I want to remix a little of his post and provide some supporting comments:
Good open content is a vital part of creating a vital open education apparatus… Content is just one piece of the open education mosaic that is worth a lot less on its own than in concert with practices, context, artifacts.
Opening content up isn’t the sexiest activity. But I would argue that in one way if it’s not the most important, it’s still to be ranked first among equals. (Emphasis added)
Yes, yes, yes! The way I’ve tried to communicate this idea is “content is infrastructure.” Now, everyone knows that infrastructure is not the sexiest thing to work on. Who grows up thinking “I want to build better roads when I grow up!” or “I want to squeeze more bits down a piece of glass faster when I grow up!”? Infrastructure is generally hidden away in the background, and we all just assume that it will be there and will work. Most people would rather ride the Harleys and launch the Web 2.0 startups, not lay the asphalt and improve routing efficiency.
Creating and sharing content is certainly not the sexiest part of the open education movement. But the open education movement is going nowhere fast without open content. And while infrastructure / content work generally doesn’t excite anyone, the results of innovation in the infrastructure space do excite people. What would you say if I told you that “fiber to the curb” internet service was going to be available at your house/apt in January!”? Probably the same thing you would say if I told you that “content complete, interactive courses - including assessments with feedback - will be available from BYU’s Open Learning pilot in January!”
Infrastructure is critical; open content is the infrastructure of the open education movement; and open content deserves the respect Chris is trying to give it.
Last week, a bill enabling the California Community Colleges to integrate open educational resources (OER) into its core curriculum was signed into law by Governor Schwarzenegger. AB 2261 authorizes the Board of Governors of the California Community Colleges “to establish a pilot program to provide faculty and staff from community college districts around the state with the information, methods, and instructional materials to establish open education resources centers.”
Hal quotes me as saying that ‘introducing Open Educational Resources into the public education system is the most significant development since the establishment of Land Grant colleges and universities in the mid 1800’s.’ In fact, in my OpenCourseWars future-history, the federal OER bill is actually called the Third Morrill Act. I stand by this statement that OERs will be the most important development for higher education since the creation of the Land Grants, and I’ll go one step further and say that the widespread adoption of OERs by higher education and K-12 will be the most important thing that has happened to formal education since the advent of formal education.
You may think I’m blowing smoke, but OERs represent a mass-democratization of access that goes beyond formal education or even public schooling. Think about it - public schools are available only to (1) citizens (2) of a certain age. OERs, on the other hand, are available to everyone, regardless of nationality or age. As institutions adopt OERs and improve them they will contribute these changes back to the community. Like a feedback loop in a microphone and speaker, more and more OER of higher and higher quality will be increasingly available. Thank God that I’m alive to see this all happening! I’m truly humbled, and I hope to be able to continue to contribute to the advance of the open education movement.
I hope you know about the amazing StoryCorps project. They’re recording the life stories and memories of ordinary people, and the stories people tell are personal, touching, and incredibly moving.
We’re only two weeks away from the opening of Open Education 2008, and at this year’s conference we’ll be undertaking an oral history project of our own, recording interviews with conference goers about their participation in the open education movement. We’ll be asking questions like:
How did you get involved in the open education movement?
Which of your contributions to the open education movement are you most proud of?
What are the most important lessons you’ve learned as you’ve been involved with the movement?
From your perspective, what are the biggest obstacles for the movement?
What do you think is the ideal future for the movement? What do you think is the most likely future for the movement?
We’ll be remixing highlights / memorable moments from interviews and sharing these the final day of the conference. But even if you can’t attend the conference this year, I hope you’ll take a few minutes with your favorite audio recording application, answer these questions, and leave a link to your mp3 file in the comments below, along with your name, affiliation, and some contact info. Something like this:
To be included in the project archive, your interview audio should be licensed CC By. All the audio we collect will be made available for direct download as well as through iTunes (I’ll post download links after the conference). While we hope to assemble a critical mass of interviews before / during the conference, the archive will be “open” for submissions even after the conference on an ongoing basis.
If the fancy strikes you, please pass the word on about the project through your own blogs and networks. We anticipate this being a very rich resource in the future…
As many of you know, COSL is undertaking a project to lead the development of an “OER Handbook for Educators” on Wikieducator.org. We went through a really informative process while drafting the outline, and were grateful for all the contributions we received then (and even for the conference call!).
Now there is a modest amount of content in the Handbook - basically a very first draft. And while the development has been completely open and well documented on the Wikieducator.org site all along, we’d really love to get even more of you engaged with the project now, and have you come contribute. We’re especially looking for user stories - are you an educator who has used OER? See Seth’s post to get a sense of what we’re looking for.
Hope to see you over at Wikieducator! And thanks again to Wayne and his fabulous crew over at Wikieducator for hosting the project for COSL!
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