your saying to me, but isn’t as true in the opposite direction?
“I guess as an oldster of sorts, I find this notion that there is only one *real* way forward, well….. narcissistic.”
I interpreted your post as being that you believed there was only one *real* way forward. That OER reaches critical mass when teachers take it up and evidence is shown within that norrow scope. This to me ignored a wider posibility and seemed to contradict your use of Illich to frame your blog. The “good job and enriching the lives” goes on outside the institutions.
But my question remains unanswered. As an “oldie” how have you reconciled your appreciation for Illich with your perspective here in this post, along with your reply to my comment? Is it as simple as, Yes, I’m a pragmatist.”? Or is it you’ve come to dismiss the core argument that Illich used: Institutions eventually solve obly the problems they create. I’m certain that if Illich were alive today, he’s stick would be much sharper than mine. I ask all honesty, because I do the same work as you, and refer to Illich in a big way. Perhaps I should dismiss it too, if I am to practically continue in our line of work?
Regards from the “narcissistic, dismissive youth”
I take your points, Leigh.
Yes, I believe there are multiple ways forward.
Yes, good things happen outside institutions.
Yes, I’ve cherry picked the aspects of conviviality that resonate with my sensibilities.
Yes, I believe that change can happen just as effectively within systems, as outside.
Yes, I believe the world has turned many times since 1973.
Yes, I think we have to constantly retune to suit the current context.
Yes, we can each be effective on our chosen paths.
d.
I’m more than a little surprised to see that leading lights in the OER movement think that there is “nowhere near critical mass”. From my perspective that was reached years ago. The problem, and Jacky touches on it, is that OERers still seem to be in the old publishing paradigm.
“I do not see much reason to distinguish between educational resources and other types of intellectual property”. As Homer would say; “Duh!” It amazes me to see ‘sectors’ believe that their media, and the Intellectual Property (IP) embedded in it, has somehow more credibility or value if presented by “an expert”. Most professional crystal balls seem to have the same clarity.
I’m viewing this from The Nederlands = the National leaders in replacing printed materials with pre-print (in my opinion) . The idea of “links in the chain” being “closed” shows the confusion in understanding the change in publishing paradigms. And sentences like “We can pressure the intellectual resources industry to change”, while full of good intent, don’t help.
Yes “OERers can pressure the PUBLISHING industry to change, simply by working with a couple of other professions. The first is the technicians who run the NRENetworks in each country, and have yet to hear from a LOUD lobby group who represent global groups. The second profession is (National) librarianship. It’s National or Institutional repositories, or silence. They could aggregate content and provide a directory on a global basis (this is the World Wide Web), if OERers had a little insight into how networks are constructed. They don’t, so we are overwhelmed by duplications of OER materials, buries in silos all over the web.
OK, enough bitching. Run a survey. Who’s got an eduroam account? OK. There’s your first step to a common sign on to all sorts of global comms tools. E.g. http://www.surfnet.nl/en/samenwerkingsomgeving/pages/default.aspx
(and yes leigh, I do understand why you’d throw stones at eduroam. But it’s the easiest way to stitch the national networkstogether.)
Next question. If you were a user in a huge unclassified (web) library of OER materials (as we are today), and access to all the same tools. How would you find anything, especially your peers?
You know I’m not sure Illich’s ideas of being imprisoned in a global Classroom are that much help here. But it does seem to describe the OERer’s perspective. They are, as a librarians would say, “buried in the stacks”. ) But I do love their passion.