Oer

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. ...

Students in my IPT 692R: Open Education Policy Seminar have finished the two policy backgrounders they worked on during our extremely compressed summer session. These reviews are written specifically for a BYU audience (with lots of references to BYU’s mission, institutional objectives, and appropriate scriptures), but I thought the information in these documents might be of interest to the broader open education community. So without further ado: Open Access Policy Backgrounder ...

In Lorna’s review of the OER presentations at CETIS 2008, I read this bit about the new OLNet program: The OU and Carnegie Mellon University have now received additional funding from the Hewlett Foundation for OLNet - a network to support sharing methodologies and evidence on the effectiveness of OERs. This next wave is about impact, evidence and effectiveness. I realize that when blogging summaries of conference presentations you seldom quote the presenters with complete accuracy. So I mean neither disrespect for Lorna or Patrick, but something about this characterization of the “next wave” work rubbed me the wrong way. About once a year I have a student burst into my office and announce they have found their dissertation topic - comparing the effectiveness of OERs with traditionally copyrighted learning materials. I now have a well rehearsed shtick about how such a study would be the most pointless dissertation ever conducted (and if you read many dissertations, that’s really saying something!). Please join me in the following thought experiment: ...

In my science fiction tale of the future of the open education movement, the OpenCourseWars, I predict a time when the federal government creates a funding pool to support the creation of open courses to which the public would have free access: In the most unbelievable part of the history of openness in education (for me as a native West Virginian, anyway), West Virginia Senator Robert Byrd announced that his current term in office would be his last. (I think he was like 108 at this point.) His final piece of legislation would be a third Morrill Act that would support the land grant institutions in creating OCW-like projects to provide increased access to educational opportunity to the general public. The so-called “Byrd Bill” passed, creating a small pot of dedicated monies for public schools to draw on in order to support their OCW initiatives. ...

I recently posted a link to the OER Remix Game, a card game you can play with friends to learn about the license compatibility difficulties involved in remixing. Well, if you’ve had a hard time convincing your friends to play the game with you, you can now try a beta of the online (one player) version of the game! You can find it at OER Remix Game Online. Your thoughts and feedback would be appreciated. Critical and corrective feedback is, of course, the most useful kind.

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.

I never thought I would title a post in all caps, but I can’t believe I’m reading what I’m reading. H.R. 1464, introduced by Bill Foster of Illinois, is titled: To require Federal agencies to collaborate in the development of freely-available open source educational materials in college-level physics, chemistry, and math, and for other purposes. After quoting a number of findings about how completely out of control the textbook market and textbook prices are, the bill goes on to say: ...

Chris Lott’s recent post Open Content is So, Like, Yesterday has earned him Stephen’s attention and misinterpretation. Well, that’s happened to many of us. =) 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. ...

As Jane reports on the Creative Commons blog, California’s OER pilot program has been signed into law: 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.” ...

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: ...