Tag Archive for 'personal'

Thank You, Marion

Published on July 2, 2009 in open content. 3 Comments Tags: , .

Utah State University OpenCourseWare is, I believe, the country’s second biggest OCW collection with over 80 courses (MIT OCW is, of course, the largest). USU OCW is consistently in the top five results when Googling for “Utah State University” (with or without quotes). And for four years, Marion Jensen has been the fearless leader of USU OCW. Recently, Marion provided what unfortunately appears to be his final project report:

We average as many as 2,000 unique visitors to the site every day from all over the world. We have mirror sites up in Africa, China, and Indonesia (that we know of). Our site has been translated into several languages, and is the third most visited site on the usu.edu domain. Being the OCW director is something I’ve loved doing the last four years.

However, it is coming to a close.

Budget cuts have resulted in the program coming to an end. We’ve spent the last six months scrambling to find a way to keep the lights on. We’ve sought after state money, private money, grant money… We’ve found nothing, so as of June 29th, I will be starting a new job.

It’s heartbreaking to see the project come to an end. Hopefully, as Justin’s dissertation demonstrates that universities can provide a significant public good AND generate revenue at the same time through OCW, USU will reconsider its decision to shutter the program.

With help from many other supportive staff at COSL, Marion has admirably led this project to great heights in public service and has been responsible for bringing a significant amount of notoriety and public regard to Utah State University. Marion, thank you. God speed in your new efforts.

BYU IS OCW Update

Published on June 21, 2009 in a2k and open content. 2 Comments Tags: , , , .

Just a quick update on the BYU Independent Study OCW. A few weeks ago I gave the following initial status report:

So far the results are very positive – 85 of the 3500 people who visited the OCW site last month registered for for-credit courses. In other words, 2.4% of people who visited the OCW site during its first month became paying customers of BYU IS.

The latest data say that we have now had 5529 visitors to BYU IS OCW and that 136 of those visitors have enrolled in credit-bearing courses. In other words, 2.5% of the people who have visited the OCW site have become paying customers. Remarkably stable, eh?

I’ve said before the BYU IS is in a remarkable position because of its prior commitments to improve student affordability. For many years now the BYU IS course development model has been to build content-complete online courses from scratch (without licensing external resources or requiring students to purchase any textbooks or additional resources) in order to keep the cost down for students. The traditional online course financial model successfully supports this strategy. So, since BYU IS owns all the IP in its courses, conversion to OCW format and open licensing is ~very~ inexpensive.

The cost data are not final, but it looks like the last batch of semester-long, content-complete online courses converted to OCW cost about $1000 a piece to convert. That’s $1000 to put a semester-long, content-complete online course into OCW under an open license – all the development, maintenance, and update costs are paid for by the traditional online course business model. As the course conversion process is refined, there is still room for that cost to go down.

When you put the visitor conversion rate together with the course conversion cost, you have a recipe for an opencourseware initiative that can pay for itself forever and bless the lives of millions of people. These two kinds of conversion (visitor conversion rate and course conversion cost) aren’t the kind of “conversion” we traditionally associate with BYU, but they do seem to be ‘working together for good’ (D&C 90:24).

Those of you who know me know that my passion and commitment to the open education movement come from my faith. As this is a Sunday post, I’ll take the liberty of sharing some of the scriptures that influence my thinking about open education.

14. Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid.
15. Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house.
16. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven. (Matthew 5:14-16)

25. Behold, doth he cry unto any, saying: Depart from me? Behold, I say unto you, Nay; but he saith: Come unto me all ye ends of the earth, buy milk and honey, without money and without price.
28. Behold, hath the Lord commanded any that they should not partake of his goodness? Behold I say unto you, Nay; but all men are privileged the one like unto the other, and none are forbidden.
33. He inviteth them all to come unto him and partake of his goodness; and he denieth none that come unto him, black and white, bond and free, male and female; and he remembereth the heathen; and all are alike unto God, both Jew and Gentile. (2 Ne 26:25-33)

The BYU IS OCW experiment continues, and I’ll keep updating you all on it…

Moving to BYU

Published on June 13, 2008 in open content. 21 Comments Tags: .

It is with mixed emotion (but certainly a huge amount of excitement!) that I write today to tell you that I have accepted a position at Brigham Young University. I’ll be making the transition over the summer and begin teaching at BYU in the fall.

I remain as committed as ever to pursuing my work of increasing access to educational opportunity, and believe that there will be many wonderful opportunities at BYU in this regard. As you know, I am devoting much of my time right now to the Open High School of Utah, which I believe will be a shining example to the world of what the future of open education will be like.

Thank you all for your continued support, and I hope to see many of you soon.

Fun To Be Me

Published on April 4, 2008 in open content. 3 Comments Tags: .

My newest boy, sixth month-old Lorenzo, has a shirt that says “Fun To Be Me.” I’m feeling that way lately.

This week I was named the USU College of Education and Human Services Researcher of the Year for 2008. It was a huge compliment from my peers here at USU and automatically makes me a finalist for the USU Robins Award, one of the university’s most prestigious (and tradition-rich) annual awards.

However, even more fun is my new role at the Center for Open and Sustainable Learning. I’ve been Founder and Director at COSL (pronounced “causal”, with a short “o”) ever since it’s official launch in September 2005. But recently I’ve had a pining to do less administrating and more work – more writing code, more writing papers, more getting closer to the people we try to serve. So, effective this week, I have changed roles to “Evangelist and Idea Guy” at COSL. The change in role will let me focus more on accomplishing the great work we have set out before us, and allow me to continue to contribute to the Center in the ways I’m best suited to.

I’m just as happy to say that Dr. Brett Shelton, my office neighbor in Instructional Technology, is taking over the Directorship at COSL. For those of you who haven’t met him, Brett is an extremely gifted and talented instructional technologist (or learning scientist, Brett? LOL) with a great career underway in the area of open gaming. You can see some of his work featured on the IMRC website (look for the HEAT project), and get a flavor for the real Brett over at Rhymes With Purple (though he hasn’t posted in a while).

What a great Friday it is! I hope things are going as well for you as they are for me. Happy weekend!

On Easter

Published on March 21, 2008 in open content. 1 Comment Tags: .

This is one of the special times of the year when “us Christians” around the world pause for extra reflection on the incredible gift we’ve received from God in His Son Jesus Christ. Even if you aren’t Christian, I’d encourage you to take some time this weekend to “count your blessings.” There’s no feeling in the world like gratitude, and the world needs more people whose hearts are filled with thanks.

Happy Easter.