Pass the SoLT

A few months ago I posted a comment about an Open Educational Resource (OER) research project that I'm involved in looking at uptake and policy around their use in Australia. My earlier posting shared more information about this project along with a link to a related Slideshare presentation. Since then we have been analyzing the initial responses to a survey on the use and general understanding of OERs, which has led to an interesting line of discussion about the shift in language from OERs to Open Educational Practices (OEPs).

The recent findings of the Open Educational Quality Initiative were explicit about the need to go beyond OERs in current thinking and argued that they have potential to lead to more open pedagogical practices and innovative cultures. Put another way, the focus on OERs per se may be looking for love in the wrong place!

There are important implications for our research from this subtle yet significant evolution of the OER/OEP literature. A major focus of our present study is on policy (macro, mesa and micro) and the language or discourse we adopt is really important. So it was interesting to recently find on Wikibooks a comprehensive User Guide for Organisations and policy resource on the topic of OEPs. The resource covers a number of topics ranging from models to marketing and is a good starting point for institutions wanting to better understand and take advantage of the open movement. Notably, the resource was developed with Ako Aotearoa funding by a team led by Leigh Blackwell.

I was particularly pleased to see a section at the end of the resource with responses from a handful of key individuals which include several critical remarks. In my view, there is a need for more critical debate over the claims, promises and learning futures of the OER/OEP movement as we seek to disrupt more traditional models of education. The unresolved question in my mind is whether the OER/OEP movement can truly become mainstream in an age of where institutions are preoccupied with revenue, rankings and reputation.

This is just a quick entry as I thought it might be useful to provide some examples of various Open Educational Resources (OER) initiatives underway throughout the world. The following list contains a variety of projects which illustrate the growing reach and maturity of the OER movement:

• MIT Open Courseware

This was the first official OER university initiative with almost 2000 courses online.

• OpenLearn

This is the Open University's (UK) suite of free online courses

• Peer 2 Peer University

This is a fledging site that provides a small number of free online short courses.

• Flat World Knowledge

This initiative aims to provide repository of free online academic textbooks

• Academic Earth

This site provides a selection of freely available video lectures including whole courses.

• WikiBooks

This is another site aimed at making free textbooks available to educators.

• OER Commons

This site provides a searchable database of OER resources.

• WikiEducator

This site has a strong New Zealand connection through the work of Dr Wayne MacIntosh.

• University of the People

This site is a serious effort to provide free university-level education to the developing world.

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I was involved last week in an online conference hosted in the US along with helping to facilitate our 'Opening the Curriculum Colloquium'. The Colloquium attracted about 40 staff and promoted some interesting discussion and productive thinking around the future of university-level education. It also increased awareness of new issues around copyright and intellectual property in the backdrop of the open access and open educational resource (OER) movements.

Thanks go to Drs Craig Pritchard and Brennon Wood for taking the lead to organise such a challenging event.

Dr Adam Arvidsson from the University of Milano gave a stimulating and thought-provoking keynote. He questioned the status of traditional academic knowledge and gave examples of where the knowledge production and transfer acquired in the open source world has greater currency and relevance than that acquired in universities. Adam also questioned whether universities would still hold a credential advantage as some qualifications acquired in the open source community have far more weight than traditional qualifications. He stressed the importance of one's individual reputation within the community and your ability to 'do the work' rather than a list of qualifications acquired through academic study.

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