Something that I think is under-emphasized in open education is the need for open infrastructure. The Web provides it to some extent, although passwords and paywalls get in the way. Scientific publishing and other scholarly communications are a good example. There was a time when it made sense to outsource the production and distribution of scholarly communications to the commercial publishing industry, but that day passed at least a quarter-century ago. Academic libraries could provide that infrastructure, Iām sure for far less than what they pay out to Elsevier. But that requires more of us to be open to change.
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For me, open education/ licensing did not really come onto my radar until a few months ago. During my time as a student, I did not really struggle with paywalls as my university had a couple of decent licensing deals which accommodated a large pool of materials, ergo as a student I never needed to search beyond that knowledge pool. I did not know until a short time ago that these deals were organised by a union of different universities. They jointly started an open access plan which is aiming to be 100% open access by 2030, and in that process, the licensing deals were made for all universities in the union.
However, I never heard of this project until I started working at my current job where I am tasked with creating a proposal for the introduction of CCs in their publishing. This project allowed me for the first time to take a deep dive into the history and functions of Creative Commons and open access projects, leading me to find out that my own university was a key partner in an OA project. This sparked an interest in open education and, as a law student, I became incredibly interested in the interplay of open education and copyright law.
I have become acutely aware of how important easily accessible and affordable research materials are during my time tutoring some other students. Research, no matter at what level, becomes incredibly difficult if the access to knowledge and research is barred by paywalls.
I believe that this time in history, where education institutions globally quickly need to turn to e-learning methods, is the prime time to delve into the many benefits that e-learning can have, but also to learn about the intricacies and difficulties that it brings along.
I dearly hope that education institutions take this time to truly set up good and sustainable e-learning programmes which can be continued in the future, so access to quality education, at every level, is available to anyone who wishes to participate.
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I like to attend an online learning conference each year to stay abreast of new technologies and new innovations in online learning. I have noted at a couple of these conferences certain textbook publishers present with an information booth describing their products and add-ons intended to improve in some fashion the quality of education being delivered by those attending these conferences. What strikes me as I watch the comings and goings of attendees is that few if any actually walk up to these textbook booths and engage the representative in meaningful dialogue. In fact, I would go so far to say these publishers are for the most part ignored. My conclusion is that those who are in the business of delivering online education have pretty much figured out that the textbook publishing industry is a dying breed searching for a life preserver.
As the readings and videos to this point in this course attest, open is already taking hold in most higher institutions of learning. As well, prominent authors such as Dr Terry Anderson and Dr Tony Bates are already publishing open text books for use by those seeking better insight in the world of education. I appreciate copyright remains a distinct hurdle in some arenas for accessing scholarly content, but it is hard to imagine with the increased exposure to free and open content that the copyright mafia will be able to sustain their operations much longer.
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Open matters for me because, as a librarian, one of my core missions is to connect people to the information they need. This can be difficult if that information is behind subscriptions and paywalls. For us to grow as individuals and societies, we need to share and collaborate. That becomes harder when information is limited to those who can afford to pay for. Open allows for a more democratic access to information and it helps reduce the barriers created by the digital divide and socioeconomic stratification.
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āOpenā matters as World cannot exist prosperously without Research. To do cutting edge research, there is need for access to existing Research content that includes publications from Reputed Journals such as IEEE transactions etc.However, they are not accessible unless we subscribe. Not every person can afford. Moreover, their closedness hampers research activities. Hence, they should be OPEN. For me OPEN means unconditional Access.
āOpenā matters for me because I believe that everyone has the right to education and open resources can help this to happen. I am aware that this is not enough as many obstacles can exist for learners to become aware they exist and to be able to reach them.
The access to knowledge, in general, has tremendously increased in the last two decades due to the possibilities Internet created. This means that learners from around the world can be enrolled and study at universities without physically being present.
As there are still learners who cannot use the āfruits of the digital ageā I advocate for helping everyone in the world to have access to the Internet and to OER.
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Open resources matter to me because so many students are not privileged to be able to afford rent, food, tuition, and textbooks on top of all of that. Many have children or other family members to take care of and putting information behind a paywall essentially taxes them for wanting to improve their situations through education. The future of learning will be like the present situation in music, I believe. I imagine that platforms analogous to Soundcloud and Youtube will appear. These and other platforms have essentially rendered copyright inert in many cases, while fostering a generation of new artists creating with little thought toward monetization. I donāt know if that makes any sense!
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Personally I think open matter for me, in this digital age, people learn not from one teacher, one book or one school, we need more resource to increase our knowledge. School student can open youtube and get more than they get from school and I as a lecturer and researcher also use google for more source.
So open really matter, beside that what the useful of our knowledge if we can share to other?
Absolutely. Someone said in another thread that teaching is not about providing materials but about the value added in organization, presentation, explanation, mentoring etc. Materials are not all the same. I have been working on Algebra recently and using a range of sources - software and open source course books. I struggle with some concepts and most commonly the reason is the manner of explanation. When I find an explanation that clicks, then everything falls into place. If I were bound - by contract - to a single source, many things would be beyond my ability, or patience to achieve.
In the lockdown during COVID-19 when I think about doing something different for my students the OER are helpful. With the help of OER I can design my instructions differently and creatively.
The concept of āopenā matters to me personally because I am one of those who cannot afford to avail the costly and complex subscriptions. Being able to access freely means that knowledge shared is not exclusive to the few but readily available to public consumption. Open access to scholarly knowledge allows researchers and scholars to fill in the gaps.
In my context, I am able to explore and compare the veracity of concepts and ideas because of open access alongside with people who thirst for knowledge. Moreover, I hope that there will be more OERs in the future.
As I am neither researcher nor educator as might be understood in an institution of learning, āopenā for me is about sharing as well as being receptive to new ideas and alternative ways of doing things.
At my institution, āopenā has importance in terms of dissemination, access, discoverability, flexibility and authors having some say over reuse of their scholarly outputs.
I find that there can be a temptation to hold up copyright as the villain in discussions about āopenā publishing / access and I wonder whether, when it come to publishing models, the villain is lurking in the distribution model?
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You are absolutely right - in a digital world, the villains are undoubtedly the distributors. They leverage copyright to generate artificial scarcity from abundance. (The marginal cost of replicating digital āknowledgeā is near zero - they only way you can raise āvalueā is to create scarcity.)
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Open matters to me as I āve experienced firsthand, the struggles of buying very expensive core textbooks when I studied for my BA (hons) in the late nineties, at a time where open educational resources had not yet received any attention. Open educational resources that are freely shared and improved upon have enormous appeal such as less expense to students as well as expanded access to knowledge. At the same time though, there are also ongoing issues such as the evaluation of these open educational resources that often, vary in quality. It is imperative that teachers/academics carefully evaluate these resources before using them for classroom instruction/university lectures or for students to use a freely available article without ascertaining whether the content is reliable and scholarly.
Hi, I am a university academic from a developing country. How does 'open matters me-
Although I have access to most of the copyrighted scholarly content through the university network, I do not redistribute these content in my lecture notes for students. But if there is any open journal or e-book chapter available I will be introducing that happily. This means my teaching has compromised to some extent due to the limitations of āopenness in academic contentā.
On the brighter side, During this COVID-19 lock-down, I was able to takepart in few MOOCs from Commonwealth of Learning on online education, OERs and this open course LiDA which helped me in life-long-learning.
Regards,
Jayantha
Fiji National University
Hereās the first couple of paragraphs to a chapter I contributed to a book that was published about 9 months ago.
" āOpen,ā āopenness,ā āopen source,ā and āthe open wayā have all been part of the various organizations with which Iāve been involved over the past 45 years. The definition of āopenā and its various manifestations in educational institutions has been fluidāevolving, expanding, refined. And thatās likely to be the case for the foreseeable future.
This chapter provides background on the thinking that has informed one approach to making educational organizations more openāthe approach of the Stone Arch Bridge Initiative for Education Resources (SABIER). This approach uses openly licensed content and open pedagogy on open source learning management systems all of which provides results that can then be written about and further expanded upon in open access journals."
The full chapter is available in the book The Open Organization Guide for Educators The chapter covers a good part of why open matters to me.in a digital age.
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I look forward to having an opportunity to learn more about SABIER. Hopefully we can someday have a face-to-face MnLC OER SIG meeting.
As someone who works for an organization that supports teaching and learning in post-secondary institutions in British Columbia, Canada, I see open as a means to make post-secondary education more accessible and affordable for students. Governments fund our post-secondary colleges and universities to grow knowledge and economic capacity in our society. Open educational resources can compound governmentsā investments by improving studentsā return on investment.
It is important to note that government investment in our post-secondary institutions goes deeper than only to teaching and learning. Research by Canadian faculty is often funded by federal, provincial and municipal governments and the scholarly knowledge it produces should be open, shared and available for societyās benefit no differently than roads, airports or the electrical grid.
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Fascinating topic! Open for me is essential in ensuring equal opportunities for learners from a variety of backgrounds. In the current pandemic, Open matters now more than ever. I personally feel that we may be on the brink of an education revolution and encourage high schools and tertiary institutes to provide flexible options of self-directed learning for students wishing to do so. Open resources will help to enable this and reach a wider audience.
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Indeed - the COVID pandemic has emphasised the need for sharing.
Read the recent UNESCO call to support knowledge sharing through OER:
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