IPT 692R Notes: Tuesday, April 9, 2009

Apr 9, 2009 at 12:40 pm, Stein

Ideas for open access and open educational resources at BYU

It was a gorgeously sweet-smelling rainy day, but I managed to bring
myself into the confines of a BYU classroom to attend David
Wiley's IPT 692R: Intro to Open Education. Today we're looking
at how an institution, BYU in particular, might approach institutional
policy and practice supportive of open licensing of teaching materials
and research publications. The conversation was shaped by
the context of MIT's model for both OCW and
open access.

Teaching Materials Research
  • syllabi
  • lecture notes
  • multimedia
  • simulations

Open teaching materials should be opt-in in order to
moderate…

  • scale
  • 3rd party IP issues
  • sense of personal ownership

Could we require syllabi be made open? This would be a
student-centered initiative, though it might abrade some
faculty.

  • Research publications

© still belongs to faculty, but institution claims
non-exclusive right to redistribute when it is
accepted for publication (based on MIT)

  • Open research publications should be opt-out in order
    to
  • gain leverage with publishers (e.g. you can say, you
    HAVE to accept the [institutional nonexclusive
    redistribution] agreement — institutional policy)
  • help share research with the world
  • assist in local archive of tenure files and decisions

Besides institutional pressure, what are incentives for faculty to opt
in (open licensing of teaching materials)?

  • For BYU, incentive may be scriptural/doctrinal imperative to share
  • Tap into the motivation to Do Good (Is it true that BYU fac/staff
    make _less_ than other institutions? To me, BYU seems so
    well-funded, and in some instances over-funded.)
  • dissemination, reputation

Technology and Support Issues

Technology

  • what system
  • who pays
  • who manages/hosts?

Support

  • Who trains faculty, staff?
  • Depositing where?
  • Who pays?

  • Source

  • Who?

Concluding Thoughts and Questions

Justin: We need a raison d'etre. we do this as an
institutional community because…

Aaron: Do we anticipate a change in structure to facilitate and
support openness?

Dr. Wiley: We need to fully consider existing systems and see how they
might pipe in. Syllabus Builder, Learning Outcomes wiki

Dr. W: Should we require open syllabi? Institutional IP policy says
faculty own it; but institution would step in and claim nonexclusive
right to redistribute.

John: Sounds harsh. If you require me to, that strips away my agency.

JMS: That's agreed, but from a student-centered focus argument for
it wins.

Dr. W: We should argue that open is good because of pragmatic reasons,
not openness for the sake of openness. We'll have recommendations
for teaching practice (e.g. cost of textbooks, availability of open
resources)

Aaron: What are conflicts of interest?

Dr. W: Can't require students to adopt your textbook unless
you're selling more copies off-campus than on-campus.

Justin: For pragmatic reasons it makes sense to model our policies on
the successful approaches of other institutions, for example, MIT. No
need to be different just to be different.

Dr. W: Use our repository OR go your own way.

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