Well I am back at Utah State University for the OpenEd meeting and this year, for the first time, I am also attending the Open Courseware Consortium (OCWC) meeting. Among a number of very interesting announcements, I pulled out something that I found particularly interesting – even though it might seem a bit mundane on the surface. As part of the “Welcome and Overview,” Steve Carson mentioned that the OCWC Board discussed membership options. Apparently there is the possibility of eventually extending OCWC membership to individuals. The OCWC current membership types are institutionally focused.

Personally, I think that individual memberships make a lot of sense, after all, I would guess that a vast majority of course materials are produced by individuals who cannot serve as an officer of the institution able to authorize use of the institution name, which is necessary for current forms of membership. I would suggest that institutional membership is critical for OCWC. I believe that having some institutions step forward in rather public ways in support of OCW creates some healthy interest in other organizations that might otherwise be passive or even dismissive.

There are clearly some things that are best done under the banner of the institution. Quite to the point here is the formation of institutional consortia. Consortia require institutional identity. This is important for the OCWC because while individual institutional OCWC membership growth is slowing, institutional consortia membership is growth is quickening. So … I think that institutional membership is a critical part of OCWC growth, serving principally as the building blocks of consortia.

Individual membership is just plain smart and I think most coherent with what I believe will ultimately be part of virtually any sustainable effort of OCW/OER and as an extension OSS. Much design and development happens on the individual level, and I bet that many individual faculty members or learners or administrators would be much more willing to contribute open content to an open community on their own rather than as part of an institutional effort. Now that said, individual contributions could cause significant consternation and frustration at the University level around “ownership,” copyright, and licensing of course materials. This is, of course, particularly likely when the university invests significant financial resources into the design and development of course materials.

OCWC has an opportunity to take real leadership in understanding the complexities of university culture and faculty motivation relating to OER, property, and community. With an eye turned toward creating conditions in which contribution, use, remixing, reuse, and sharing of educational content is optimized, what should the OCWC and other OER projects such as WikiEducator, Connexions, Creative Commons, OER Commons, etc. be thinking about in terms of individual and institutional focus?