[image by yomofo]

As we work on the goals for our impending entry into the OpenCourseWare fracas in order to formulate something approaching a strategy to make it happen, I’ve been giving a fair amount of thought to the purpose and use of open course materials. Adding ourselves to the growing list of OCW consortium members (not to mention the wide array of other, similar initiatives, formal and not) and contributing materials in the same way is valuable, but of limited interest. Given that, why join in such an initiative? What do we hope to achieve?

CDE is, course, motivated in part by many of the same factors other open course sharing institutions are, having distance classes that are relatively unique and/or approaching a state of revision already and/or particularly suited to our institutional needs and interests. That’s a given. As an organization, CDE is committed to the (much abused) idea of innovation and a posture of continual experimentation. We prioritize projects that are interesting and challenging– and often with wholly unanswered questions. Where possible (and when successful), we hand those projects off to other organizations for regular production and operations. In her recent post Visualizing OpenCourseWare, Carol Gering shares some research into characteristics of OpenCourseWare materials from a couple of representative institutions. Through working with Carol, and reading and discussing the topic of open education with various colleagues, I’m starting to refine the areas that are of particular interest to me:

Addressing the Independent Learner (and Educator)
Most of the FAQs and mission statements and declarations of philosophy of various organizations involved in providing open educational materials in some way mention a global audience for their work. But much of the actual materials don’t really address the needs of a few core group that I feel a moral imperative to serve: the independent learner seeking a comprehensive educational experience and the educators and facilitators helping unaffiliated learners gain that kind of learning experience. I believe there is immense value to many populations– the most obvious being under-privileged populations and those residing in developing nations where access to institutions and the resources to pay for that privilege are scarce. An English Composition class that is designed to do more than provide random information access and be something other than a resource for professional educators and their students will look quite different from the same course designed for a student working their way through such a course independently, seeking a significant educational experience, with or without the help of a non-expert educator or facilitator. For the latter, a course needs to have a significant and useful amount of practice, modeling, self-assessment and reinforcement exercises that in other circumstances would (one hopes) be provided by the educator adopting the material.

Integrating Learning Community
Again, realizing that we are talking about addressing something other than what I take to be the relatively traditional users of open content– namely professional educators and learners seeking to address very specific needs akin to receiving training (Skip Via’s comment is well-taken)– my philosophy of powerful and productive education is one that puts a high degree of importance on integrating learning communities into the process. Learning communities include the traditional peer community of learners, but also the variously typed and organized communities of other learners affiliated with the same institutional sponsor, previous learners who used the same materials, hobbyists and prosumers applying what they’ve learned, and professionals actively engaged in work that uses the skills and experience obtained through taking a course.

How can we use the immense power of various kinds of social software available to us and already being actively integrated into the educational environment to benefit those engaged with open educational materials? Are there productive and manageable ways to store and share artifacts and promote discussions amongst (sometimes radically) asynchronous learners? Can we capture any of the responses and thoughts of educators to improve and enrich the materials? Are there methods involving transparency of progress and historical records of progress of preceding learners that could be used to guide and motivate those that come after? Can any of these community mechanisms be used to make progress on one of the most difficult aspects of open education geared towards independent learners: providing support and even evaluation?

Creating Fully Open Content
Though there’s no mandate to do so, it surprises me that so few courses are available that are based wholly upon media, readings and resources available for free to anyone, thus making the course much more useful to those for whom traditional textbooks and purchase of readings and subscriptions is beyond their means. Clearly this is easier to do with some courses  than others: developing a Romantic Literature course would be much easier to do based on completely free resources than a course in the modern novel… but wouldn’t the willingness to create such courses be a powerful partner and motivator for those working on Wikibooks and other open textbook (and similar) initiatives?

Interest-Based Design and Provision
OK, I just made that description up. And I know this isn’t at all an uncommon consideration. But I find myself confused and uncertain about how best to (literally) make open materials available. Is there a productive compromise between meeting the demands of portability and easy integration and addressing the needs of sustained learner interaction? Simple is often best, I know, but even the simple solutions turn out not to be when examined closely. And then there is the question of licensing: Creative Commons? Open Educational? One of the older, geekier alternatives?

Again, I want to reiterate that I know these are not original or unique concerns and issues… they’re just the ones that make a foray into this space particularly interesting and part of the moral foundation that guides me in the first place. Many of you are involved in creating and sharing curriculum and other media and materials… why do you do it? What are your goals? Who do you consider to be your audience?