I spend most of my time doing fairly tactical thinking and working focused on moving OER adoption forward in the US higher education space. But from time to time I still step back and worry about field-level issues. For example, I spend a fair amount of time thinking about the future of learning materials writ large. I made what was probably the clearest statement of my vision for the future of learning materials in my Shuttleworth Fellowship application several years ago:
My long-term goal is to create a world where OER are used pervasively throughout primary, secondary, and post-secondary schools. In this vision of the world, OER replace traditionally copyrighted, expensive textbooks for all primary, secondary, and post-secondary courses. Organizations, faculty, and students at all three levels collaborate to create and improve an openly licensed content infrastructure that dramatically increases student success, reduces the cost of education, and supports rapid experimentation and innovation in education.
Now, make no mistake – OER is a means, not an end. My end goal isn’t to increase OER adoption. My end goal is to improve student learning, and that can be done in extraordinarily powerful ways when teachers and students are able to leverage the unique affordances of open educational resources.