Distance: The industrialization of education

In the second week of my distance education class we focused on the "industrialization theory" propounded by Peters. The essence of this theory is that many elements of industrialization were implemented in education, without regard to their pedagogical effects. In Learning and teaching in distance education, Peters emphasizes, that to industrialize something means “careful planning, division of labor, costly development, and objectivization” (112). For example, industrialization brought to a division of labor. Some people designing curriculum, others printing it, other presenting it. The focus was now on mass production and mass enrollment, and distance education became "the most industrialized form of education" in that it is specifically designed (in many cases) to educate as many students as possible using the least amount of resources.

In our class discussion the general view of industrialization was negative, in that students may be viewed more as objects, and there was a general negative sentiment (at least that is what I perceived). Peters himself did not say that the industrialization of education was a good thing.

Charles Graham pointed out though that as we look at these various theories it is easy to tear them apart, and that a more useful idea may be to see how parts of these theories can be used for good. As I have been thinking about the readings and class discussions, I have asked myself, "What important advantages do "industrialized resources" bring to education? For example, the distribution of General Conference .mp3s via the Church's website was done through the process of division of labor, there is no customization, and the goal is to maximize distribution. Is this bad?

As I think about various distance education opportunities that I am familiar with, the "industrialization" parts of them do not concern me. For example, I have recently downloaded lectures on "the psychology of happiness," "use of open objects" "copyright" and "statistics." All of these are topics I'm interested in and it does not concern me that I do not know the professor and cannot make personal contact. If it were not for the industrialization I would not be able to access this information.

On the other hand, I very much appreciate the opportunity I have to work with some of my current professors in a "community of practice" of sorts, that would not be an option with these other distance approaches. My point is that the industrialization of education is not "bad" nor "good." What I gained from the readings and class discussion is that those designing distance education need to carefully consider industrialization issues and design their materials appropriately.

Distance Ed: Articles report #1

As part of an ongoing report in Distance Education, I have selected twelve articles from the International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning to study. I will be looking for trends within these articles and reporting on various aspects of them each week. Today I examine the research question of each of these articles.

1. Annand, D. (2007). Re-organizing Universities for the Information Age. International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 8(3), 1-9.

Research Question(s):

Will universities need to make significant changes because of external forces in the world today? Digitization of information and the Internet make different forms of education (such as distance education) increasingly feasible. If universities need to change, what sorts of changes might those be? [theory based.]

2. Barnard, L., Paton, V., & Lan, W. (2008). Online Self-Regulatory Learning Behaviors as a Mediator in the Relationship between Online Course Perceptions with Achievement. International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 9(2).

Research Question(s):

Do self-regulatory learning behaviors mediate the relationship between student perceptions of online course communication and their academic achievement?

3. Bray, E., Aoki, K., & Dlugosh, L. (2008). Predictors of Learning Satisfaction in Japanese Online Distance Learners. International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 9(3).

Research Question(s):

Are Japanese students in a specific online distance university satisfied with their experiences in distance education? What factors (if any) affect their satisfaction with distance education?

4. Caswell, T., Henson, S., Jensen, M., & Wiley, D. (2008). Open Educational Resources: Enabling universal education. International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 9(1).

Research Question(s):

In what ways do open educational resources have the potential to transform distance education? [theory based.]

5. Deka, T. S., & McMurry, P. (2006). Student Success in Face-To-Face and Distance Teleclass Environments: A matter of contact? International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 7(1).

Research Question(s):

Can students succeed in a low-contact distance (versus face to face) environment? What factors might predict a student’s success in distance education?

6. Eib, B. J., & Miller, P. (2006). Faculty Development as Community Building. International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 7(2).

Research Question(s):

How can faculty development increase community building, regardless of the physical distances separating faculty members? [theory based.]

7. Grandzol, C. J., & PhD, J. R. G. (2006). Best Practices for Online Business Education. International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 7(1).

Research Question(s):

What does the literature say are the best practices for online business education?

8. Leslie, P. H., & Murphy, E. (2008). Post-Secondary Students' Purposes For Blogging. International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 9(3).

Research Question(s):

What purposes do post-secondary students have for blogging?

9. Müller, T. (2008). Persistence of Women in Online Degree-Completion Programs. International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 9(2).

Research Question(s):

Why do women persist, or fail to persist in distance education, and what are the factors that support or hinder women in completing distance education courses?

10. Pan, G., & Bonk, C. J. (2007). The Emergence of Open-Source Software in North America. International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 8(3).

Research Question(s):

What are the educational implications of open-source software? [theory based.]

11. Shachar, M. (2008). Meta-Analysis: The preferred method of choice for the assessment of distance learning quality factors. International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 9(3).

Research Question(s):

What are the advantages of meta-analysis in distance education? [theory based.]

12. Tremblay, R. (2006). "Best Practices" and Collaborative Software In Online Teaching. International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 7(1).

Research Question(s):

What principles are important for teachers with virtual classrooms to practice? What types of technical functionality are important to ensure high-quality virtual classrooms? [theory based.]

Open Ed: Motivations

David Wiley in a report to Secretary of Education indicates that one motivation for open education is to improve educational quality by creating educational opportunities that are

Digital, Open, Mobile, Connected, Personal and Participatory (in other words to help education catch up with the rest of the world. Doing this allows students to get involved with courses before they enroll (or after they have long left the course.) His report can be read at: http://www.ed.gov/about/bdscomm/list/hiedfuture/3rd-meeting/wiley.pdf


I have hear sections of this testimony on many occasions. In many ways I am persuaded by his arguments. I do wonder however if the extra effort to make the course open (however marginal that may be) is worth the effort. For example, do we really need an “open algebra class” from BYU, MIT, Notre Dame, Harvard, UVU, Utah State, etc.? Wouldn’t one be enough?


I think David would say that the more material that is out there, the more likely a person would be to be able to customize what was out there to meet their needs. This presupposes that there is a large body of individuals who are out there just waiting to access the content. Again, I’m not sure how true this is.


For example, BYU Independent Study offers a free (though not open) Book of Mormon class. Approximately 1,000 people enroll in the course each year. On its face, that seems pretty good. But if on further examination it turns out that those 1,000 individuals spend an average of 5 minutes in the course then I would question whether it was worth the effort to make it happen.


On the other side of that argument there is Elder M. Russell Ballard who has said that even if you are only reaching a small group; how important is the one! I’m not discounting the value or motivations of Open Ed, just pointing out that I don’t think that the need for it is always clearly defined.


The need definitely exists. Gordon B. Hinckley’s discussion of the Perpetual Education Fund makes it clear that there are people with low incomes who will greatly benefit from education; it’s just hard to tell how open education fits into the puzzle. Would open education resources make it so a person in Peru could get free education to give him or her a better job?

For me personally my motivation in providing open educational content is to extend the sphere of my classroom. If I've already made a set of PowerPoints for the Book of Mormon class I teach, why not post them for others to view, even if only a few people see them? If I can email electronic copies of books I've published to others, why not do that and let people who would never buy a copy benefit from reading it online? So I am persuaded that the motivation to share is obviously good, and that paritcularly when the cost to share is low, and the benefits are high open education clearly makes sense.

Open Ed: Intro

One of the classes I'm taking this semester is Introduction to Open Education. You may be feeling left out that you cannot take the course. Fear not! You can. Register for the course here. It's free. C'mon mom and dad, maybe you should try it!

This week I read about the beginning movements of Open Education (OE). Here are some of the highlights:

I began my study of the history of Open Education by reading A review of the Open Educational Resources (OER) movement. It’s available here.


Ten years ago there were not many open education resources; certainly not in the organized way that we have now. Hewlett provided funding to get OE going and the authors of this report believe that Hewlett has done an effective job of getting a movement started.

The flagship OER provider is MIT. They were the first to bring substantial resources to the community. Other significant providers are Rice Connexions, Carnegie Mellon’s Open Learning Initiative, Utah State’s COSL.

One of the additional links described as an "open education" resource was to Chengo—a “free” resource to learning Chinese. Sadly it no longer is free, which makes one wonder about the “sustainability” issue. They discuss several sustainability challenges the first on their list was funding. They said:

“A challenge of any fixed-term, externally funded initiative is long-term sustainability by an entity other than the original investor, in this case the Hewlett Foundation. In the MIT project, bringing a course to the OCW costs approximately $25,000 per course plus maintenance and enhancement. The MIT OCW model involves professional staff taking course material in almost any form from faculty and bringing it into a uniform, professional format. This was appropriate for the rapid startup of a large-scale, pioneering project but it will not work for many other places. It does appear, however, that MIT will be able to sustain the maintenance through internal funding and external contributions. Additional approaches to sustainability need to be explored, including the following:

1. Encourage institutions, rather than just individual pioneer-faculty, to buy into the OER movement so that institutional resources will be committed to sustain it.

2. Situate OER collections not as distinct from the courseware environment for the formally enrolled students but as a low marginal cost derivative of the routinely used course preparation and management systems. Increase the amount of course preparation and management systems that service closed and open institutional courseware...

4. Explore roles for students in creating, enhancing, and adopting OER. Consider an “OER Corps” in which students receive training, small stipends, and prestige to assist in material preparation, enhancement, and use (especially in historically disadvantaged domestic communities and developing countries).[I thought this idea was especially cool.]...

...Sustainability of OER is becoming a subject of academic study. Dholakia, King, and Baraniuk,81 for example, argue that current thinking on the topic is often solely tactical with too much attention on the “product” and not enough attention on understanding what its user community wants or on improving the OER’s value for various user communities. Their proposal is that “prior to considering different revenue models for a particular OER and choosing one or a combination of them, the OER providers should focus on the issue of increasing the aggregate value of the site to its constituents to the greatest extent possible. In other words, unless the OER site is able to first gain and maintain a critical mass of active, engaged users, and provide substantial and differentiated value to them in its start-up and growth phases, then none of the available and/or chosen revenue models will be likely to work for the OER in the long run.”

In other words, one of the challenges with OER is that we may be planning a big party (creating lots of OERs) but nobody wants to come (or wants the resources). Other sustainability challenges include the following:

* Preservation of Access
* Object Granularity and Format Diversity—they started out using .pdf as the key format but now that there many other file formats that can be easily converted they believe that xml is the method of choice.
* Intellectual Property Issues—some of the licenses are in conflict; there is also a “learning commons” movement.
* Content Quality Assessment and Enhancement—assessing which resources are good, and helping point people towards the best ones.
* Computing and Communication Infrastructure—especially in third world countries.
* Scale-up and Deepening Impact in Developing Countries

One very interesting statement occurred at the end of the sustainability section. The authors quote Sir John Daniels, saying

“Half of the world’s population is under twenty years old. Today, there are over thirty million people who are fully qualified to enter a university, but there is no place available. This number will grow to over 100 million during the next decade. “To meet the staggering global demand for advanced education, a major university needs to be created every week” (page 33).

This statement indicates that although there are several challenges to sustainability, the problem is real, and solutions must be found to meet the needs of these 100 million individuals.

The book Giving Knowledge for Free (available here) also had some great insights.

It described in greater detail MIT's reasons and history for beginning OE.Contrary to what was said in a previous article about the sustainability challenge of formatting, these authors state“While the OCW model is sometimes criticised for offering only static lecture notes in PDF format without interactivity, user evaluations from MIT OCW show that 97% of users find PDF a suitable format for their purposes (d’Oliveira, 2006).”

The authors also referred to MERLOT, which I think is interesting in its “peer reviewed” way of judging the educational artifacts submitted. I believe that something like “MERLOT for Seminary Teachers” could greatly improve the teaching quality of seminary.

The authors also observe that the majority of users of MIT OCW come from outside the US, a finding that is not true for all OER providers.

I thought the chapter on motivations and barriers for sharing was the most intriguing. Motivations for sharing include:


* It's good to share
* Educational institutions should leverage tax payer dollars by creating resources that others can freely use
* Others may improve what I've done (bread cast upon the water...)
* Good PR/free advertising
* May get people to purchase another form of the product eventually
* Increased reputation
* Ego of seeing yourself online and other people using your resources
* Prevention of monopolies

Drivers to share include


Increased access to broadband, and decreased cost for the creation of digital content is a driver in increasing OERs.

A prime barrier could be lack of funding as well as lack of reward systems for people who create OERs. Lack of licensing compatibility can increase the difficult of remixing, which decreases the motivation to provide content.

It is interesting how law could effect OERs. What would happen if government only funded open-education projects—the amount of resources would quickly multiply. Some European countries are investing in this way (such as the Dutch OpenER).

Another interesting thought, one similar to that which was shared by David Wiley in his lecture: “To establish a credible academic reward system that includes the production and use of OER might, therefore, be the single most important policy issue for a large-scale deployment of OER in teaching and learning.”


One last little nugget that I cannot help but repost. I think this is a very interseting question regarding what sort of expectations one should have when trying to create an open community of learning and how to increase participation:

Box 4.2. OLCOS Roadmap to open learning communities:

How much contribution can be expected, and how can the level of

participation be raised?

“One observer suggests: “It’s an emerging rule of thumb that suggests that if you get a group of 100 people online then one will create content, 10 will “interact” with it (commenting or offering improvements) and the other 89 will just view it.” (Arthur, 2006) For this pattern he cites available data for community content generation projects such as Wikipedia and discussion lists on Yahoo!. For example, on the Yahoo! Groups, 1% of the user population might start a group and 10% participate actively by starting a thread or responding to a thread in progress. The initial idea of a “1% Rule”, i.e. that about 1% of the total number of visitors to an “online democratized forum” (such as a wiki, bulletin board or community that invites visitors to create content), was promoted by the marketing consultants Ben McConnell and Jackie Huba (2006).

The ratio of creators to consumers is also important with respect to learning communities

which, among other activities, create content. But what really is important is not the “1%

Rule”, but the question of how to achieve at least 10% of people who add something to the initial activity and content. In an OLCOS expert workshop, Graham Attwell from Pontydysgu (Bridge to Learning) proposed what may be called the “searching–lurking–contributing” theory of learning processes: i) first, persons interested in a topic will “Google” some links; ii) then they will find denser places of content, such as a website of a community of interest, a thematic wiki, weblogs of experts on the topic, etc.; iii) then they will become “lurkers”, i.e. come back to find new information, discussions, commentaries, links, etc. If the community has a newsletter or an RSS feed they may also subscribe to such services. Finally, iv) if they feel “familiar” with the community they may also become contributors. So, a strategy for educational communities that want to raise the number of active participants and content contributors is first of all not to shut out learners who just want to observe what is going on. Furthermore, it is important to actively “grow” the community through direct information channels (e.g. a regular e-mail newsletter or RSS feed) and opportunities to participate (for other options that help to “familiarise” interested people, see the practical suggestions by Ross, 2002, and SitePoint Community, 2003).

Distance Ed: Getting started

One of the classes I'm taking this semester is Distance Education. One of the reasons I'm taking this class is because I believe that there are incredible opportunities for educating people at a distance, and providing self-help tools. This past semester I worked on a website for an "independent research" class. The site is http://studyyourscriptures.com and I was thinking about this website as a form of "distance education." No, it's not a course that one could take (though the idea occurred to me to create a free online "how to improve your scripture study" web class occurred to me during class), but it's more of a piecemeal approach to educational resources at a distance. While I was creating the site I found several websites that had tips or ideas or provided free resources--my point is that all of this was (to me) "distance education" albeit not of a formal sort. My belief at the start of this course is that this kind of education (on-demand, not part of a formal course) is very important and I hope to learn more about how to create it, and make it more effective.

I briefly reviewed two articles giving a flavor for the research being done in distance ed research. I was intrigued by one journal called Open Learning. I googled and was led here. I was disappointed to see how closed this "open learning" journal was. In fairness, I'm not sure this is the same open learning journal.

In this blog, titles that begin with "Distance Ed" will relate to this class. If you're not interested in Distance Ed, feel free to skip them (not that you need my permission!).

Book Review: The Long Tail

I very much enjoyed The Long Tail by Chris Anderson. The basic premise of the book is that the Internet has enabled more and more niche products to come into the public view and demand. For example, in the 70's, if you wanted to watch something, you had the ten choices of your local television channel. In the 80s and 90s cable and video rentals gave you more choices. Today you have a nearly limitless choice in what you watch thanks to Netflix and http://youtube.com (on which I have a few videos).

Increasing markets may be available in "niche" areas. Anderson uses the example of "who cares what the top ten hits are?" if I am interested in Latin dance music, I'll want to see the top ten in that market. People who can create and aggregate in demand niches may find new and/or expanding markets.

This is particularly helpful when store space is not a consideration. For example a typical Blockbuster rental store can only hold a few thousand DVDs, but Netflix's warehouses can hold 100,000. So Blockbuster can only afford to put the "blockbusters" in its stores because shelf space is at a premium. But Netflix's storage is considerably cheaper and so it can offer many, many more DVDs (even though they are not blockbusters). These are "the long tail." Increasing evidence shows that there is surprising demand in this long tail area. Back in 2006 when Netflix only had 25,000 DVDs they said that 95% rented at least quarterly. Apple said that every one of its then 1,000,000 tracks had sold at least once, and ecast said that 98% of their tracks sold at least once per quarter. Perhaps Blockbuster cannot afford to stock all the titles, but there is demand for less-poplular titles and people who can figure out a way to distribute them will be able to sell products. The "sweet spot" in this area is when you are selling digital products--storage and delivery are virtually free making it so you can have however large an inventory you want.

The graph of "the long tail" looks like this:



image from this site

Choice, and particularly informed choice often has the effect of increasing demand. Once again the message was given to distribute your content in as many ways as possible because certain people will only want it in certain ways.

The version of the book I read came with a new chapter called "The long tail of marketing." I thought this chapter was intriguing , particularly as far as how someone could apply it in order to increase visibility for their niche products. Ideas included figuring out "who's influential in our space...what/who influences them, how to get Digged, effective blogging, using beta-test invite lists as marketing, the art of begging for links, stunts, contests, and other link bait..." (242).

Anderson also states that "The best way to market to Long Tail consumers is to find out who is influencing them and focus your energies there. That starts with doing less messaging and more listening. Fortunately, the tools for listening have never been better. ALong wiht being the best word-of-mouth medium ever, the Web is also the most measurable one. There are dozens of free tools online that can tell you what people are saying about your brand and which of those people have the most influence" (230). He mentions Technorait filters, Google Alerts, and Google Trends as being ways to get a pulse on who is talking about your "long tail." I searched google trends for the term "scripture study" and was surprised to see that that phrase is most often googled from Salt Lake City, UT. Who knew?

I was intrigued by the use of google alerts, particularly in reference to a comment made by Stephanie on my post about the mind and the brain. Given the incredibly small readership of this humble blog, it seems most likely to me that Stephanie was using google alerts (or something like it) to find references to The Mind and the Brain on the Internet and then direct people reading and writing on this topic to this website. Super clever! (It got me to go there).

If you find people writing about you or your products Anderson suggests that the effective strategy "starts with listening (designate someone to monitor the feeds) and then figuring out when and how to respond. If a blogger praises a company or product, and email of thanks is often very appreciated ("They read my blog!") and can create a lasting evangelist. Criticism is tricker. Again, some sort of response is better than none, in part because it shows the blogger respect, which can go a long way toward defusing a situation. Blog convention is to do things in [232] public, so a response in the commens, where everyone can read it, often pays greated dividends than a private email" (231-232).

In a world where obscurity, not piracy is the biggest problem most products face, these ideas have important implications. Anderson also states, "At best, a Long Tail marketing strategy focused on stimulating word of mouth among influential consumers can just create awareness. If the product is no good, no amount of emailing is going to keep it from being savaged or ignored" (232).

For more information on this book, you could visit http://thelongtail.com/

Excerpts from "Opening Up Education"

MIT Opening Education



But if we can entertain the semantic web, perhaps we could entertain a vast

and recursively interconnected web of simulations. No one group can

build it all, but many could contribute, including students themselves. (xiii).



A common observation made by those skeptical of the open educational

technology movement is, “you get what you pay for.” The implication

is that products developed without the benefi t of sustained commercial

investment, and lacking the control structures and accountability

identified with centralized, for-profi t incentives, will be certain to

disappoint… Rather than “you get what you pay for,” the sentiment “you get what you design

for” may be a better characterization of open educational technology’s

potential to positively affect teaching and learning. Simply put, design

matters. Designers have a greater infl uence on outcomes to a much

greater extent than is often recognized. (27).



I propose fi ve principles of design that I believe to be critical to the

success of open educational technology. While not exclusive to open

technology design, these qualities refl ect some of open education’s highest

values:

1. Design for access.

2. Design for agency.

3. Design for ownership.

4. Design for participation.

5. Design for experience.



Open educational resources and technology have long been high on

substance and low on appeal. However, it is this affective dimension of

a tool, its attraction, that when combined with thoughtful instructional

content and design motivates learners, capturing their attention and

engaging the mind. One need only observe the considerable draw of

video games and online social networking and role-playing environments

to understand the potential of technology to engage an audience. Designing

for experience recognizes the instructional benefi t of creating open

technology and resources that are at once substantive and attractive,

compelling and a pleasure to use. (43)



chapter on “The gates are shut” could relate to disaggregation article—LMS



The Internet and the Web along with a host of

available educational resources are making “open” the necessary default.

Overnight, “open” is on steroids and has taken on new meanings:

• Teachers are becoming facilitators in a charged, multivocal, online, and

onsite learning discussion that is multicentered and which they no longer

control.

• Publishing is freed of many traditional gate-keepers and therefore disciplinary

content is revised constantly.

• All educational design principles are giving way to the mandate: “be

open to multiple possible users and uses.” (89)



Vision of disagg learning:



Community for Student: P2PU

Let us imagine a vibrant Web community of learners at something called

Peer-To-Peer University, or “P2PU.” P2PU would not be a “real” university,

but rather, a group of self-learners and tutors who work together

to emulate some of the functions an academic institution would carry

out, in a peer-to-peer fashion. Providing degree tracks would help selflearners

navigate the vast terrain of OER resources in a goal-oriented

way. P2PU would defi ne “degrees” by assembling OER materials from

different repositories that, together, would suffi ce as a “degree” in that

subject. For example, P2PU might specify 15 physics courses, available

across the various OER project sites, which one would have to complete

in order to get a P2PU physics degree. Since many OER resources contain

components that are not free and open, such as textbooks and academic

papers, P2PU would only use courses that either have all the components

available, or will fi nd alternatives. Thus students might take Physics 101

from MIT OCW, and Physics 202 from Tufts OCW.

Beyond specifying degree tracks, P2PU would organize scheduled

“courses” where groups of learners would come together and learn the

material for a course. Participants could also have profi le pages that

detail their interests, occupations, and show which courses they have

completed. Posting the names of students and the OER courses somewhere

on the site could provide an additional incentive for having students

complete classes at P2PU. It may be that one day an employer

would recognize a “Net Degree” from P2PU to be as valuable, or even

more valuable, than a traditional university degree. Inherent in the

system, P2PU students—who are comfortable with their “network

selves”—would be recognized as resourceful self-starters and group

learners. A “Net Degree” from P2PU would be valuable in its own right,

and soon begin to take on its own meaning of accreditation. (100)



“So, whether in a library or on the Internet, it can be hard going for

the learner, particularly if he or she is studying in isolation. For educational

opportunities are more than just learning opportunities: There is

some implication of responsibility by a teacher or educational institution

for enabling effective, responsive, appropriate learning opportunities that

are personalized to the learner. There is a sense of agency on the part of

the educator. And, as I discuss later, some educational opportunities, of

course, offer additional expectations, such as certifi cation of learning.

Textbooks or videos of lectures represent a sort of halfway point:

There is clearly an intention on the part of the author or lecturer to

provide an educational opportunity but without the interaction, adaptation,

evaluation, and personalization that characterizes full-fl edged

delivery of quality education. So, one way to frame the open education

challenge is to ask how far beyond textbooks and instructional videos

we can affordably go by intelligent use of technology and appropriate

educational content; when these techniques are likely to be fruitful (for

what educational needs and in what disciplines); and how closely their

outcomes compare to those of traditional human teacher-intensive educational

approaches. It is also worth asking the question in reverse: How

much better does a traditional higher education institution do when it

offers a lecture course to 500 undergraduates?” (107).



Open University has no entry qualifi cations

to its modules or programs, is only limited in the number of students on

a module by the availability of suffi cient tutors (to date, the greatest

number on any single presentation of a module has been 14,000), and

allows students to register for one module at a time rather than requiring

commitment to a complete degree program. (151)



“The OU has an open access policy: No prior qualifi cations are needed

to register for the courses, and there is no age restriction (generally

students must be at least 18, but the OU does have special schemes

allowing those under 18 to study modules alongside their school

level qualifi cations). Over one third of those who enroll in the OU annually

do not have the educational qualifi cations that would normally

ensure their entry to other UK universities. Many of these “underqualifi

ed” people successfully complete all or part of a program; their success

demonstrates the effi cacy of the levels of support provided and suggests

that good exit achievement is readily attainable without any entry

selection.

Lastly, the OU recognizes and gives credit for certifi ed study at other

institutions. The OU also assesses prior experiential and work-based

learning, enabling learners to access more learning opportunities. These

services acknowledge and support the mobility of the learners: They can

learn where they want, when they want, unrestricted by rigid schedules

and specifi c locations.”



As the design of OU’s OpenLearn suggests, open educational resources

are but a small part of open education. They truly are just resources for

teachers and learners to use as suits their needs. Their fi tness for that

purpose will vary, dependent on the pedagogic nature of the resources

and the learning styles of the users. Just producing or using OERs does

not greatly open up a university. To do that requires attention to the

teaching, learning, and support methods and systems that draw upon

those resources. I have indicated above many of the factors that need to

be addressed by universities, but a major signifi cance of OERs is what

it does for the role of learners within education—changing relationships

between teachers and learners. (158)



Learners generally like being part of a peer group

that they can interact with, whether as an active participant or as a

passive onlooker. That is why in OpenLearn the OU has added tools

and technologies that encourage and enable sharing, collaboration, and

knowledge generation between educators and educators, educators

and learners, and learners and learners—as much as its own content

and to have much of that interaction recorded for others to look at and

review. (160)



the Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education have

initiated a project to help state residents complete a bachelor’s degree

through an innovative statewide approach involving public universities.

Tens of thousands of Oklahomans have completed more than two years

of college but have not fi nished a degree (P. Moss, personal communication,

May 19, 2006). Collaborative curriculum development, learning

materials, faculty development, and technology will be important components

in this effort to help working adults complete a degree. The

system offi ce will be institutionalizing use of MERLOT as a key tool in

advancing this project.(191)



Finally, the development of user communities around open digital

resources, along the Wikipedia model, is much discussed, with many

suggesting that sustainability and high quality can be approached when

communities contribute to and organize content, primarily through new

social software tools and associated practices. In the current “Web 2.0”

climate, it might be a little too easy to dismiss valid questions about

whether a “wisdom of crowds” vision can be realized while still ensuring

high quality (see, for example, Duguid, 2006, among others). The costs

to creating and sustaining high quality curricular resources are high.

When coupled with the potential for rampant propagation of misinformation

and poor quality educational materials on the Internet, tensions

can be created for some developers of OER. (208)



Currently, about 150 colleges and universities

are operating or planning OCW Websites. (213)



“We are seeing about 2 million visits per month to MIT content (total for

MIT OCW and translation affi liate sites). Since inception, over 25 million

unique visitors have accessed MIT OCW, representing more than 1.5

billion hits on the Web site. In addition, there are over 100 mirror sites

in Africa and Asia that deliver MIT content to users who have limited [216]

Internet access. And users have downloaded complete course packages

for off-line use over several million times.

From OCW’s extensive, ongoing evaluation process, we have learned

that about 16 percent of OCW visitors are educators, 32 percent students,

and 49 percent self learners.2 Some 96 percent of educators say

OCW has helped them (or will) improve their teaching or their courses.

Among all visitors, 98 percent say OCW has a positive impact. Thousands

of users have expressed their appreciation for OCW and told us

anecdotal stories about the impact it has had on their lives.” (215-216).



“About 60 percent of MIT faculty use OCW materials in their teaching

or advising at MIT. A third say publishing on OCW improves their

materials. And OCW enables faculty to gain more detailed insight

into what is taught in other courses.” (221).



Over 70 percent of current graduate and undergraduate students

use OCW, and this percentage shows steady increase from year to year.

As a student in electrical engineering/computer science explained, “OCW

has given me countless materials that have inspired me for projects,

helped me complete related projects, and helped me understand course

material. My 6.111 report was posted on the OCW site. Since then, a [223]

student in Chile contacted me about it and we’ve been able to communicate

across countries.” (222-223).



The important fi rst step has been to gain a deep understanding of who

Connexions’ users are (and should be) and what constitutes value for

them. Utpal Dholakia of the Rice University Jesse H. Jones Graduate

School of Management has been studying the diverse Connexions users

through formal marketing research, by attending to user feedback, and

via informal observation and interactions. He has found, for example,

that the primary motive for a majority of academic textbook authors

who contribute their original content to Connexions is not to earn royalties;

rather, it is to have the greatest possible impact on scholars, practitioners,

and students within their disciplines through the widespread

dissemination and use of their educational and scholarly materials. As a

result, while authors may agree to forgo revenues from their contributions,

it is important that they receive full credit for them; not surprisingly,

this is often a prerequisite for them to participate. This points to

the criticality of the “attribution” clause in the Creative Commons

license and the noncriticality of the “noncommercial” clause.(238).



Today, there are over 30 million people qualifi ed

to enter university but denied access due to the restricted seat numbers

and restricted fi nances. In the next 10 years, the number of potential

students who will be denied access will grow to 100 million (Daniels,

2007). A major university would have to be created each week, starting

now, to meet this overwhelming demand.

We need to rethink the traditional notions of where, when, and how

people learn. Learning will continue within traditional structures, but it

could also be more widely available through new emerging models. (261).



the Monterey Institute for Technology and Education

(MITE; See http://www.montereyinstitute.org/nroc/nrocdemos

.html). The MITE courses cover much of the subject matter of the early

years of college (and for secondary school Advanced Placement courses)

and use rich, engaging, media-based content. All three open learning

initiatives allow students to pace their learning as appropriate and review

conceptually diffi cult material as needed.



In California, the textbooks for a community

college student ordinarily cost more than the student’s tuition and fees.

Imagine instead that there were a set of high quality text books open

and reusable on the Web. Each open textbook has the conventional pages

and fi gures as other textbooks but also has embedded laboratories,

interactive simulations, video, and other supporting material. One powerful

component of making this textbook freely available on the Web is

that it could be continuously updated for new knowledge. A version of

the textbook could also be available on a hand-held device. A low-cost,

printable, on demand version of the textbook would be available. Though

in the print form the book would lose its interactive characteristics, it

would still be as useful as current textbooks. (269).



In the long run, the possibilities for self-directed learning of this sort

are wide open. There is, however, an important implication. If someone

learns the material independently, why not get some credit or certifi cation

for the effort? Figuring this out might require that rigorous course

fi nal examinations be developed to determine if the person has actually

achieved an adequate level of understanding of the material. Then an

organization or organizations would have to be established to administer

such an exam, and certify that the person has learned the material. The

Western Governor’s University, located in Utah, provides a service something

like this.

Finally, the existence of a body of complete, free online courses suggests

that it might be possible to populate courses that satisfy a full

college major. (272).



(AAC&U, 2002).

Worldwide, the demand for postsecondary education will be nothing

short of staggering. At the beginning of the new millennium, over 90

million students were already enrolled in some form of higher education

worldwide. By 2025, estimates are that the number of enrolled students

is likely to reach 160 million (Perkinson, 2005). At this point, the lessdeveloped

countries manage to provide postsecondary education for only

4 percent of their young people, yet they hold the vast majority of the

world’s prospective students. Nearly half the world’s population (almost

3 billion people) is under the age of 25, and 85 percent of the world’s

youth live in developing countries (World Population Foundation, n.d.).

The possibility of fi nancing enough buildings, books, technologies,

and educators to serve millions of additional learners is close to

unthinkable in less-developed countries where qualifi ed instructors and

critical resources are often lacking altogether (Larson, 2001, viii). (395).



But how does the community judge the

quality of its collective output? Here, too, the burden can be distributed

across the community by providing support for user reviews and recommendations.

To confront the implications of such a strategy, the open

education movement will have to come to grips with the nature of valuation

itself. Is the quality of a course something inherent within the

learning resource itself or is it something that emerges only in use, judged

by how it affects its users in a specifi c learning context (Hylén, 2006,

p. 8)? If so, will we blend peer review with rating systems like Digg to

determine the quality of a resource? (397).