Openness

Since my department at BYU has committed itself to open access publishing I’ve been able to get serious about putting my published writing in the university’s institutional repository called ScholarsArchive. So far I have 12 pieces in the collection, which are guaranteed to stay at these URLs for “a very long time” since the library is curating the repository. I’m happy as a clam that these pieces have permanent homes and that these pieces are freely available for the general public. ...

I’ve seen a lot of confusion on the interwebz lately about the meaning of the term open - like people linking to copyrighted videos posted illegally in YouTube as examples of OERs. Since I have a keen interest in people understanding the term “open content” the way I originally intended for them to, I will soon be adding a “definition” section to opencontent.org. (I think of the “open” in open educational resources the same way, though I neither have nor claim special authority to clarify its definition.) Here’s a first draft of what will appear there. Your feedback would be appreciated. (You may recognize some of this as material that has appeared on my blog in the past.) ...

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. ...

I’m currently involved in two special issues about open education, and if you read this blog the odds are you should submit something to at least one of them! John Hilton and I are guest editing a special issue of IRRODL about Openness and the Future of Higher Education, with a specific emphasis on things like policy, accreditation, and sustainability, including: Critical perspectives on open education Issues of affordability and openness Openness and accreditation Open models for awarding credit or degrees Open source, open access, or open education policy in higher education Open teaching / massively open online courses (“MOOC”) Sustainable models of creating and sharing open educational resources Check out the full IRRODL Call for Papers. Proposals are due this Thursday, but full papers aren’t due until May 1. ...

I probably would not have named this the ‘Wiley Wiki Design’, but when someone like Leigh names something after you, how do you refuse? =) I’ve been meaning to write a little about this design I’ve been using for the last several years and how it has evolved, but recent proddings by Leigh, Teemu, and Bron have finally gotten me off the virtual starting line. Since Fall 2004 I’ve been running my courses in the open via the wiki at OpenContent (course listing). In the theme of this blog, Iterating Toward Openness, these courses started “basically open” and have become more “completely open” (note more completely open, not actually completely open). What I mean is that the original courses had their syllabus and course content out from behind a password with permissions for people to edit. I was disappointed that, even when you put it in a wiki, students still don’t feel empowered to edit your syllabus. They had little trouble editing the online textbook I wrote for the course, though, which was great. And they all wrote their homework assignments on publicly readable blogs. In one of these early classes Stephen ran one of my student’s assignments in OLDaily, which brought the broader community into the conversation those students were having. Strangely enough, the next week all the students’ writing was longer and more thoughtful. Funny what the pressures of peer review will do… So we might say that these first iterations, the 2004-2006 period, were open in terms of their content and discussions, but only students at USU could really participate in the classes. ...