Though I deeply enjoy my infrequent, often protracted conversations with Stephen - and find them deeply useful for clarifying and advancing my own thinking - I believe this one has just about run its course. Stephen has posted Four Conclusions on OERs he has drawn from our conversation. This will be my final post as well, and I’ll make only a few concluding points. One of the things I’ve learned through this discussion is that some might benefit from the inclusion of a brief disclaimer somewhere on my writing. Something like this, perhaps: ...

In my recent post I asked us each to consider what “what is the real goal of our OER advocacy?” Stephen answers that his goal is access for all, and takes me to task for wanting more. In my post I wrote, My ultimate goal is this: I want to (1) radically improve the quality of education as judged by learners, and (2) radically improve access to education. And I want to do it worldwide… Personally, my goal is not to provide less expensive access to the same teaching and learning experience to more people – access and affordability have never been my end game. My goal is to facilitate radical improvements in education for everyone in the world. ...

My recent post about the cost trap and inclusive access prompted responses by Jim Groom and Stephen Downes. I’ll respond to Jim’s post first, as it provides an opportunity for some necessary clarification on my part. [Back in 2012 - 2013] I was impressed (like many others I’m sure) with how Wiley was able to frame the cost-savings argument around open textbooks to build broader interest for OERs. If you’re a longtime reader of Iterating Toward Openness, you’ve read my discussions of means and ends in this context a number of times. For example, in 2015 I wrote that “My ultimate goal is this: I want to (1) radically improve the quality of education as judged by learners, and (2) radically improve access to education. And I want to do it worldwide.” For reasons I have outlined countless times (relating to the pedagogical innovation only possible in the context of permission to engage in the 5R activities), I believe OER adoption is a critically important means to achieving this end. As Jim notes above, for some period of time talking about the cost savings associated with OER was an effective way to advocate for OER adoption, helping us get a step closer to the end goal. However, in the new context of inclusive access models, arguments about “reducing the cost of college” and providing students with “day one access” are increasingly ineffective at persuading faculty to adopt OER because publishers have completely co-opted these messages. Ask a publisher why inclusive access is good for students and the list of reasons they will provide sounds like it came straight off a 2013 OER advocacy slide. ...

Imagine that - somehow - you’ve never used the internet before. A good friend and long-time internet user finds this out and begins trying to describe to you how awesome the internet is. However, for some inexplicable reason, all of his arguments for why you should be on the internet focus on cost. While it is absolutely true that each of these services is cheaper than its pre-internet counterpart, cost is far and away the least interesting thing about any of them. Would these arguments actually inspire someone to want to use the internet? If you’re already familiar with the internet, the whole line of argument seems to miss the point. It omits the heart and soul of what makes the internet amazing. Who thinks about the internet this way? ...

Two and half weeks ago I extended an invitation to attendees of the annual OpenEd Conference to “please help make the OpenEd Conference better.” This invitation was extended (successfully delivered by email) to the 2,240 people who (1) have attended the OpenEd conference at some point in the past and (2) are still subscribed to the OpenEd Conference information mailing list. 924 people opened the email (41.3%). The email invited them to either (1) anonymously answer a series of questions about the conference and how it can be improved or (2) indicate their willingness to participate in a 30 minute conversation about the conference and how it can be improved. 214 (9.6%) people clicked on one of the links in the email (taking them to one of the Google Forms collecting this information). ...

There was a lot of discussion at OpenEd17 about the relationship between OER and value-added services like platforms. The discussion was energized by an announcement made by Cengage immediately ahead of the conference, but this is a conversation that has been percolating for a while now. Examples of Value-Added Services in the Context of Open Both the wider internet and the narrower education space are filled with companies and organizations that provide value-added services around openly licensed software and content. A few examples include: ...

There were lots of amazing takeaways from #OpenEd17 for me. One set of takeaways has to do with opportunities to make the conference a more effective vehicle for advancing the work of open education. I wrote about that yesterday. Over the coming days and weeks I’ll post more thoughts prompted by conversations at the conference, starting below. Ryan Merkley’s opening keynote was awesome. Among the many important things he said, one that struck a chord with me was a comment about how we talk about “open”. Ryan made the assertion that “open has to be about more than the 5Rs - open also has to be about our values.” I couldn’t agree more, and I think this point is worth elaborating and exploring. ...

This morning I sent the following email to the 2,253 subscribers to the Open Education Conference mailing list. I extend the same invitation to you. My apologies in advance for the length of this email, but I hope you’ll agree the subject warrants it. The work of the open education community is so important that we must leverage every resource available to better support student learning and success. The Open Education Conference is one of those resources. And it can be better. It needs to be better. How we can use the conference to its fullest potential in order to catalyze and facilitate more, better, and deeper learning for all students - particularly for those students who are the least likely to succeed without the work we are doing? ...

As you may have heard, my fellow rabble-rouser George Siemens and I are doing a MOOC on open education that launches later this month on edX. Before you ask, let me preemptively answer a few questions. Yes, this MOOC actually is open - all the content will be viewable outside the edX platform and downloadable under open licenses so as to be fully 5R-able, yes, you can fully participate in the course for free, and no, I don’t make any money should you choose to try for a Verified Certificate. Now that we’ve got that out of the way, George and I have a request. Would you be willing to make a 3 - 5 minute video sharing your perspectives and experiences regarding one or more of our weekly topics? We would love for our fellow course participants to hear a wide diversity of voices (rather than just suffering through ours all the time). The weekly topics are: ...

Reading through and pondering the reactions to what was apparently a wonderful ALTC keynote by Bonnie Stewart (UPDATE: here are her slides), I find myself reflecting on the ways my thinking about “open” is influenced by the ideas of negative liberty and positive liberty. This is certainly not the only lens through which I see open, but I do feel like it is a useful one. As I understand it, negative liberty refers to the absence of external obstacles, barriers, roadblocks, hinderances, or constraints that interfere with my ability to accomplish my desires. My negative liberty is maximized when there is nothing in the law, in society, or elsewhere outside of me that prevents me from exercising my agency in order to accomplish my desires. ...