[Oer-community] In fields like OER -- Shouldn't we eat our own dog food?

Tue Oct 12 08:47:05 MDT 2010

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Am 12.10.10 11:08 schrieb "Theo Lynn" unter <theodore.g.lynn at gmail.com>:

How do we overcome some of the problems Sudhakar mentions:

- fear of loss of copyright
- fear of loss of income
- fear of copyright infringement
- fear of error
- fear of perceived poor quality

Many academics I have spoken to in relation to open courseware, and in particular those who have never contributed OER, cite fear of infringing copyright and also negative perceptions of quality and even errors in materials. This fear of judgement is a major barrier.

If we know why people don't open up resources, then we can address.

Are there other barriers/solutions?

Rgds

Theo

_____________
Dr. Theo Lynn
Director, DCU LINK Research Centre
Dublin City University

t: +35317006873
e:  <mailto:theo.Lynn at dcu.ie> theo.Lynn at dcu.ie <mailto:theo.Lynn at dcu.ie>

On 12 Oct 2010, at 08:18, Wayne Mackintosh <wayne at oerfoundation.org <mailto:wayne at oerfoundation.org> > wrote:

Hi Sudhakar

On Tue, Oct 12, 2010 at 7:26 PM, Sudhakar Agarkar < <mailto:s_agarkar at hotmail.com> s_agarkar at hotmail.com <mailto:s_agarkar at hotmail.com> > wrote:

In India I am engaged in developing open educational resources for schools. I am focusing on all three stakeholders namely students, teachers and parents. I am finding it difficult to get suitable material for my project. There are only a few persons who are ready to share their manuscripts. A large majority are concerned with the copyright and the honorarium that they would get.

The OER Foundation <http://wikieducator.org/OERF:Home>  is more than happy to help where we can, and we can connect you with educators in India who share your objectives.

There is an impressive and active WikiEducator community in India (see:  <http://wikieducator.org/India> http://wikieducator.org/India <http://wikieducator.org/India> ) fostering the development of OER. The Indian chapter was formerly launched by Dr. M.S. Swaminathan (see  <http://wikieducator.org/India/wikieducator_launch> http://wikieducator.org/India/wikieducator_launch <http://wikieducator.org/India/wikieducator_launch> ) father of the green revolution and honoured by Time Magazine as one of the top 20 most influential figures in Asia ( <http://www.time.com/time/asia/asia/magazine/1999/990823/cover1.html> http://www.time.com/time/asia/asia/magazine/1999/990823/cover1.html <http://www.time.com/time/asia/asia/magazine/1999/990823/cover1.html> ). I encourage you to connect with the WikiEducator OER team in India ( <http://wikieducator.org/Wikieducator_Indian_Ambassadors> http://wikieducator.org/Wikieducator_Indian_Ambassadors <http://wikieducator.org/Wikieducator_Indian_Ambassadors> ).

The OER Foundation provides free online training to educators around the world who want to develop wiki skills for OER development through the Learning4Content initiative. The next workshop starts on 20 October -- see  <http://wikieducator.org/Learning4Content/Workshops/eL4C46/Register> http://wikieducator.org/Learning4Content/Workshops/eL4C46/Register <http://wikieducator.org/Learning4Content/Workshops/eL4C46/Register>  and feel free to spread the word.

In New Zealand, in collaboration with the Ministry of Education the OER Foundation is working on a project to build a national OER commons for the school sector (see  <http://wikieducator.org/OERNZ> http://wikieducator.org/OERNZ <http://wikieducator.org/OERNZ> ). All our planning documents and resources are freely available under open content licenses and you are most welcome (and free) to reuse, adapt and modify these for supporting OER in the school sector in India.  The OERNZ Newsletters may help generate a few ideas (see:  <http://wikieducator.org/New_Zealand_Schools_OER_Portal/Resources/OERNZ_News> http://wikieducator.org/New_Zealand_Schools_OER_Portal/Resources/OERNZ_News <http://wikieducator.org/New_Zealand_Schools_OER_Portal/Resources/OERNZ_News> ). All these Newsletters are available in open file formats which you can adapt modify and reuse for your own purposes.

Cheers
Wayne

________________________________
Date: Tue, 12 Oct 2010 09:25:44 +1300
From:  <mailto:wayne at oerfoundation.org> wayne at oerfoundation.org <mailto:wayne at oerfoundation.org>
Subject: [Oer-community] In fields like OER -- Shouldn't we eat our own dog food?
To:  <mailto:oer-community at athabascau.ca> oer-community at athabascau.ca <mailto:oer-community at athabascau.ca>

Hi Everyone,

Congratulations to Susan and team at Athabasca University for continued support of this OER forum and community.

In the corporate world "eating your own dog food" is when a company uses the products that it makes - the idea being that "if you expect customers to buy your products, you should also be willing to use them". (See Wikipedia -  <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eating_your_own_dog_food> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eating_your_own_dog_food <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eating_your_own_dog_food> .)

Notwithstanding the phenomenal progress of the open content and free culture movements over the last decade, OER still has a long way to go before it is mainstream practice in the formal education sector. Paul Stacey's suggestion of encouraging institutions to use and remix OER created externally is a good one because it will teach organisations the value of sharing.

In the OER world we are still in the early learning phases of our own capability maturity. We now need to shift from the notion of "sharing to learn" to "learning to share". "Sharing to learn" focuses on the core value and purpose of education -- that is, to share knowledge freely.  However, "learning to share" is the real challenge but also the "competitive advantage" of OER ;-).

As movement, if we a serious about nurturing the development of sustainable OER ecosystems on a global scale -- I think we should start "eating our own dog food". That is, as individual OER projects fostering and promoting openness, transparency and collaboration through self--organising and open systems.

The OER landscape is characterised by project silos with very little collaboration among OER initiatives. There is a high level of redundancy and duplication of core resources used to support OER projects. For example, funding proposals and grant applications are typically developed under all-rights reserved copyright. Core policy documents and strategic meetings associated with OER projects happen behind closed doors and not very transparent.

IMHO, our strategic point of difference (when compared to closed models) must be our openness.

Shouldn't we as the OER movement be more open and start eating our own dog food? What can and should we collectively be doing to leverage our openness for the benefit of society?

If we are serious about real social change let's make a shift towards open philanthropy (Here I'd recommend reading Mark Surman's ideas on the concept of open philanthropy -  <http://commonspace.wordpress.com/2008/02/28/open-philanthropy-and-a-theory-of-change/> http://commonspace.wordpress.com/2008/02/28/open-philanthropy-and-a-theory-of-change/ <http://commonspace.wordpress.com/2008/02/28/open-philanthropy-and-a-theory-of-change/> )

Cheers
Wayne

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