Today in my email I got my OLDaily newsletter from Stephen Downes. As always I gave it a quick scan to see what was being said in the world of open education today. It seems that often there is something about MOOC's. What they are or what they are not. How someone is experimenting with some version of what they think a MOOC is. Today it was about a LOOC. Yes that is right, instead of a Massive Open Online Course it is a Little Open Online Course. The University of Maine is experimenting with opening up some courses for free to between 2 and 7 students. These students will be treated as any other student in the class with the same expectations and opportunities to complete assignments and exams if they wish. However, they will not receive credit for their work. They can decide to become a paying student before the normal add/drop period ends. You can read the full story by Steve Kolowich at Inside Higher Ed.
This is an open course? The course is open for a select few sure, but beyond those 2- 7 students, this is a closed course (on Blackboard) that some people are given user names and passwords for and able to take for free. So this is a free course for a select few, but not really open.Take a look. http://www.umpi.edu/academic-resources/umpi-openu/how-it-works
So it is not really open and it certainly is not anything closely related to what a MOOC really is. It is closer to the idea of auditing a course. Are these courses using the idea of knowledge being shared? Is it distributed, networked, social, participatory? No, it seems that the focus of what a MOOC is has been on their size and not the change in how people learn. That to me is the most troublesome. So the question I am left with is what impact, if any, do MOOC's really have on higher education and adult learning? Are we learning anything about how people learn from them or simply twisting them and turning them into things like a "LOOC"?
Thursday, September 6, 2012
Wednesday, June 20, 2012
Open Content Licensing for Educators
Today is day 1 of the Open Content Licensing for Educators course in Wikieducator. I was on the fence with taking this one because I thought I learned a great deal about licensing in the Wiley course, but I could not help myself from wanting to be part of a course that has close to 500 participants from 62 countries! I will surely learn things I did not know and meet lots of people from all over the world at the same time. Go to http://wikieducator.org/Open_content_licensing_for_educators to take part.
Monday, May 21, 2012
OER Taskforce Presentations
It has been a little while since my last blog post on open learning because we have been very busy here with some exciting things!
Our taskforce has been working on sharing all of the wonderful things we have learned from taking the Openness in Education course. We first presented a poster at Empire State College's "All College Conference" back on March 28th on Open Education Resources. Then on April 28th, we gave a presentation titled "Lesson's Learned: An Experience in Open Education" at Empire State College's Center for Distance Learning (CDL) Conference. We had a great time at this presentation and were able to share what we have learned with the college community. We even created a hands-on version of David Wiley's OER remix game for this audience. Most of the work for this version of the game should be created to Claire Miller, one of our Instructional Designers who has also been working on this taskforce.
We are taking this on the road now! You can see us next at SUNY CIT (Conference on Instruction and Technology) on Wednesday May 30th from 8:30-9:45 where several us will present "Open Education and a Study
Group Approach to Understanding It". We will discuss our experience with the course, how we approached it as a team using face-to-face meetings, and what we learned about open education. We will also play our version of the game if time permits. We hope to have lively conversations!
As soon as we return from CIT Michele Ogle and myself will have a brief presentation at the Capital District Educational Technology Group meeting on open education and how we can use it in our science, math, and technology courses. Michele is an assistant area coordinator and math faculty member. We are working together on developing an online precalculus course this development cycle. This short presentation will mostly focus on those areas of open eduction that is most relevant for this group, such as where to find OER's, licensing, encouraging the creation and sharing of OER's, and challenges we have found along the way.
I am also in the process of developing a WikiEducator page for our group where we will be sharing what we learned along with our poster, PowerPoint presentations, and links to documents for the game. As soon as it is complete I will post a link to it!
Friday, April 13, 2012
OpenEd Overview Badge Completed
I have been having issues with my blog, so I am re-blogging this to see if it shows up in the course feed.
This is my final post linking to the blogs I have completed for all 12 topics of the Introduction to Openness in Education course . I believe I have meet the requirement to earn the OpenEd Overview badge. I know that I have a much better understanding of everything open, which is critical for my role as coordinator of curriculum and instructional design at Empire State College. As I help with revisions and new developments of our online science, math, and technology courses, I am now better informed to help our content experts and area coordinators navigate this new world. Education is on the verge of a huge paradigm shift, thank you for the opportunity to understand it better!
Links to my blogs are below:
This is my final post linking to the blogs I have completed for all 12 topics of the Introduction to Openness in Education course . I believe I have meet the requirement to earn the OpenEd Overview badge. I know that I have a much better understanding of everything open, which is critical for my role as coordinator of curriculum and instructional design at Empire State College. As I help with revisions and new developments of our online science, math, and technology courses, I am now better informed to help our content experts and area coordinators navigate this new world. Education is on the verge of a huge paradigm shift, thank you for the opportunity to understand it better!
Links to my blogs are below:
- Open Licensing
- Open Source
- Open Content
- OpenCourseWare
- Open Educational Resources
- Open Access
- Open Science
- Open Data
- Open Teaching
- Open Assessment
- Open Business Models
- Open Policy
These
posts were originally done at http://commons.esc.edu/stone/ over the
course of many months, but that site is having issues with linking/access. All posts have
been moved over to this blogger site. I began this course January 25th
and finished my last blog today, April 12th!
Thursday, April 12, 2012
#ioe12 Done! OpenEd Overview Badge (Novice Level)
This is my final post linking to the blogs I have completed for all 12 topics of the Introduction to Openness in Education course
. I believe I have meet the requirement to earn the OpenEd Overview
badge. I know that I have a much better understanding of everything
open, which is critical for my role as coordinator of curriculum and
instructional design at Empire State College. As I help with revisions
and new developments of our online science, math, and technology
courses, I am now better informed to help our content experts and area
coordinators navigate this new world. Education is on the verge of a
huge paradigm shift, thank you for the opportunity to understand it
better!
The links to my blogs are below
- Open Licensing
- Open Source
- Open Content
- OpenCourseWare
- Open Educational Resources
- Open Access
- Open Science
- Open Data
- Open Teaching
- Open Assessment
- Open Business Models
- Open Policy
#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:
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.
“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)
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.
#ioe12 Open Business Model
The next topic in David Wiley’s Introduction to Openness in Education course is Open Business Model. It focused briefly on OpenCourseWare, but mostly looked at business models for free ebooks.
The paper A Sustainable Model for OpenCourseWare Development (Johansen and Wiley, 2010) described the cost involved to publish courses openly. Some of these costs include the labor to convert courses to an OpenCourseWare format, scrubbing to remove copyrighted material, hardware and software needs, and other supplies. One big question is how would opening up courses effect paid enrollments. Johansen and Wiley (2010) found it would be sustainable, however there was no data on attrition of paid students due to the courses becoming open.
The remainder of the articles to explore were based on open textbooks or other ebooks.
Free: Why Authors are Giving Books Away on the Internet (Hilton and Wiley, 2010) looked at the effect of free books on sales of non-digital version. Interviews with authors showed that they are happy with open publishing . Many see it as providing a wider range of access to their works. The free version can also act as an enticement to buy the print version. Regardless of technological advances, people still like to have paper books. Giving away ebooks provides access and exposure, but may not necessarily reduce the number of people who purchase the book.
The Short Term Influence of Free Digital Versions of Books or Print Sales (Hilton and Wiley, 2010) used Bookscan Data to examine the relationship between ebooks and the subsequent sales of the paper versions. With the exception of Tor Books, sales increased. It is important to note that Tor Books used a different model than the others. The free ebook was only available online for one week.
Hilton's dissertation (2010) looked at whether book sales of religious books were affected by the digital versions. Hilton found that sales increased 26% for the titles that had ebooks released.
A Sustainable Future for Open Textbooks? The Flat World Knowledge Story (Hilton and Wiley, 2010) Used Flat World Knowledge (FLK) as a case study to examine the sustainability of the business model being used. FLK functions similar to traditional textbook publishers only they are free. Another unique feature is instructors can remix easily. Titles have the creative commons licensing of BY-NC-SA.
For students they can access the free book online and they can also purchase other versions if they want to. Authors get 20% of sales. Authors are also able to share their work with their students freely (what a concept, instructors being able to share their knowledge!). FLK completed alpha tests that included a faculty review of the business model, faculty review of prototype, and student review of approach and prototype. During beta testing 6 books were used in 27 classes with 750 students. 442 students ordered additional resources or the print book.
It is clear that both faculty and students have interest in open textbooks. The bigger question to me is not only how to sustain this movement as a business model, but how to grow it. Open Access Textbooks and Financial Sustainability also looked at FLK. concluding that the open textbook market has not been growing as fast as predicted in the sales of electronic textbooks. Why is this? I know as a student, an electronic version of a text for me, would not be worth the money. I want both! I need to hold my textbooks, flip through the pages, take notes on them. However, I also want them on my iPad. I want to be able to annotate digitally. I do this for journal articles, why not my texts? I think this is where the business model that FLK is using has substance. I can access texts electronically and have a hard copy to hold. I think the next big hurdle for this type of model is to be able to increase the number of books available before people look elsewhere. I was disappointed at the small number of science, math, and professional titles for example. Looking at the costs associated with each book to produce, being able to do this may take more time and support.
The paper A Sustainable Model for OpenCourseWare Development (Johansen and Wiley, 2010) described the cost involved to publish courses openly. Some of these costs include the labor to convert courses to an OpenCourseWare format, scrubbing to remove copyrighted material, hardware and software needs, and other supplies. One big question is how would opening up courses effect paid enrollments. Johansen and Wiley (2010) found it would be sustainable, however there was no data on attrition of paid students due to the courses becoming open.
The remainder of the articles to explore were based on open textbooks or other ebooks.
Free: Why Authors are Giving Books Away on the Internet (Hilton and Wiley, 2010) looked at the effect of free books on sales of non-digital version. Interviews with authors showed that they are happy with open publishing . Many see it as providing a wider range of access to their works. The free version can also act as an enticement to buy the print version. Regardless of technological advances, people still like to have paper books. Giving away ebooks provides access and exposure, but may not necessarily reduce the number of people who purchase the book.
The Short Term Influence of Free Digital Versions of Books or Print Sales (Hilton and Wiley, 2010) used Bookscan Data to examine the relationship between ebooks and the subsequent sales of the paper versions. With the exception of Tor Books, sales increased. It is important to note that Tor Books used a different model than the others. The free ebook was only available online for one week.
Hilton's dissertation (2010) looked at whether book sales of religious books were affected by the digital versions. Hilton found that sales increased 26% for the titles that had ebooks released.
A Sustainable Future for Open Textbooks? The Flat World Knowledge Story (Hilton and Wiley, 2010) Used Flat World Knowledge (FLK) as a case study to examine the sustainability of the business model being used. FLK functions similar to traditional textbook publishers only they are free. Another unique feature is instructors can remix easily. Titles have the creative commons licensing of BY-NC-SA.
For students they can access the free book online and they can also purchase other versions if they want to. Authors get 20% of sales. Authors are also able to share their work with their students freely (what a concept, instructors being able to share their knowledge!). FLK completed alpha tests that included a faculty review of the business model, faculty review of prototype, and student review of approach and prototype. During beta testing 6 books were used in 27 classes with 750 students. 442 students ordered additional resources or the print book.
It is clear that both faculty and students have interest in open textbooks. The bigger question to me is not only how to sustain this movement as a business model, but how to grow it. Open Access Textbooks and Financial Sustainability also looked at FLK. concluding that the open textbook market has not been growing as fast as predicted in the sales of electronic textbooks. Why is this? I know as a student, an electronic version of a text for me, would not be worth the money. I want both! I need to hold my textbooks, flip through the pages, take notes on them. However, I also want them on my iPad. I want to be able to annotate digitally. I do this for journal articles, why not my texts? I think this is where the business model that FLK is using has substance. I can access texts electronically and have a hard copy to hold. I think the next big hurdle for this type of model is to be able to increase the number of books available before people look elsewhere. I was disappointed at the small number of science, math, and professional titles for example. Looking at the costs associated with each book to produce, being able to do this may take more time and support.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)