#ioe12 Open Policy

The last topic in David Wiley’s Openness in Education course is Open Policy. It starts with the Keynote address at the Sloan-C 2011 conference, The Obviousness of Open Policy  by Dr. Cable Green, Director of Global Learning at Creative Commons. He describes openness as a learning machine that needs to be turned on. All the pieces are ready to extend learning in a way that will revolutionize it. He references the Cape Town Open Education declaration. This declarations starts by saying:

“We are on the cusp of a global revolution in teaching and learning. Educators worldwide are developing a vast pool of educational resources on the Internet, open and free for all to use. These educators are creating a world where each and every person on earth can access and contribute to the sum of all human knowledge. They are also planting the seeds of a new pedagogy where educators and learners create, shape and evolve knowledge together, deepening their skills and understanding as they go.”(http://www.capetowndeclaration.org/read-the-declaration)

The revolution is happening. The open community is large and growing. However, it can only go so far without a change in policy. The problem is that our leaders do not understand the details of what open means. I would also argue that many educators do not know what it means. For those of us that do, it is up to us to help them understand.  The creative commons licenses has been ported to 55 countries. Grants from private foundations are starting to require educational resources be given CC licenses. Publicly funded organizations should be open. Open should be the default and closed should require approval.  Looking at the Washington State Community College systems 8 million dollars is spent on just English Comp books in that system alone. It doesn’t make sense. Dr. Green points out that we need to efficiently use public funds to increase student success and access.

There is some progress being made concerning policy. The National Institute of Health has a public access policy that requires all NIH funded research to be submitted to Pubmed Central no later than twelve months after publication. Researchers must ensure that their publishing agreement allows this.

There is also growing support for the Federal Research Public Access Act (FRPAA) that would require federal agencies that are under Section 105 of title 5 of United States code to publish its research openly. Brazil has also introduced OER legislation and the São Paulo Department of Education has mandated the use of the CC-BY-NC-SA license. Last year the 2 billion dollar TAA grant for Community Colleges and Career Training required content developed to be open and cc licensed.

I believe that policy is the key to forwarding the open movement above all else. It is appropriate that it is the last topic in this open course, because it seems to be the last big hurdle. Educators and students understand the benefits and want to be able to learn and teach openly. However, our current system makes it difficult to do so.  Changing policy is what will truly open up access for all.