As an elearning instructional designer working in international development, i.e. outside of the traditional academic setting, OPEN matters even more to me because it is about connecting learning access to human development where is it most needed. I pursued my M.Sc. in Instructional Technology ten years after my first degree knowing fully well that I wanted to bring instructional design science to the humanitarian setting. Why? My mission is to create high-quality learning experiences grounded in andragogy or pedagogy as the case may be. There is this false perception that if something is âopenâ, it isnât good or it isnât of a comparable quality with a paid course. You could say I am a bit of a renegade in ensuring that I blow this myth to pieces and encourage more instructional designers and learning experience designers to work in the humanitarian context. Many, if not most, of the programmes and short courses that I have been a part of, have made their materials free via their platforms.
We welcome your activism in dismantling the myth that you can only achieve quality through closed proprietary resources. Enjoy LiDA103!
I would like to add that I have been doing digital design of learning resources for a while, and the fact that organizations donât use open as part of their cultures and publishing practices locks possibilities even to themselves. As part of an organization I have found myself trying to find permissions of copyrighted materials someone created for this organization in the past. So, it is not only the fact that knowledge should be open for everyone but also allowing people to be a medium to share, adapt and remix content.
Open does matter significantly for Learning in a digital age. The most exciting aspect of Open is the ability to think and make conclusion without any corporate and political bias. Without open technologies there would be no Internet which has become a new renaissance across the world. It breaks down the barriers between the rich and the poor. However, the Open foundation of the Internet has been slowly taken over by few corporates who have enough influence to get their agenda pushed through standard bodies like IETF.
Open matters a lot for me as think it is extremely important to have the ability to think without bias, make our own decisions and have equity in terms of access to knowledge if we want to build a better world. Roughly half the worldâs population is still disconnected from the global Internet. Big corporations are very interested to improve Internet access for the disconnected people. However, very often the corporates want to mold the thinking process of the newly connected people just for profit or political issues. Open technology and Open educational resources are the only way to fight against this unfortunate circumstances.
The problem with current state of access to scholarly knowledge is its lack of fairness in terms of access. The journals make a huge amount of profit which makes it very difficult for general people to read the scholarly content without paying a huge subscription.
I think, we need to put more emphasis on educating people, building conscience and make âhuman connectionsâ so that the darker sides of the world gets some light free from greedy corporate dominance. #LiDA101
As an educator, I think Open Ed is a necessity. I read the articles shared, and the story of the boy charged in Columbia was eye-opening. Open matters because it literally opens up so many more educational possibility, especially to those who may have less resources due to funding and income level. I think open ed can really level the playing field for others, or at least make it closer! I loved the one article said learning is sharing, with that in mind education is now engrossed in the digital age - while you can get paper copies of research, the time you can save and information you can find online is astronomical! Knowledge is power and power is now mainly digital!
Does open matters for you personally? Yes, indeed as a student.
Why it matters? Because, many times as I am doing a research I usually come across this âpaywallsâ which annoys me the most. With open access it helps to ensure long-term access to scholarly articles, unlike articles that are licensed which really helps me with my research and getting my assignments done in time.
#LiDA103
Strongpoint - Open learning or online learning is good. it will help students broaden their knowledge and skills in this technology world. Also, help people to share ideas and learning through open learning.
#LiDA103.
In my state of digital learning, I depend on the internet to look for resources to gather information that I need. Right now, I have no idea if the articles, videos, or pictures that Iâve shared online is going to get me into jail. I have learned from the current state that whatever I learn from others online, I should share so that other students could also learn. Having openness in digital leaning will definitely help a lot of students to not only save money, but also to help other learners learning online too. I think the idea of collaborating in knowledge and allowing people to have open access is a good way of changing the world for the better.
Well, thatâs true because learning is all about sharing ideas, concepts, work which will help you as an individual and others around the world.
open in education matters because,it expands the access to learning and also people showcase their innovations and talents.
Hi everyone
#LiDA 103 Open matters a lot to me because copyright restrictions prohibit the freedom to access the quality content and customise forcing teachers to teach in a way that conforms to the available resources. Also, it is a challenge to find and trust the quality to adopt relevant OER.
It is my personal experience while working for a research paper, I came across the usage of terms like âRights Reservedâ - which is scary and gives an impresssion that a crime is being committed by adopting a particular piece of the resource referred.
Also, educating the entire community about parameters to be followed for developing âa good quality of OERâ is very essential.
It very much matters to me. On one side, trying to access research becomes a bit of an adventure. One institution Iâm part of might have access to a specific journal or vice versa and I must track down who has the proxy key to let me in! At the end of the day, Iâm connected to several large institutions and can ultimately access just about anything (humblebrag), but what about most of the population who does not? They are missing out on all this. Like a private club.
From a teaching perspective, the biggest issue I face with students is access to textbooks. While some courses do have OERs, most do not, so I must rely on the big publishersâ books. However, my goal is to create open sources for this, but I do not have course release or the time/monetary incentive to do so, so it becomes an ongoing struggle. Luckily though, OE seems to be growing more popular by the day so hopefully my problems are solved soon. #LiDA103
I am a librarian in a public university in South Africa. Open matters greatly here, both in the sense of OERs and open publishing. We area research-led university and have signed agreements committing ourselves and our research to open access. It is essential for our students because textbooks are costly and for our researchers because APCs is also expensive. As a librarian, I am committed to providing access to information to my patrons, and as has been mentioned in several articles, university library budgets have been shrinking for a while at the same time, prices for resources and access to resources have constantly increased over the years, it is important to me to be able to provide my patrons with the information and resources they need to conduct their research or complete their studies. #LiDA103
Yes, open is very important to share knowledge and collaborate with others
I even founded academy of open education and published all my ebook as open books
I guess we are more towards passive than active learning because of lack of collaboration
- Does open matter for you personally? Share your reasons why open does or doesnât matter for you.
For me open matters because it gave me access to multiple materials during graduate school especially while working on my doctoral dissertation. It also allows my published materials to become available to others. - What can we learn from the current state of affairs regarding access to scholarly knowledge? What do you recommend for the future?
I think focus on getting paid for published work happens primarily because of the cost incurred while completing the work, if there is a better way to defray the cost for authors that would help greatly. The focus will then be in sharing their work and findings not trying to get back the expenses incurred.
I do agree with you, the education through an online is crucial because of flexibility and convenient, since it is an online platform students feel free to express themselves without the fear of other students.
For me, open means easy access to learning for everyone, which is very important today. In Kiribati, many students donât have good access to books or teachers, so open resources help a lot.
We can learn that not everyone can reach scholarly knowledge easily, so itâs important to share and make learning free and open.
My advice for the future is to keep making learning available online and support students who have less access to technology
Thank you for sharing your thoughts. In Kiribati, access to education and technology is still a challenge for many students. I agree that open learning is very important because many cannot afford expensive software or internet accounts.
Using free and open resources helps our students learn without extra costs.
- Yes, open matter to me personally. The reasons why open matter to me is that being a low salary earner in developing country like Nigeria, I am able to learn and get certified through open and free courses provided by Commonwealth of Learning and its affiliates.
- What we can learn from the current state of affairs regarding access to scholarly knowledge is that while allowing commercial acquisition, openness and free access should be available to low income earners or the poor. The advice I have for the future of learning in a digital age is that all learning should have provision for openness.
Open matters as it furthers knowledgebase of the society without any hindrance and makes it accessible to all for self-learning and educating others. infact in society we build on the work (including ideas and inventions) of the previos generation. Any restrictions placed on the works deprives the society of adaptations, use/re-use and building on them to reach others.