Problem of Sustainability

The success of early OER projects such as MIT OCW rely in part on funding, some of it massive. For example, MIT OCW began with grants totaling $11 million, contributed in equal amounts by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, and committed $1 million of its own funds during the first two years of the project. Yet such grants may be drying up (ref needed), regardless increasing interest and participation in OER projects will heighten competition for and further limit availability of such funds. On their own few public institutions could be expected to come up with that money, and currently many US institutions, particularly state institutions, are facing budget cuts that threaten to limit, decrease, or prevent local OER projects.

The OER Handbook describes the problem of sustainability in context of successful open source software projects:

In open source software projects, money is raised by soliciting donations, selling manuals, training, software development and providing technical support. While some of these methods can be applied to OER, some can not, and some funding methods remain largely untested. Few of the well-known OER projects exhibit the same vibrant communities of contributors that well-known open source software projects have. This issue is one of the most serious the OER community faces.

Though others have found fault with it I was encouraged by the Cape Town Declaration’s suggestion that the open education movement “[has] the opportunity to engage entrepreneurs and publishers who are developing innovative open business models.” Further, some may disagree and even convulse with the idea of linking OER projects with commercial ventures, even as a means of providing sustainability. As a strong-minded capitalist, I do not. Rather, I look forward to working examples of such innovative business models (e.g. Flat World Knowledge), and anticipate innovative adaptation to what I believe is a fundamental shifting of the (sometimes conflicting, often confusing) relationship between creator/consumer/copyright holder.
However, as the OER Handbook describes, such approaches remain largely untested.

Mainstreaming Openness

At UVU I’ve maintained the mindset that long-term success of OER will depend upon mainstreaming it, integrating the mentality of authoring for OER and the activity of publishing as OER into the normal course development and teaching processes. In taking this position I merely echo what others have said, e.g. David Wiley, as in On the Sustainability of Open Educational Resources (2006), Stephen Downes, as in Models for Sustainable Open Educational Resources (2007), and Andy Lane, as in Sustaining OERs: a brief and provocative road map (2008), albeit from my own perspective of being in an institution interested in OER projects, but with no explicit funding for it.

For distance learning programs the goal of integrating OER activities is most feasible. Quality digital content production is part of the practice, and distance learning programs should already be auditing third-party copyright materials. Another approach could be to set a goal of zero third-party copyright content from the course design phase onward, ensuring that no new course includes copyright content. UVU we have played with hosting course content on a public server (called “Shadow Files”) and “mixing” it with copyright content and “private” course activities via the learning management system (LMS). Further, the LMS may be used as the OER publishing platform itself, technology provided (as I’ve prototyped on Moodle with the OpenShare block). However, in such a case the ability to release just parts of the course as OER is necessary, and most LMSs are void of such features.

OER investments may interweave with distance learning initiatives in other ways as well. Terri Bays, Dan Charchidi, Sunnie Kim in presentation Open Sharing, Local Payoff note, “OCW can complement a distance learning initiative, taking content from and directing learners toward an … e-learning curriculum”. It’s a two-way street: developing OER can result in distance learning; developing distance learnign can result in OER.

Additionally, many of the same justifications for distance learning as a cost-reducing and education-enhancing vehicle apply to OER. Mark Pesce notes, “Recording is cheap, lecturers are expensive, and students are forgetful.” Capturing teaching materials in a digital form has perhaps the highest potential for institutional ROI. Reuse reduces redundancy: capturing allows reuse, and access to reusable materials has the potential to dramatically reduce redundancy, diminish the cost of lecturing both in the expenditure of dollars and time, and improve student learning. Stephen Downes argues that “non-economic definitions of ’sustainable’ should not be dismissed lightly”. He mentions that different organizations will have different objectives for practicing distance learning, and some are not cost-saving. Indeed, OER provide a potential means of relieving faculty lecture time for other teaching activities, such as actually interacting with students and providing more feedback.

Brainstorming Institutional Changes Towards Openness

I’ve collected the following ideas on how to successfully mainstream and integrate OER across the institution. Many of these are based on the practices of other institutions, and conversations with colleagues and the OER community. These ideas are based on the need to grow positive attitudes toward OER support across the institution, and the fact that different institutional staff may require different arguments to catalyze support (here especially I welcome feedback, altertions, or additional ideas from the community).

• IT should be encouraged to work with OER advocates to find streamlined technology solutions for publishing OER, and then budget for maintenance of these solutions.
• IT may need proof that OER will either not overload hardware, or be worth the increased load. Also, discussions on whether or not OER may increase susceptibility to malicious attacks.
• Administration may need evidence that OER does not diminish profitability or marketability of institutionally-own content, and in fact may provide satisfactory ROI through PR, student retention, quality improvement, international competitiveness, adaptation to changing cultural and educational paradigms, etc.
• Student services and advisement may need education and training on the potential value to students of OER, and how to access and utilize OER in a manner similar to that in which they access and utilize course catalogs and descriptions
• PR should be educated on the goals, scope, and potential impact of institutional OER efforts that they might better.
  Faculty may need reassurance that the value of opening and sharing is competitive with the value of locking down and isolating learning materials.
• Faculty and technology support staff may need workflows and technology training to facilitate publication of OER.
• Finding, reusing, and remixing of OER should become just another faculty skill set, and trainings should be provided–similar to (now commonplace) trainings on use of word processors, e-mail, and the web.
• Everyone should be involved in discussions of the potential value and responsibility of using non-rivalrous resources to provide access to educational content to a new, broad international audience.

I believe OER can be mainstreamed and integrated into existing processes for course development and publishing, but the needs identified in this list above require organizing, supervising, supporting, and proselytizing. Institutions serious about engaging in open education would be well served by funding at least one full-time position, such as “OER Coordinator”, if not a small team. Such a position may be situated in context of campus IT, faculty development and training, or distance learning. Investment in such a position could cohere OER efforts and reduce waste, redundancy, poor planning, and, perhaps most significantly, mis- or failed communication. At the very least, an existing staff member should be appointed as OER coordinator, and responsibilities shifted or condensed to allow for these needs.

My experience with the OER community has shown me that the passion, reasoning, and ideas of individuals will fuel and maintain the global effort regardless–Andy Lane states that “the success of OERs is also dependent on a thriving and healthy OER movement”. But to foster the movement in the long-term it behooves us to focus on the immediate needs of local sustainability. Unlike purchasing computers or licensing an LMS, with OER we are not buying a solution, we are building a solution. In doing so we are investing in the people of the institution, and can obtain a new kind of ownership: a grassroots, shared ownership of the learning materials cultivated by access to and encouragement of open and shared learning resources.