Primary Motivations for Open Education

Jan 13, 2009 at 10:38 am, Jared Stein

I’ve suggested that “open education” should not be seen as synonymous with various related efforts. Just as there are only approximations at a manifesto for the open education movement, there is no single definition of what efforts constitute or contribute to open education, and open education can not be fairly defined by more granular efforts for the production of open educational resources, opencourseware, etc. That is as much due to conflicting definitions of “open” as it is to organizational motivations. In this post I aim to examine idealized or stated motivations of the open education movement. I intend to follow-up with a post that reviews several efforts commonly classified as open education with respect to their stated and implied motivations.

The 2007 Cape Town Open Education Declaration more specifically harkens back to the UN’s 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights (“Everyone has the right to education.” Article 26.1), declaring a shared goal…

[to create] 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.

This has been interpreted by a number of major educational institutes to motivate providing their educational resources to poor or disadvantaged peoples, especially in the third-world. A current example is Rice University’s Connexions program, which publishes resources for K-12 target audiences in Africa.

In a word, the primary motivation is philanthropic.

But it’s also clear that there are strategic motivations as well, the most prominent being tied to the changing information culture, driven by the accessibility of the Internet. In Good intentions: improving the evidence base in support of sharing learning materials Lou McGill, Sarah Currier, Charles Duncan, and Peter Douglas note, “The rise of social networking tools, such as flickr, Facebook and blogs has caused a revolution in approach for both individuals and institutions as they have begun to embrace a more open approach to sharing information, practice and resources”(8). In David Wiley puts it to the US Secretary of Education, “With significant changes occurring in its societal context and participant base, higher education must innovate in teaching and learning, as well as other areas, to hope to
remain relevant.” (4)

This is echoed in the UNESCO’s 2002 Forum on the Impact of Open Courseware for Higher Education produced Final report of the discussion on Free and Open Source Software
(FOSS) for Open Educational Resources, in which it describes a desire to do for education what FOSS has done for software: “FOSS and OER share a common conviction that access to resources, whether software code or learning materials, should be free and open for use, modification and sharing” (1; my emphases).

The implication of this statement highlights additional motivations: accesibility and (perhaps more importantly) cost-savings, both to the end-user and the educational institute.

Another motivation, though more subtle, is to improve the quality of an institution’s educational products and pedagogy. David Wiley notes, open education “exposes teaching to the quality-increasing pressures of peer review.”

In summary motivations for open education can be described as:

  • Philanthropic: Sharing and providing education to people all over the world, with special attention to those in third-world countries or without access to high-quality local education.
  • Strategic: Adapting educational practices to the changing world culture may increase viability of educational institutions. (Additional motivations exist here as well, but are perhaps more subtle or less overarching).
  • Pedagogic: The act of sharing may increase attention to quality; the act of adapting or remixing may increase quality; the utlization of new technologies may enhance educational engagement amongst learners.
  • Economic: Cost-savings to the institution by digitally archiving their own materials, and then sharing and reusing within the institution and amongst peers.

Later this week I’ll look at how these motivations are realized through the “open education” efforts of several institutions/organizations.

7 Responses to “Primary Motivations for Open Education”

  1. Randy Fisher (aka Wikirandy) Says:

    Hi,

    I’m responding to this post via a link on Stephen Downes website.

    Regarding the points under: Pedagogic – the utlization of new technologies may enhance educational engagement amongst learners – I think that there is also an emphasis among educators themselves, in terms of their own use of new technologies, and the control that results because of that experience.

    That’s what I have observed and experienced in WikiEducator – http://www.wikieducator.org

    It’s also what I have written up, as the first part of my Masters Project (MA, Organization Management and Development, Fielding Graduate University).

    “On an individual, self-managing basis, these educator-authors are choosing to develop OERs on WE to satisfy their own needs for power, achievement and/or affiliation. (McLelland, 1976) Part of what makes WE so compelling to educator-authors is how they are able to control their own destiny: with a freedom to experiment and learn, succeed and fail, and share the experience openly in a way that (1) serves their own private and professional interests; and (2) that their employers may or may not support. Experimentation, observation and reflection in a supportive environment, are seeding individual innovation, creativity and connection.”

    The full paper has been written and published on WikiEducator as CC-BY-SA. I am interested in seeing how it contributes to this dialogue about open education and motivation, and generative learning experience.

    The paper can be accessed at: http://www.wikieducator.org/User:Randyfisher/MP/Final_Paper

    - Randy

    January 14th, 2009 at 7:28 pm
  2. Jeremy Browne Says:

    1. “FOSS and OER share a common conviction that access to resources, whether software code or learning materials, should be free and open for use, modification and sharing”

    I saw this as a slahdot sig once: “Information wants to be anthropomorphized!!”

    I take issue with the “should” component in this shared conviction, as it implies that all people, regardless of their world-view, *should* participate in the movement. I prefer the “as for me and my house,” approach, wherein *I* will say what *I* will do, and *I* will share my motivations for so doing. But it is not my right to tell others what *they* *should* do with their creations.

    2. “exposes teaching to the quality-increasing pressures of peer review.”

    I train public school teachers. If there is one thing that will kill a movement, it is this. I don’t believe this statement should be considered while ignoring its political ramifications.

    January 15th, 2009 at 9:49 am
  3. Mr. Jared Stein Says:

    @Randy I think you’re right on, and if you look at many explanations for the success of “Web 2.0″ a significant part of that lies in user-control of their destiny/identity.

    @Jeremy I agree with you as well on both points.

    1. If I’m reading you right, I think this goes back to the argument of “free” vs “open”, and what David Wiley cued me into re. the differences between CC By-SA and CC-By. I mentioned this in

    2. On the surface the increased scrutiny could leave to quality improvements. But in reality this is the primary reason most faculty and teachers will object–even if they deny that that’s the reason. But while this may inhibit a large number of instructors, it won’t inhibit all instructors. And there is the idea that this could be tempered by allowing for collaborative editing (amongst peers or amongst the general public).

    However, I will also say that I’ve seen (in a small sampling of 2 Utah institutions ;) ) an increasing demand for “transparency” both in service and academic departments from the top-down. So it’s conceivable to me that this direction could be mandated! Is that good or bad? I’d say bad, as part of the critical liberty in openness may be the freedom to not be open. You can see, then, why I am personally leaning toward CC By and not CC By-SA

    January 15th, 2009 at 10:26 am
  4. AlanMJones Says:

    “the quality-increasing pressures of peer review” sounds like teachers have plenty of time to audit other teacher’s courses. Most teachers I talk with say they can’t find enough time to teach their students.
    I say look to the quality-increasing pressures of student review! Power to the learner, not just open education but market-driven, learner-as-consumer driven.
    What more effective way to weed out bad content and ineffective teachers than to allow students to choose course content and instructor based on previous student reviews and (preferably) previous learning results.

    January 18th, 2009 at 1:03 pm
  5. David Wiley Says:

    Jared, thanks for breaking these motivations out and labeling them so clearly! (5)

    @AlanMJones, the “quality-increasing pressures of peer review” don’t occur because faculty spend time reviewing one another’s courses. They occur because before a faculty posts their information they are forced to self-reflect on the quality of their own materials before putting them out where everyone can see them. It is very common for a participation pitch to end with the faculty members saying, “Sure, I’d love to put my stuff up. Just give me a few months to clean it up first, ok?”

    January 25th, 2009 at 3:39 pm
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