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

[Theo Lynn]

Hi Tim

I think we need to think in wider terms of what is OER e.g. your examples
are valid for books and journals but not presentations or even more
traditional multimedia courseware or simulations etc.

Unfortunately, my PhD is in law and while I appreciate Creative Commons and
indeed support it, there remain ownership issues. Notwithstanding this, I
think the real mass adoption focus comes down to:

- institutional support from the top level
- sustainability from a funding perspective
- community activation including both creators and consumers

The OER community need to think about what are the hot buttons to be pressed
and evidence that needs to be collected and presented that addresses these
issues.

It is possible that we non-routine thinking here thus my previous attempt at
coming at the problem differently. International student recruitment is a
huge issue for lots of universities. OERs may expose university brands in a
variety of ways that are not being measured. If you can link OER exposure to
attendance or consumption of university products then one may be able to get
institutional support and indeed budget allocated from a marketing
justification and not a pedagogical one. Similarly, maybe this is possible
for other sponsors.

I think the open and closed processes below are good but require a critical
mass of bodies to get going but definitely the right direction.

Rgds

Theo
 

-----Original Message-----
From: oer-community-bounces at athabascau.ca
[mailto:oer-community-bounces at athabascau.ca] On Behalf Of Tim Cook
Sent: 12 October 2010 15:48
To: Theo Lynn
Cc: oer-community at athabascau.ca
Subject: Re: [Oer-community] In fields like OER -- Shouldn't we eat our own
dog food?

On Tue, 2010-10-12 at 10:08 +0100, Theo Lynn wrote:
> How do we overcome some of the problems Sudhakar mentions:
> 

Great points Theo. 
Note that I am not a lawyer.  I don't even play one on the Internet.
But I can read and understand the information at various free licensing
sites and I trust the the organizations and lawyers that represent them.
Such as:

Free Software Foundation[1]
Creative Commons[2]
Open Source Initiative[3]


> - fear of loss of copyright
The original author(s) cannot 'lose' copyright.  They can only assign it
away.  Which is what I understand happens in some cases with universities,
journals and even some book publishers. 

The CC and other licenses are specifically written to protect the authors
copyright while still allowing open use. 

> - fear of loss of income

I suppose if a person is making a lot of money from book sales this could be
a concern.  See below.

> - fear of copyright infringement

The likelihood of copyright infringement actually goes down. Consider that
the open distribution of a particular work is in play.  Now, everyone can
see and recognize the original author.  The work is available to anyone,
what is the motivation for 'infringing' copyright?
If a CC-SA-NC license is used then anyone can produce derivative works,
cannot do it commercially and must distribute their work using the same
license.  Therefore the open knowledge pool is increased with each
contribution. 

> - fear of error
> - fear of perceived poor quality

I guess these two are closely related.  Let us compare how a textbook is
written in an open vs. a closed process.

In the closed process an author or group of authors develop a draft.
They distribute it to a close set of colleagues for comment, proofing etc.
The editors do their thing and the book is published.  So, in this case a
few number of people have reviewed the work.  Readers may provide feedback
and at some point an errata may be issued and/or a new edition is published.

In an open process an author or group of authors develop a draft.  They open
it up for the world of interested individuals to examine.  They get feedback
and improve the text.  Once they are satisfied, they produce a published
version.  This version is openly published and feedback is collected.  The
draft of the next version can be updated and corrected and be continuously
reviewed by the world of interested people. 

You can decide for yourself, in which case will the maximum number of errors
be caught and corrected in the shortest time?  Which method produces better
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 certain academics are afraid of openly being judged based on their work
then they probably are not writing books for pubic distribution. 
Peer review is part of journal articles and books.  It is just that in this
case, the pool of peers is much larger.

> 
> If we know why people don't open up resources, then we can address.
> 
> 
> Are there other barriers/solutions?

The number one barrier is probably lack of knowledge regarding the
alternatives.  The solution to this is guidance in encouraging authors to
read for themselves instead of trusting organizations that have a profit
motive.  

Cheers,
Tim 

[1] http://www.fsf.org
[2] http://creativecommons.org
[3] http://www.opensource.org/