[Oer-community] Introduction to the discussion

[Theo Lynn]

Hi all
 
I have been considering this point, or at least a related point, a lot
lately.
 
I think it is very important that we discuss OERs in the context of
subsidies. Why? One, it is important to recognise that OERs do have economic
value. Two, it is important to recognise that someone bears the cost of
OERs. We need to focus on justifying why OERs are a good investment from a
societal, pedagogical and financial perspective and THEN put in place the
metrics to demonstrate this value. Recently, I have been looking at OERs as
a form of brand placement and justifying institutional investment in OER
initiatives on that basis - for some institutional decision makers this can
be an easier decision than purely societal, or even, pedagogical reasons.
This requires some work to justify but is doable.
 
Regards
 
Theo

  _____  

From: oer-community-bounces at athabascau.ca
[mailto:oer-community-bounces at athabascau.ca] On Behalf Of rory
Sent: 05 October 2010 16:55
To: oer-community at athabascau.ca
Subject: Re: [Oer-community] Introduction to the discussion


Paul, et al.

I did not see this in the same way as you. I saw "in the place of current
expenditures" more about external spending than internal. We can replace the
payments to publishers and licensing fees of our libraries by using OERs.
Then it is no longer zero sum. Internally, I would support (in our context)
diverting internal money also from printing and mailing to online access to
resources. Of course robbing Peter to pay Paul does not always work as you
note below and we should be careful not to penalize  other productive areas
of the institution, so I do not disagree there. 

I also would like to respectfully suggest a change in your statement:
"Think of sustainability not in terms of money, but rather in terms of
impact that is wholly positive"
To
"Think of sustainability not JUST in terms of money, but rather in terms of
impact that is wholly positive"
I would suggest that anyone who is not looking at the financial implications
of sustainability(as well as other factors) is not being systematic.
Financial considerations need not rule everything, but that does not mean
that they are unimportant and should not be considered.

All the best.
Rory

Rory McGreal

Associate VP Research

Athabasca University



Dear Susan, all

It's great to see this discussion starting. Thank you for circulating the
briefing document (10 10 OER Community-OCWC.doc), which mention three
sub-themes:

1. Building OpenCourseWare
2. Using OpenCourseWare
3. Sustaining OpenCourseWare

Sub-theme 3 states the importance of strategies for long-term sustainability
of OCW/OER projects. It says "...think of sustainability not in terms of
money, but rather in terms of impact." Fine. Then I begin to worry, because
it says "...investments will come IN THE PLACE OF other current
expenditures." (my emphasis). "In the place of" sounds like diverting
funding from one area to another area. To me, that seems like a zero-sum
game. In my view we don't need to make the assumption that our options are
limited to what we can do within overall institutional budgets, and we don't
have to decide on what to allocate to OCW/OER at the expense of other
activities. Diverting funding is potentially very divisive: imagine for
example that the "current expenditures" at risk of being diverted to OCW/OER
are for social justice programs that have lower impact than OCW/OER on
impact measure A, but higher impact than OCW/OER on impact measure B, and
that we pay attention only to measure A and use that to justify shifting
funds. Sounds fine? Not for me. I'd want to know how to protect people
affected by the cuts. They might include people who are surely important to
any caring institution, such as the disabled, minority groups, and
historically-disadvantaged groups such as women.

There is a better way, in my view: create wealth in socially-desirable ways
(= benefits to society as a whole, rather than the few), using OCW/OER where
appropriate, and direct a proportion of the new wealth to augment the total
budget available for social justice interventions including OCW/OER.

This is not fanciful. It requires liaison with people in other communities,
likely to be well-disposed to OCW/OER. An example is the Open Science
community, see eg an open-access book from the National Academies Press,
"Managing University Intellectual Property in the Public Interest" [acronym:
MUIPPI],  <http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=1300>
http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=13001

The MUIPPI book is representative of a body of well-informed work on how
society as a whole, as well as individual public institutions, can benefit
from a systemic (and systematic) approach to sharing and using innovations.
I shall be contributing to that process in various multi-partner
international projects, one of which has just begun. Our commitment to our
funders (public bodies) includes interoperability with other programs, eg
OCW/OER, and sharing our findings, insights, contacts etc in open ways that
have the potential to create societal wealth at a significant level without
harming weak groups in society, and, as part of that, can help individual
learners and their communities to get lasting benefits, valued by them, from
the knowledge created and shared in joint work such as OCW/OER. 

My conclusion: I would be delighted to collaborate with anyone who wants to
explore projects that implicitly assume a subtext to sub-theme 3 in the
following direction:

Think of sustainability not in terms of money, but rather in terms of impact
that is wholly positive (eg, new forms of wealth creation, compatible with
the public-interest). Take action in an integrated way: link OER and OCW to
forms of Open Innovation and Open Knowledge Sharing that benefit society as
a whole (eg, socially-focused exploitation of publicly-funded intellectual
property, to create new sources of wealth for the world) and that can lead
to socially-desirable outcomes (eg, creating new types of job, and making
students more employable by helping them to apply what they learn via OER
and OCW, to bridge the "knowledge-action gap").

Best wishes

Paul



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Rory McGreal

Associate VP Research

Athabasca University


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