[Oer-community] Is MIT thinking of putting its OCW material behind a pay wall?

[Steve Foerster]

Hi Stephen,

The ideological difference we seem to have here is that I don't believe
that decisions are made by "society" or that "society" has values.
Instead I see there being networks of individuals, who make individual
decisions based on their different goals and values.  Similarly, events,
policies, and so forth are neither good nor bad for "society", most are
presumably good for some individuals and bad for others.

It's interesting that you note that the Americans are unique in
believing that education can be provided privately.  This is much more
the case at the higher education level than at the primary and secondary
levels, and sure enough our universities habitually top international
rankings, while our primary and secondary schools fare poorly against
other developed countries' systems.

Now, with all that said, I'm not saying that all education *has* to be
about the profit motive.  There's obviously a role for non-profit action
in a marketplace.  In particular, I was drawn to OERs in part because of
my dislike for commercial textbook and journal publishers.  In an era
when online collaboration is readily accessible, I see them as an
unnecessary middleman that offers little.

We don't agree that open educational resources should be the property of
those who learn from them, since I don't accept that ideas should be
property at all.  But I do appreciate your vision of this movement being
geared toward creating a collaborative culture in which all can
participate rather than just a top down curriculum delivery system.  It
almost sounds like a free market. :-)

-=Steve=-


-- 
Stephen H. Foerster
http://hiresteve.com
http://hiresteve.com/blog
http://wikieducator.org/steve