Open-Education

I recently blogged about the Apple announcement and how it amounted to publishers ceding the “traditional” textbook market (whether print or digital) to OER makers. One way to interpret that concession is as a win for open education. And it is a win - temporarily. Another way to interpret the concession by publishers is to see it as electronics companies ending production of VCRs and doubling down on DVD players. In my previous post I asked, “If video-based, multimedia-rich, interactive textbooks are only worth $14.99 to the big publishers, what are relatively static, text-based books with a few photos worth to them?” Think about that for a minute. Sure, there are “traditional” OER textbooks available for free. But when you could have video, multimedia, simulations, and interactive assessments for $15, why would you take a traditional book (whether print or video) even if it is free? ...

I’m humbled and very excited to announce that, as of today, I am the Senior Fellow for Open Education at the National Center for Research in Advanced Information and Digital Technologies, also known as Digital Promise. I’ll post more detail on exactly what this means later this week. FAQ: No, I’m not leaving BYU; I’ll be acting in this role in addition to my responsibilities at BYU. In the meantime, here’s the SL Tribune story and the text of the article from the McKay School News: ...

I’ve yet to publish anything from my time spent in the UK as an OLNet Fellow. The following bit of writing is one of the outputs from that period, and is informed significantly by conversations with the brilliant and welcome folks at the OU, as well as past online exchanges with many of you. On OER - Beyond Definitions Despite the attempts at single sentence definitions so common in the published literature, “open educational resources” is a highly context-mediated construct. However, because philanthropic and public funding agencies commonly require grant outputs to be open educational resources, the ability to quickly and clearly categorize a variety of creative works as “open educational resources” or “not open educational resources” has become critical. ...

I’m simply ecstatic to say that this deal is finally done! Rather than write up my own announcement, I’ll reuse Timothy Vollmer’s. Today Secretary of Labor Hilda L. Solis and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan announced the solicitation for grant applications under the Trade Adjustment Assistance Community College and Career Training Grant Program (TAACCCT). Over the course of 4 years, the program will invest $2 billion “to provide community colleges and other eligible institutions of higher education with funds to expand and improve their ability to deliver education and career training programs.” The program supports President Obama’s goal of having the highest proportion of college graduates in the world by 2020 by helping to increase the number of workers who attain degrees, certificates and other industry recognized credentials. The first round of funding will be $500 million over the next year. Applications to the solicitation are now open, and will be due April 21, 2011. ...

Qatar Foundation International has a new posting for an ICT Officer that mentions OER specifically. I know some of the people at QFI and they’re fabulous. This sounds like a great opportunity for someone… Officer, Information Communications Technologies A critical element of QFI’s developmental approach is to apply the best & most appropriate technologies to enhance our programs, e.g. OER, hybrid language translation, mobile APPs, etc. In addition, QFI has brought together several thought leaders in technology to form a Technology Program Advisory Group (TPAG). The organization seeks to acquire the internal staff capacity to analyze with honesty and intellectual rigor the effective application of ICT to its programs. ...

I’m sure someone will decry this as representing the increased corporatization of open education, but a rather high profile open ed job is now open in WA state. The position is listed as Open Education Project Manager, and was posted by the awesome Cable Green, whose title is Director of eLearning & Open Education. I’ll let him explain: The Washington State Board for Community and Technical Colleges (SBCTC) invites applications from qualified individuals for the position of Open Education Project Manager. ...

The new, special issue of IRRODL on Openness and the Future of Higher Education is available now at http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/issue/view/38. Here’s the introduction John Hilton and I wrote for the special issue: Once considered to be mostly hype, the idea of open education has spread to hundreds of universities across the globe – including many of the world’s most prestigious institutions. Open access to teaching and learning materials significantly empowers individuals who are not affiliated with formal educational programs and levels the playing field across competing institutions. These two occurrences – the empowering and leveling – portend significant changes in the structure and practice of higher education. The purpose of this special issue of IRRODL is to address various specific ways in which openness can affect the future of higher education. ...

Earlier this year I blogged about what I thought should go into an open textbook bill (with clarifications the next day). I’m extremely pleased that Senator Durbin has introduced a bill which closely resembles these recommendations and therefore, to my mind, is on exactly the right track. You can read Durbin’s remarks as he introduced the bill, and then study the full text of S. 1714 on GovTrack (where you can also subscribe to a feed of all bill-related activity). ...

Bryan Sudweeks from Brigham Young University’s Marriot School has just released his absolutely incredible collection of Personal Finance courses and resources under a CC By-NC-SA license.

We’ve had plenty of talking and blogging about open certification or open credentialing of learning mediated by open educational resources. One thing I don’t think we’ve talked about yet is the role of openness and open educational resources on program accreditation. When you think about what accreditors want, they want to know exactly what your program is doing, exactly how you’re doing it, how you’re capturing data, how you’re using that data to make your program better, etc. Basically, accreditors are interested in transparency and accountability. Can you think of a better way to create and facilitate transparency and accountability than putting all your department’s courses in OCW and taking pro-open stance on other department output like research publications and policy documents? A few questions: ...