Open Education

Carl S. Blyth

SwitchPoint Conference

April 24, 2014

OER in COERLL

Defining Open Education

“A collective term that refers to forms of education in which knowledge, ideas or important aspects of teaching methodology or infrastructure are shared freely over the Internet.”

(Wikipedia)

Open Education Movement

“The open education (OE) movement is based on a set of intuitions shared by a remarkably wide range of academics: that knowledge should be free and open to use and re-use; that collaboration should be easier, not harder; that people should receive credit and kudos for contributing to education and research; and that concepts and ideas are linked in unusual and surprising ways and not the simple linear forms that today’s textbook present.”

(Baraniuk 2007: 229)

•2002 UNESCO meeting

•Materials offered freely for anyone

•Permission to re-mix, improve, and redistribute.

What are OER?

Types of OER

• Textbooks • Courseware • Classroom Activities, Lesson Plans,

Quizzes• Homework Exercises, Simulations• Authentic Media

What OPEN means to me

1. Free Access (online, no passwords, no fees)

2. Enable the “4 R’s”Reuse - copy verbatimRedistribute - share with othersRevise - adapt and editRemix - combine with others

share-computer-key-260 : taken from - http://www.flickr.com/photos/eq/4990131757/Author: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/deed.en

OER EnablersOpen Standards OER designed for sharing

Open LicensesPermission to share OERTechnologyTools for creating & sharing OER

Communities of practiceSharing ideas & best practices

“Gratis” vs. “Libre”

Photo source: free (http://www.flickr.com/photos/tonx/2698947622/) / tonx (http://www.flickr.com/photos/tonx/) / CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/)

Creative Commons: Open Licenses

File:Tyler.stefanich_Creative_Commons_Swag_Contest_2007_2_(by).jpg found at http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki / BY-SA (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/)

13 million free media files (photos, videos, sounds)http://commons.wikimedia.org

67 million free, shareable photos. (CC BY-NC-SA)http://www.flickr.com/creativecommons/

40,000 public domain books (65 languages)http://www.gutenberg.org/catalog/

4 million openly-licensed videos (CC BY)

http://search.creativecommons.orgCC Search

Degrees of Open: Materials

Traditional Materials

All rights reserved

CLOSED OPEN

OERReuse /

Redistribute / Revise / Remix

Degrees of Open: Classrooms

Online• Virtual classroom• Formal (enrolled) “student”• Informal “learner”• MOOC (massively open online

course, e.g., Coursera)

CLOSED OPEN

Traditional• Physical classroom• Enrolled student

Mosaic Cow in St. Joseph, Michigan : taken from - http://www.flickr.com/photos/vxla/6183285404/in/photostream/Author: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en

Degrees of Open: CC Licenses

CLOSED OPEN

BY: AttributionBY: AttributionND: No DerivativesNC: Non Commercial

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/

Open Textbooks

Open Courseware & Learning Communities

Open Source ToolseComma collaborative annotation tool

Open Corpora

The Open Book Project (Dept. of State)

• Advance health education by creating and promoting free, openly licensed teaching materials.

• Materials created by African Universities in Ghana and South Africa.

• Local Materials + Open Licenses = Greater Access, Visibility, and Use of Knowledge Worldwide

• Mission is to maximize the impact of scholarly work through open sharing. • Health OER and capacity-building in Africa

“We have limited resources but because of the Internet, we can share. The South has diseases [the Global North] knowing nothing about.

Our materials are relevant to us and in the North.”

- A Network

Participant from South Africa

• Addresses complex food safety knowledge and training challenges with free and open learning resources.

• Emerging Markets, Online Training

• Filling critical gaps in agriculture related curriculum.• Best practices for farm communities. • Graduate students central to research, case studies, material

creation.

OER Research Hub (Open University)

Benefits of OER

Lower costs

Greater reach/access

Adaptable materials

Learner-designed thanks to “inreach”

Improved quality thanks to crowd-sourcing

Community of practice

Conclusion: Education is Sharing

“Sharing is probably the most basic characteristic of education: education is sharing knowledge, insights and information with others, upon which new knowledge, skills, ideas and understanding can be built.”

--Open Education Week Website