22.1 Can oer really impact higher education and human development  (Page 9/13)

I’ve heard said that we run the risk of OER sites becoming large vanity-press websites, storing content that almost no one uses. The quality of materials on some of the wiki sites may contribute to the scepticism of OERs, and that much of these materials will remain in various stages of draft, never receiving the attention to quality and finish that proprietary, institution-generated content might receive. The use of OERs already created depends now on these being found useful by those who the authors thought would like to receive them. Have the potential users already started creating their own OERs from scratch?

The success of the OER movement will depend on reaching across the borders and divides rather than setting up more divides. We need “go betweens” or “bridgers” that help teachers and learners combine materials with all kinds of copyright licenses and websites that make materials in open formats accessible to the majority of computer users without the need to download and install different programmes and drivers than the ones they usually use. Trying to get the majority of computer users to change software before they can use OERs may be another barrier; people seldom have the connectivity,skills and authority to install and change software. We need to adapt to “where people are” rather than insisting on people “changing their ways”.

Finally, the most repeated request I’ve heard amongst senior managers from small states has been to provide complete courses that can be customised rather than a range of resources that a teacher might find useful. This might be one of the most pointed guidelines to making OERs more useable.

Paul

Commonwealth of Learning

12. ken udas - february 10th, 2008 at 12:09 pm

I would like to follow up on the some of the notions that “jsener” and Paul West (via Christine Geith) make about getting a good perspective of where we are right now and the ambitions of the Cape Town Open Education Declaration and various institutional models for Open Education. It seems to me that the idea of Open Education is important because it provides a goal, sort of a “magnetic north” for us to use as we refine practice.

Recognizing that open software (FLOSS) is not education and that open content (OER) is not education, are important ways to ensure that we continue to (more or less) travel north toward our goal. I would prefer to think that FLOSS and OER are enablers, necessary but not sufficient, for the incremental progress toward Open Education. David Wiley captures this in his recent posting tilted Content Is Infrastructure , in which he posits that content, like physical infrastructure such as roads, liberates possibilities by reducing barriers to travelers.

I am wondering if our next steps have something to do with helping individuals and institutions use those roads (content) to meet their own needs, while not being too overly critical about whether or not they are traveling “true north,” so long as it seems is if we are traveling with a purpose. It is important that we have trail blazers, but it is equally important that we have individuals and institutions willing to travel along those paths. So, who is using the content made available through the OCWC participants, Open Learn, WikiEducator, etc.? I see many trail blazers from which to learn, but it would be great to hear from those making good use of the paths that are have been created. I have a feeling that there is good practice and use.