#ioe12 Open Content

I just finished the section of the Openness in Education course titled “Open Content”. First was a video of a talk that David Wiley gave in 2008 followed by the Wikipedia entry on open content and the open content definition. My understanding from this section is a bit sketchy. I am hoping the distinction between open content and open educational resources becomes more clear from me as I go through the course. What I got from this section is the importance of the four R’s in Open Content. From the Open Content definition http://opencontent.org/definition/ they are:

1. Reuse - the right to reuse the content in its unaltered / verbatim form (e.g., make a backup copy of the content)
2. Revise - the right to adapt, adjust, modify, or alter the content itself (e.g., translate the content into another language)
3. Remix - the right to combine the original or revised content with other content to create something new (e.g., incorporate the content into a mashup)
4. Redistribute - the right to share copies of the original content, your revisions, or your remixes with others (e.g., give a copy of the content to a friend)

In his talk David Wiley mentioned two things that he feels are a threat in the future. One being the inability for all of the various licenses to be compatible with each other and how to deal with the noncommercial aspect.
From my view as an online curriculum and instructional designer and adult learning fanatic ( I am currently working on my Ed.D in Adult Learning), I see the problem being buy-in from faculty, administrators, and institutions. Ellen Murphy recently blogged about NH passing a  bill supporting open source and explained how NY is moving further away from that, even though we are at the same time moving towards openness. It seems like we are taking two steps forward and one back all the time. Sadly, change happens slowly in education. I still know educators who have a hard time with the idea of online courses. How will they handle open content? The commercial piece also amuses me. I get many people who look at me like I have three heads because I am not only completing my Ed.D online, but at a for-profit institution. You do not need to be a for-profit to have the bottom line be important. Just spend some time in continuing education/workforce development at a community college. I spent several years trying to make a “profit” at a "non-profit". I digress, back to my main point. Buy-in involves many interrelated pieces. I see the top ones as being:
1. Assessment
2. Quality
3. What’s in it for me?

I am interested in the first one tremendously. How do you assess open content/education/materials, all of it. I am happy to see that is a topic coming up in the openness in education course. How do adults learn in an open environment and how can we tell they have learned?

Quality is one of the biggest issues. I think faculty and administrators are fearful that open content is not quality content. It reminds me of the idea that if something is free, it means it has no value. Have you ever tried to give away something only to realize that if you charged a small amount people would take it? If open content is free, the idea that it is not good enough is ingrained in our culture. I think the future of open education will have to come up with some system that will rate the quality. Just as Creative Commons was born out of the need for legal terms to handle the use of items, a quality system (perhaps some sort of peer review) is needed to address the quality of open content.

My last point is the idea that for every person that wants to share content they have created, there is one that does not. They may be fearful that doing so somehow will be detrimental or they may simply not see how doing it will be beneficial for them. It’s the “What’s in it for me?” mentality.