“Evolution to Education 3.0,” the 23rd installment of the Impact of Open Source Software Series, was posted on June 1, 2008, by Derek Keats. Derek is a marine biologist with strong interests in using technology to improve teaching-and-learning, to enable higher education to create Education 3.0, and to promote sustainable development. Derek’s research interests include e-Collaboration and lessons for international collaboration from Free Software (open source) and related initiatives; next-generation e-learning systems and Education 3.0; Free and Open Source Software and Free/Open content in higher education. He has developed a number of initiatives in the fields of educational and environmental informatics, Free Software, Free and Open Resources of Education (FORE, often called OER) and has published around 80 research papers in biology and in the application of technology. Thanks Derek for a great posting!

In his posting, Derek starts with the assertion that:

Higher education institutions exist as a result of the need to aggregate resources that are scarce (professors, books, journals, laboratories).

He then moves forward suggesting that a combination of advances in distributed and open educational resources and technologies have significantly reduced (or at least hold the promise of reducing) some of the problems of associated scarcity. So, where does that leave the University and higher education in general? Well, Derek points to Personal Learning Environments (PLE) and, connecting the dots, points us to some work that he and Philipp Schmidt have done on Education 3.0, which is one potential future along a path of reduced scarcity through open educational resources, distributed educational technologies, and social networked learning. He introduced a few other related thoughts about the importance of inter-institutional networking, the recognition of prior-learning, and the notion/challenge of “quality assurance.”

Finally, Derek asks us:

If he is describing a desirable world? Is it a world that we will see in our lifetimes? Or is it the ranting of a digitally-disturbed, hyperlinked lunatic referring to himself)?

Apparently they are good questions, because they lead into a log of commenting and exchange. Upon reflection though… the last question was never answered!

Comments
There was certainly a lot flowing from Derek’s posting. In fact, there is enough here, so I am a little reluctant to provide a “Summary” because it will likely become a transcript of the comments. That said, I do think, though, it is worth mentioning that the comments ran the gamut from:

• Review and accreditation of materials relative to quality assurance (institutional v. materials),
• The impact of licensing and license terms on OER,
• Convergence of technology and behavior of individuals,
• Factors that impact sustainability and speedy progress of OSS, OER, and Education 3.0,
• Informal and self-directed learning – reduction of barriers, knowledge credentialing, portability, and assessment of prior learning, and
• The ecology or OER, reuse, and sharing.

while also maintaining some nice internal flow.

Thanks again to Derek for his interesting and insightful post and responses. I also want to extend a big thank you to Pat Masson, Dave Cormier, Wayne Mackintosh, Leigh Blackall, Christine Geith, Richard Wyles, and Keith Lynip for adding to the post, and other folks who have been reading along. Thanks too for so many great links to additional resources!

I hope to start the Series up again in September, and am starting to actively solicit new contributors. If you have somebody that you would like to recommend, please do email me directly at keu10@psu.edu. If you have made recommendations before and I did not follow up, please make them again. I am sure that it was just a matter of being a little overloaded at the time. I appreciate all of your support with the Series. The schedule for the series can be found on WikiEducator.

It is great to see something work as it should. You know the whole thing about “walking the talk,” “eating your own dog food,” etc. With this in mind, I want to point you to Learning4Content, which I think is an interesting (and brilliant) project that speaks directly to the notion of an “OER ecosystem” needed for sustainability, which is occasionally mentioned in this and other forums.

Through this project, WikiEducator offers a free series of online and face-to-face workshops on wiki skills. The workshops are made available to teachers, learning designers, students, educators, etc. (which is pretty cool), but the best part is that during the workshops participants develop and donate one free content resource back to the WikiEducator community (which is pretty brilliant).

The next online workshop starts on June 23, 2008. If you are interested, check out the L4C Registration page. There is a learning contract and some expectations for participants to engage in OER community. You can Learn about the expectations, funding, and L4C schedule at the project site on WikiEducator.

We are at the beginning of a remarkable period in human history. We are entering a web 2.0 world - a world where networked communities inform decisions on both the individual and societal level. These networked communities involve a significant amount of discussion. This posting is made in that spirit. The purpose is not to provide answers but to raise questions. And thus, each paragraph is a series of questions. I have opened each paragraph with a framing question. The questions that follow are meant to further expose the underlying issues. Again, the purpose is to inspire discussion.

Background

What is the role of university faculty in society?

The traditional role of university faculty has been to advance the knowledge bases within their respective disciplines. Essentially, a faculty member’s responsibility to the academy is to think. In the United States and much of the western world, university faculty are given lifetime appointments (tenure), so they can advance the knowledge base in society without fear of reprisal for non-traditional or controversial ideas. Tenure also allows faculty to think generationally rather than short term. Finally, tenure also allows faculty to develop ideas based on pure thought rather than for commercial gain.

Discussion

What is the relationship between university faculty and intellectual property rights?

If the role of faculty is to produce knowledge, do faculty have a right to the protection of their intellectual property? Does that intellectual property belong to the university or government agency or corporation who supports the faculty member’s position? How is this relationship different in different parts of the world?

In what ways does OER impact the relationship between university faculty and their intellectual property rights? Because of its open nature, does the OER community demand that the university faculty member give up their intellectual property and place their creations into the open space? If not, does OER demand that the university faculty member give up part of their intellectual property rights? If so, which part? The paragraphs below explore some of the options.

Attribution

Should the work of a faculty member be attributed to the faculty member?

What role does society play in the development of the knowledge-base? If we are truly moving into a web 2.0 world where society contributes to the knowledge-base on a mass scale, how much attribution is required for any one individual? By the same token, do users have the right to know who created or contributed to the body of work in order to vet or filter the information? If the goal is to advance the knowledge-base as quickly as possible, isn’t it necessary to have attribution in order to separate the quality material from that of lesser relevance? If filters like attribution are applied, doesn’t that cause the reinforcement of the status quo and cause the degradation of innovative ways of think or looking at a problem from a completely different perspective? Because in many parts of the world it is expected that faculty members will go out and work on projects outside the university in order to pay their salaries, is it more or less important that attribution be a part of the retained right when work is put into the OER space?

Non-commercial

Should others be allowed to make a profit from the work of university faculty?

If a faculty member is paid to think, should a faculty member be allowed to make additional income from work that they are already paid to do? If so, doesn’t that give the faculty member an unfair market advantage over the non-academic in the field who does not have the benefit of the safety net of tenure and university? If people are not allowed to reap the rewards of their efforts why would the best and smartest of the human race become university faculty? Can we truly count on the fact that there are enough altruists in the world who are willing to work below market wage? Is the lifetime contract of tenure a fair exchange for the income that could be earned in the commercial sector? If it is true that most faculty could not make more money in the commercial sector, should a distinction be made among those who can and cannot make a great wage outside the academy?

Should others be allowed to make a profit from the work of university faculty? If the commercial sector is not allowed to commoditize the work – or in other terms, turn the theory into application –, are we as society deprived of the benefits of the work of university faculty? If the commercial sector is prevented from participating in this portion of the knowledge sector, is society potentially deprived of the brainpower of a significantly large portion of the population who are, in many ways, contributing to the advancement of the knowledge base of society? Because in many parts of the world it is expected that faculty members will go out and work on projects outside the university in order to pay their salaries, is it more or less important that the work be made non-commercial in the OER space?

Non-derivative

Should derivative works be allowed on the work of university faculty?

Is the work of university faculty different in some way as to justify protection from others preparing derivative works? If yes, isn’t it taking this arguably more well thought out knowledge out of the web 2.0 process where the power of the network of communities can add to an already strong base? If we allow derivative works on the work of university faculty will those creating derivative work leverage the name of the faculty to advance their own ideology in ways unintended by the faculty member who initially created the work thus damaging the reputation of the faculty member who originally entered the content? Does this deter those with good reputations from putting their ideas into the marketplace for fear of having them twisted into something unintended? Does this then have a chilling effect on the creation of something truly innovative?

I look forward to your responses.

SUNY Delhi is hosting the 2-3-98 Conference, which promises to be a VERY exciting event that couples the topic of Open Source Software in Higher Education with a MoodleMoot. The meeting will take place on June 19th and 20th and address the often-repeated questions of Total Cost of Ownership, Support and Quality as they apply generally to software acquisition, and specifically to open source software. These themes will carry through to the MoodleMoot on June 20th.

There are some things that I really like about this meeting. There is a great mix of issues and questions that are frequently asked, but not really understood. There is a great spectrum of university presentations and breakout sessions by participants that are “up to their elbows” in acquisition and deployment activities. There are some great OSS applications being featured and some really smart commercial organizations supporting the organizational use of OSS application and systems are participating. All of this great stuff should make for a great meeting. In addition, it is also great to see one of the SUNY schools stepping up and showing real leadership in the OSS community providing a forum for intelligent dialog about pressing issues on a national stage.

Modeling “the promise” of Open Educational Resources

The Institute for the Study of Knowledge Management in Education (ISKME) has created an online network that aggregates open educational resources (OER) within a social networking environment, for the purpose of stimulating engagement of diverse populations in accessing and using OER worldwide. OER are most often thought of simply as content—that is, teaching and learning materials that are freely available for downloading, sharing, and remixing.

However, the value of OER is best described not through their aggregation as static resources, but through their potential to engage a wide range of teachers, learners, practitioners, and other stakeholders in resource transformation, cross-pollination of ideas and expertise, and collaborative knowledge building.

Research about digital media has shown that the development, use, and adaptation of resources can serve as a catalyst for engaging diverse teachers, learners, and practitioners in sharing their expertise, building their knowledge, and otherwise providing leadership in their fields. This is similar to organizational research that has found that continual improvement and enhancement often emerges from knowledge sharing among practitioners. In other words, OER is an invitation to improve teaching and learning processes.

But what comprises “doing” OER? Does it take a new belief system? Are we doing it already? What examples are there to show off models for active engagement with OER?

The phrase, “the promise of OER,” resurfaces often around the nascent movement for ready-to-modify learning materials. If OER is seen as merely rewritten curriculum, it’s not surprising that the movement might produce a few yawns. “Doing OER” is meant to embrace much more than this, starting with an evolutionary mindset about learning content and the learning itself.

Searchable, web-based resources with clear conditions as to how it can be used represent a platform for collaborative “mutation” or remixing. They are meant to be integrated into ways we are already engaging in collaboration and knowledge building, and in the process, incrementally to be part of growing new ways of teaching and learning that are more participatory, community-based, and bottom up.

Those of us lucky enough to have a dependable broadband internet connection already IM, email, skype, poke, post pictures, edit wikis, blog, post in forums, share bookmarks, video conference, tag, rate, review, and recommend favorite things to both friends and strangers, as part of a digital lifestyle. The knowledge-building potential is enormous and growing due to repurposeable materials and the collaboration possibilities that surround them.

The recent addition of the Library of Congress’ historical image collections to Flickr, which are appropriately tagged with the word “commons,” is a red-hot example of “doing OER.” The images are not formally licensed, but are shared under the terms “no known restrictions.” It is this type of engagement opportunity—i.e., the encouragement of communal tagging—that OER is meant to achieve.

Another example of doing OER is the BioQUEST Curriculum Consortium’s use of problem spaces. In contrast to static collections of data or lessons, problem spaces are dynamic workspaces where teachers and students share their work. Rather than using a more traditional lab approach where the students—who in this case are college instructors or pre-service teachers—may be asked to follow highly structured procedures, problem spaces emphasize the development and exploration of student questions as they come to understand biological principles, analytical procedures, and the formulation of data-based inferences. By collecting and displaying the work of others, problem spaces contextualize scientific inquiry within a community of practice where meaning is negotiated and problems have a history across multiple researchers.

Publicly available datasets, inquiry-based models for learning, collaborative tools and environments for sharing—these are the building blocks for “doing OER.” At ISKME we support ways for teachers to benefit from existing practices of online communities. This includes facilitating their ability to create and share “microcontent,” or smaller pieces of information drawn from multiple platforms (e.g., wikis) that can be augmented, revised, and re-combined, and engaging them in the use of web-based tools, such as OER Commons, which allow them to attach their own tags to online content, thus creating meaning from the bottom up as opposed to that which is predetermined by content experts.

One of the things common to doing OER is that of crossing boundaries of traditional roles. Stepping into new collaborative processes creates opportunities for participants to move beyond established roles—by, e.g., providing spaces where teachers and students and teachers and their colleagues can co-create content. But such opportunities may also pose risks to a teacher’s professional status. What benefits are there for teachers to share their content online?

How can teachers work within the frame of institutional structures that do not yet support collaborative ways of working, and do not reward teachers for the time and resources spent? Especially for the K-12 arena, these questions have yet to find answers. Several hundred K-12 teachers using LeMill.net are, in fact, creating and posting content for anyone to see and adapt; yet, teachers on the whole may need support in stepping into new roles such as that of OER author or online collaborators.

At ISKME, we have just begun a pilot project with 18 middle school science teachers in four countries to see how they find and adapt resources, use available tools, and collaborate with each other and with their students around issues related to climate change and ecology. Creative remixing of teaching and learning materials will likely find its place here, but we expect to see challenges in cross-cultural, multi-lingual online sharing. We’re interested to understand how much support and facilitation the group might need, and whether OER materials can be produced with relative ease and with minimal difficulty and risk on the part of teachers.

Furthermore, ISKME has developed a set of OER case studies by studying how a range of other OER projects form, change, and evaluate their own progress, and has created an OER How-To Manual that aims to offer practical assistance to anyone looking to start or evaluate their OER efforts. ISKME’s case study work has revealed that a key element in “doing OER” has been to include face-to-face training, mentoring, and working with peers and experts. In one of the cases, Free High School Science Texts, it was clear that high-quality resources don’t just happen online on their own. In this grassroots project based in South Africa, a highly collaborative and participatory infrastructure was built over time to bring authors together both online and in person, and to organize their workflow, establish quality criteria, reward their input, and deploy their “finished” publications.

Through the OER Commons initiative, our educative role is to identify and construct models that support a mindset about evolutionary change through OER collaboration, knowing full well that simply distributing OER content alone won’t dig us out from old models. New models for teaching and learning are a necessary part of the doing, especially in terms of facilitating problem-based inquiry and data sharing, mentoring and cycling through feedback with peers.

Perhaps through considering examples of OER in action, we might have a chance to reflect on the “promise of OER” and ask if we getting any closer to it through the way that we are doing it.

Further readings:

• B. Collis and J. Moonen, Flexible Learning in a Digital world: Experiences and Expectations (London: Kogan Page, 2001)
• S.E. Metros K. and Bennett, “Learning Objects in Higher Education,” ECAR Research Bulletin 19, (Boulder, CO: 2002)
• L. Petrides and C. Jimes, “Open Educational Resources: Toward a New Educational Paradigm,” iJournal Insight into Student Services 14 (Oct. 2006).
• Y. Benkler, Common Wisdom: Peer Production of Educational Materials (Utah: Utah State University, 2005) (pdf)
• L. Petrides, Turning Data into Knowledge: What’s Data Got to Do with It? (Phoenix: League for Innovation in the Community College, 2004)
• L. Petrides and T. Nodine, Anatomy of School System Improvement: Performance-Driven Practices in Urban School Districts (San Francisco: New Schools Venture Fund, 2005).

I want to welcome Amee Godwin and thank her for agreeing to contribute to the Impact of Open Source Software and Open Educational Resources on Education series on Terra Incognita. Her post is scheduled to appear on March 1st, 2008 (eastern U.S.). Amee will be writing about OER as an active collaborative process aimed at enhancing teaching and learning. She will also provide a few examples of the collaborative process from what they are working on, in both the K-12 and higher education spaces.

Amee Godwin serves as Program Director, OER Commons, Institute for the Study of Knowledge Management in Education (ISKME). Amee Godwin has over a decade of experience in applied research and development of community applications. Her work focuses on connecting technology, education, and collaboration. At ISKME, she guides the development of content, interactivity, and partnerships for OER Commons, a teaching and learning network for open educational resources.

Previously a director of award-winning video documentaries and art director in the commercial film business, Amee earned a Masters in Professional Studies Degree in the Interactive Telecommunications Program at New York University, Tisch School of the Arts, and a BA in Media Studies and Art at the Center for Media Study, University of Buffalo. Formerly, at the Interval Research Corporation, she worked in the development of new media applications. While Program Director at the community-led Sanchez Art Center, she created arts education programs and completed a Fellowship from the Arts Leadership for the Future awarded to emerging non-profit leaders and community builders.

Although I knew of Amee and her work for some time, I first met her at the Center for Open and Sustainable Learning (COSL) OpenEd 2007 meeting at Utah State University. I am very much looking forward to Amee’s posting, which will frame OER as a process, connecting dialog with examples of practice. I believe that her posting will help address some of the questions about the impact and direction of OER that were posed in our last posting, Can OER Really Impact Higher Education and Human Development? Please feel free to comment (early and often!), ask questions, build on the conversation, and enjoy.