Open Content is So, Like, Yesterday
Last week I was feeling a bit aggrieved after coming across a series of blog posts that seemed to be (directly and indirectly) cutting down institutions making content open and joining consortia like the OCWC. After a nice weekend away from the office, I want to address some of the assertions I am reading (or reading into) the posts and some thoughts of my own on the place of Open Content in the spectrum of activities and artifacts that make up Open Education.
Proposition: there’s enough open content already.
This is demonstrably untrue, as any instructional designer could readily tell you. There might be 3 million google results for “anatomy and physiology” but that has nothing to do with the availability of good, useful, quality materials. We are nowhere close to having decent coverage of pretty much any topic, even if we assume the fallacious idea that there is one single production of even the most factual content that can be produced and that topic be “covered.” And I don’t buy that fallacy for a second… even in their most basic, atomic units, content created by different educators has its own value. Further, if we reach a point where an open posture is the norm, production of “repetitive” content will be a normal part of the process.
Related Proposition: Institutions focused on creating content are operating as if they still exist in an era of information scarcity
The point here is well-taken– there is a lot of content out there to be Googled and linked and embedded, and creation of content may not be the most effective way forward for some (this is the concern at the heart of the whole discussion). But again, a lot of the good stuff is locked away in walled gardens and other silos precisely because institutions that believe in perpetuating the artificial scarcity that they believe is a required part of their value proposition aren’t participating in open content initiatives at all. And, to be sure, even those that do share aren’t necessarily stepping too far away from that archaic notion. Sharing by itself is just a small part of the open education philosophy.
Associated Myth: there’s widespread confusion between educational practice and content production.
This is a straw man argument generally speaking, and one even more pronounced if you consider the group of educators and instructional designers who are involved in sharing open content. Feeling, as many of us do, that good open content is a vital part of creating a vital open education apparatus is very different from not understanding that providing such content is different from the practice of education!
Assertion: open content initiatives are producing lightweight, shallow, shovelware.
Some are. Maybe many are. But if you believe, as I and apparently many people that are part of this conversation do, that producing content is different from practice of education (see below), then it seems inescapable that you must recognize there is no single “good” kind of content. The practice of education involves individuals creating a context for and of learning, each of which is unique and each of which will have its own needs. I’ve decried the relative lack of significant, full materials at OCW archives like the one created by MIT, but I– like many educators– have also made significant use of some of the most minimal materials from that same source. Sometimes– maybe even most of the time– what I find myself needing is something as simple as a reading list, a single activity idea, a unit for enrichment. At those times, that often-disparaged content is pure gold. There’s a place for that lighter, shorter, smaller content… one place among many. Our own goals, like others, may be to do something different, but that’s not to diminish the importance of other approaches, both in content and as a philosophical statement.
Implication: joining a consortium like the OCWC is about cozying up to big names, is just advertising propaganda, etc.
I suspect the subtle swipes at organizations like the OpenCourseWare Consortium are less intentional digs than they are reflections of a particular attitude that has to do with what really being open might mean, with reflexive distrust of “the man,” etc., but I want to say right here that the OCWC is one of the good guys. Frankly, I’ll take whatever help I can find to start people at my institution thinking about open education. As I said in my first post on the matter, joining the OCWC was not, in and of itself, the important thing. Being part of a list that includes various august institutions wasn’t meaningful. It’s a tactic– but a valuable one that I hope will lead us to more significant actions. It may not be for everyone, but joining the OCWC was a no-brainer from my/our perspective: people there work very hard to help their members asking for almost nothing in return beyond a promise to share 10 courses in two years. People like Mike work hard and deserve our support. If we are indeed at a point where open content is so common that so many can afford to think beyond it or take it for granted and move on to other approaches and needs, it is in no small part due to the efforts of groups like the OCWC.
The Edupunk’s Lament: Process is King, down with content, up with context, process and practices
This is the subtext that bugs me the most and, to be honest, I’m not completely sure why. When conversation turns to what’s really open education I get the heeby-jeebies. It’s a kind of no true Scotsman argument invoking real radicalness and tacit bona fides from which nothing productive seems to emerge. I absolutely agree that content is just one piece of the open education mosaic that is worth a lot less on its own than in concert with practices, context, artifacts of process, and actually– well, you know– teaching. Opening content up isn’t the sexiest activity. And there ain’t nothin’ Edupunk about it. But I would argue that in one way if it’s not the most important, it’s still to be ranked first among equals. Not just for reasons outlined above, but because for the most part educators have to create and re-create anew the learning context in their own environment. Artifacts from the processes of others– the context made visible– are powerful and useful additions that can invigorate one’s own practice, but I still have to create that context for myself, regardless of whether it is shared by others or not. Content, however, can be directly integrated and used as part of that necessary process. When all is said and done, neither content nor “context” stand on their own particularly well.
Frankly, I don’t want to get into arguments over what is more or really valuable because such arguments seem incoherent and thus pointless. Foregrounding process, sharing context, opening up the classroom, distributing curriculum and content, facilitating the ongoing conversation– it’s all good. But it’s also potentially all part of a non-zero-sum game in which pursuing one end can enhance the others… potentially, if we can avoid alienating and creating competition with each other along the way!
November 17th, 2008 at 4:13 pm
As I msg’ed you, I agree with 99% of this post, though I sympathize with some of the cynicism that you see superabounding. Your “withering logic”, as Scott calls it, cuts through to the real practical elements that subsist beneath some of the complaints, and no one can complain about that sort of pragmatism.
Two persistent arguments/concerns that I don’t see much serious talk about these days:
1. engaging in openness diminishes potential profitability for faculty/author or institution/supporter
2. engaging in remixable openness alters/diminishes the original (or founding) author’s reputation or identity.
I’d be interested in hearing your thoughts on either of these–especially the latter, as the ideas of authorial intent and individualism of the creator/genius surely come into play…
November 18th, 2008 at 6:30 am
Thanks for this, and not just for the shout out (but to make sure the embarrassment is equal opportunity I’ll shout out to Terri, Clay, and John — my partners in crime here).
I have a post coming up soon at the OCWblog which will have some interesting statistics in it.
The thing that I find interesting is the parallel to the poliblogosphere (and I hope people aren’t sick of me drawing that analogy, but I do believe it’s pertinent).
The cry that finally united the progressive blogosphere in 2004 and led to what I think was the creation of a healthy movement was simple:
“More and better Democrats.”
Just that. And it short-circuited a lot of posturing of whether you could be a good progressive and support, say, someone like Begich in Alaska (who is not the most progressive Dem in the world, lets face it).
The answer was in Alaska, absolutely. Send every last dime to him (and we did). But in Washington state, run Darcy Burner. And in Conn., actively try to take Lieberman out.
It’s not a perfect parallel, but movements are the art of the possible. It’s very possible to believe, sitting in a liberal stronghold like Massachusetts that Begich is the wrong direction for the party — but in Alaska, if you are a progressive, it’s the right direction. Begich is Massachusetts is a disaster, Begich in Alaska is a godsend. Direction is local.
In the same way, for institutions that have moved on, where faculty really get openness already, where the administration if it doesn’t actively help does stand out of the way — sitting in an institution like this I suppose it’s tempting to call the nascent efforts of another institution “shovelware”, and see it as a step back. But that’s a horrible attitude, I think.
The world is not flat, it’s lumpy — and progress is not equally dispersed. I think it’s great that some people are moving on to questions of where we go from here, but most of the world hasn’t even encountered the problems that provide the context for those questions.
There’s still an awful lot of work to be done here.
November 18th, 2008 at 8:39 am
Here’s the stats I mentioned earlier:
http://ocwblog.org/2008/11/18/ocw-production-in-the-ocwc-2003-to-present-w-chart/
November 18th, 2008 at 9:26 am
Chris, a few comments about the above:
re: “open content initiatives are producing lightweight, shallow, shovelware” While sometimes it is true that the complaint here is about the quality of the content, it’s also about the sustainability of it. On the former you are likely right, on the later – heed the warning at your own peril. I understand things have to start somewhere, but when they start with such a linear, static publishing model, it’s no big surprise at the related pricetags per course, nor that they find it difficult to keep running. That’s how I often read this complaint.
re: “joining a consortium like the OCWC is about cozying up to big names, etc.” OER existed long before OCW (though maybe the fancy moniker ‘OER’ hadn’t been applied to them yet) and can and does easily exist without it. You are right, they are not the “bad guys,” not at all, and clearly have had a big role in promoting the open education “movement.” We should be grateful. I am glad if being associated with OCW is helping your institution open up some content. That’s great. But they do, unabashedly, work at the “institutional” level. I do not think there is anything *inherent* in OCWC that prohibits institutions from adopting openness models that would encourage *individuals* to share in ways that harness their *own* motivations and networks, but it does seem to have promoted practices in which the sharing always occurs under the institution’s own brand in a top down fashion. So again, I’d just suggest that in movng ahead on your own, take on some of the real lessons about catalysts and inhibators to sharing that I think people with years of experience in OER projects have been trying to reflect on, and maybe see if there is a way to innovate so that UAF gets both the benefits of the OCW association/brand, but doesn’t necessarily recreate another institution-centric (under-motivated, chronically seeking funds, etc) effort.
Anyways, your last paragraph is the most important; “it’s all good” and, as Brian once said to me, you’re welcome in my foxhole anytime.
November 18th, 2008 at 10:31 am
@Scott, re: sustainability. I agree that the production costs need to (continue) to come down, and that community-contributed models are part of the answer.
But there’s an interesting thing about sustainability — it’s a valid argument, but historically sustainability has been most successful as a free market meme used to dismantle social services. The first step is to argue that government initiatives (Medicare, Social Security, etc) are not sustainable. The second step is to privatize them. The third step is to eviscerate them.
Here in the States we avoided the evisceration of Social Security by making an emphatic argument that is was sustainable — if we wanted to put a bit more money into it.
It’s interesting to see that a number of the overseas universities do not see OCW sustainability as their most pressing issue. Part of big picture thought on sustainability might involve more institutional work, not less.
I’m a big fan of community-produced OCW because of the way it democratizes access. I’m hesitant to argue though that sustainability requires a non-institutional approach. That seems to be giving up a very important front.
In the case of UAF, for example, they are looking at the production of OCW to accompany and explain government-supported research, in lieu of the more typical glossy brochure they used to do for community outreach. That’s an incredibly significant rethinking of how current institutions can make OCW *more* sustainable.
November 18th, 2008 at 11:19 am
“sustainability requires a non-institutional approach” I think you draw the wrong conclusion here, but this may be because I made the point badly.
By all means, if you have the budget, set it aside and dedicate it to “OER.” But dedicate it to OER in a way that promotes *individuals* sharing in sustainable ways. There are lots of possible ways to do this that could be good use of funds (some of which might end up being classic content production funds, but might instead go towards different reward structures, revising our attitudes towards ‘PD,’ etc.) that don’t involve setting up a single institutional publishing platform and branding exercise (or to put it different, see aggregation, marketing and branding for the *institution’s* benefit *as the institution’s job* and don’t front-load the onus of this work on instructors and the people directly connected to the content and the networks).
I do think there are (at least) 2 quite different approaches emerging here. At the end of the day, I don’t care to sit in judgement if they end up helping people change their lives in positive ways (isn’t that the goal?) but I do know which of the two I am personally leaning more and more towards.
I may end up wrong about this. I still cling hard to other formal organizations (the Unitarian church, the Green party , the BC post-secondary “system,” for which I work) that are trying to mediate this tension between diverse networked individuals and “the collective.” I haven’t given up on that. But like I said in my recent post (that seems partly to blame for sparking some of this discussion), I just can’t help but witness the method of individuals sharing openly through personal networks they’ve woven simply “working.” And having been involved in enough of the other approach that didn’t simply “work,” it’s hard not to be attracted.
I guess what I’m advocating is for institutions to take approaches that actual serve the purported ends/users FIRST (sharing educational content openly and benefitting online learners, instructors and the world at large) and institutional needs SECOND, instead of the other way around, which feels a lot like what’s been done in the past. Maybe I just still have too much either/or thinking on this, not enough OER kung fu. I long to learn otherwise. Maybe from an OER
November 18th, 2008 at 11:45 am
[...] Leslie writes: re: “open content initiatives are producing lightweight, shallow, shovelware” While sometimes [...]
November 18th, 2008 at 12:21 pm
Fair enough — I do think I was oversimplifying what you were saying — it seems we both agree to a large extent it is about institutions supporting individuals sharing materials. I thought earlier you were drawing a false dichotomy between institutionality and sustainability.
I’m actually not sure we differ much in what we see as our goal, which is a healthy relation between institutions and communities that results in sharing.
I think maybe the major difference is that I’ve had the opportunity to see both what a wide variety of implementations fall under the OCW “institutional” umbrella, and how those intersect with real needs already (it’s interesting that my most recent videoconference presentation was with an international student group hoping to make life better for students by promoting OCW — if that’s not needs-and-user-driven what is?)
The one other thing I’ve seen is that sharing appears to be several degrees easier in certain other countries — so it’s an interesting question to ask whether things are not taking off here because we as not grassroots enough — or because the past twenty-eight years in the U.S. has been a war on the idea of public infrastructure/commons as being necessary to our survival. I think if you were to sit down with people in Peru and talk about sharing, you’d get quite a different response than you got in the conference you referenced in your post.
November 18th, 2008 at 12:27 pm
I swore on twitter I was not going to comment on anything like this for 48 hours. That was 15 minutes ago. I’m hopeless.
Mike, what would be really helpful is to point to some OCW examples that do not ask instructors to publish in one centrally provisioned infrastructure (like educommons or the MIT platform) or that aggregate open content from different places under a central institutional banner. I’d really like to see working examples of what that looks like in an OCW project, and hopefully in the “wide variety of implementations” there are a few illustrative examples. That would be helpful.
November 19th, 2008 at 12:29 pm
[...] web service like YouTube. But there are more informed educators than me to discuss issues such as opening up your content, transparency, copyright and (gulp) [...]
November 20th, 2008 at 12:18 pm
@Scott your last request about OCW/OER outside of a “centrally provisioned infrastructure” is a good one. I don’t think there are any yet, but that approach conceptually makes a lot of sense to me, despite the (arguable) challenge of “interoperability”.
November 25th, 2008 at 8:11 am
[...] Content Anecdotes Published November 25, 2008 Uncategorized Reading Open Content is So, Like, Yesterday just now, the following bits jumped out at me: Sometimes– maybe even most of the time– what I [...]
November 25th, 2008 at 11:41 pm
[...] constantly links to– ever merited even an oblique mention. It’s ironic that my post in reaction to some irritating timing of discussion was anointed, as it’s one of the most narrow in scope and response of any I’ve written [...]
November 26th, 2008 at 6:48 am
what would be really helpful is to point to some OCW examples that do not ask instructors to publish in one centrally provisioned infrastructure (like educommons or the MIT platform) or that aggregate open content from different places under a central institutional banner. I’d really like to see working examples of what that looks like in an OCW project, and hopefully in the “wide variety of implementations” there are a few illustrative examples. That would be helpful.
November 26th, 2008 at 6:53 am
“what would be really helpful is to point to some OCW examples that do not ask instructors to publish in one centrally provisioned infrastructure (like educommons or the MIT platform) or that aggregate open content from different places under a central institutional banner. I’d really like to see working examples of what that looks like in an OCW project, and hopefully in the “wide variety of implementations” there are a few illustrative examples. That would be helpful.”
Scott, try looking at the LabSpace on OpenLearn as a tiny step towards an institution based hosting and publishing environment for a wider community of others – individuals, groups and organisations to modify OU stuff or do their own thing as they please using the available facilities.
November 26th, 2008 at 11:26 am
Andy, not sure that Labspace is exactly what I had in mind, though the multiple output formats are a great start, as are the many ways in which you try to connect educators and learners. In any case, I do appreciate the example.
November 28th, 2008 at 8:58 am
People from developing countries often emigrate to industrialised countries, after being recruited by the embassies and consultants of those industrialised countries. Many of these people forget or are not told that their qualifications will “qualify” them for jobs like cleaning toilets at airports and hard working doctors and teachers with 15 years experience might re-train to become security guards and taxi drivers. This is normal, and it is what people face who have formal qualifications.
How much worse will these same countries treat new immigrants arriving who say they have learned all they know from social networking sites? From sites that carry course materials created by people unknown and who have no institutional accreditation in their home country, and no form of certification of the education they have gained? Open educational practitioners need to remember that just pumping out half-baked content is not enough. Content needs a structure around it, and that includes providing the credibility to people who take the trouble to study the content.
If you are a creator of open content, would you employ a person for a highly skilled job who carries no institutional credentials, but lists courses they have self-studied on social-eductional-networking sites? Be honest! These sites are great for teachers scavenging for content if they have the time and connectivity, but they are not going to fly when it comes to credentialing people who need it. It makes people look like they have bought their qualifications on one of those internet sites we hear about in our spam folders all the time. Open content by big institutions is a great idea.
Keep up the good work UKOU, MIT and others. Your materials can be used by teachers for courses that people can study, be examined on and get qualifications. And maybe one day these qualifications will jump borders the way they should be able to.
December 3rd, 2008 at 2:19 am
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