Scheduled Seminar Discussions

Hi Irwin

Appreciate your objective and thoughtful feedback on the OERu strategic targets. Particularly since TRU, as a founding anchor partner, completed one of the first prototype courses and you can offer authentic and realistic estimates drawing on your institutional experience. 

You offer valuable advice for a proposed process model, namely that two or three partners build a working model through "demonstrators" which will build confidence in the network to emulate the approach.  I think the strategic planning documents should provide guidance on the process side of things as well.

A few responses to your observations and questions. 

Irwin wrote "I can't speak to the current financial realities"

As an OER initiative which was bootstrapped in 2009, we are doing surprisingly well with 64% of our total operational costs covered from membership fees. We are well on track to achieve a fiscally sustainable collaboration without reliance on 3rd party funding - very few OER projects to date will be able to show a plausible pathway to fiscal sustainability by July 2015.  

Since inception, we have focused on maintaining a very low cost base which is now paying dividends. 

The deficit to date has in part been funded through 3rd party donor funding most notably the Hewlett Foundation.  We receive a small contribution (CAD15,000) from the Commonwealth of Learning for the UNESCO-COL Chair initiative.

The council of Otago Polytechnic has bank rolled the accumulated shortfall for our foundation years - a bold and couragous committment to open education. However, we anticipate that by the end of the 2014 fiscal year, the OER Foundation will have cleared the amount owing to Otago Polytechnic for the accumulated deficit.  

The current grant from the Hewlett Foundation will cover our operational deficit till 30 June 2015. This means we need to recruit 15 additional partners by this date. 

Here are the numbers. The total operational cost for the Foundation according to 2013 audited financial statements was US$214,000.  The target for breakeven is therefore 54 contributing partners (i.e. 214K divided by 4K for gold 3yr membership) assuming we maintain our low cost base and keep membership fees at the same level. 

The adminstration overhead for external grants for a small organisation with only 2 FTE staff like the OERF is considerable - research and authoring of grant proposals, report writing, external evaluation etc.  This is not to say that we will not pursue grant funding once we achieve the breakeven threshold - but we will have the advantage of focusing grant funding on strategic (rather than operational) projects. 

Recruitment questions

Irwin asks: "What is the recruitment strategy? What has it been till now? How can the partners contribute to this growth? How has the word gone out to date?"

When we established the OER Foundation, we attempted blind written letters of invitation. This strategy did not produce results. The most successful strategy is "word of mouth" where middle and senior managers in the OERu partnership speak with their counterparts at prospective partner institutions to consider joining our family. Once this "lead" is established, the OER Foundation sends a formal letter of invitation detailing the benefits and how the OERu functions. We always offer the opportunity to discuss the OERu with senior leadership at the prospective partner through a synchronous web conference. Almost all partners have used the opportunity to discuss membership during a web conference. This is usually followed by a number of communications with myself to clarrify questions with the prospective partner as required by local due dillengence procedures. 

Partners can help by establishing a "lead" for prospective partners. The OERF can then follow through with the formal invitation and membership discussions. If each partner were to establish one successful lead - we would double our recruitment targets. So this is doable!  

And finally at what point does the payoff of membership, however we define that (a good discussion question?), need to be apparent?

Drawing on our research, the three most important reasons cited for joining the network in order of priority are:

1. To be part of an international network
2. Our philanthropic mission to widen access to affordable education
3. To explore new business opportunities arising from open education models.

The fact that we are a charitible organisation is a key driver in the decision to be part of the family. 

With reference to return on investment discussions, I think a key focus should be on how partners can extract immediate but tangible benefits from the collaboration - rather than esoteric future OERu learner numbers. It will take time to build a cohort of OERu learners in the absence of a coherent programme of study. 

Your point about the OERu being a catalyst for local instittional discussions about innovation and change is insightful -- and perhaps something we should stress more in our recruitment. 

As always Irwin - thanks for your valuable inputs. 

Marc wrote:

While some students will choose to go the whole OERu route and only take these courses that we are creating, I know from experience that most students will do only bits and pieces of such a program of study. They will do our Psychology degree or the Business degree and use the OERu courses they need, picking and choosing as it suits them. For my students, then, having actual course available for their use is far more important than having a whole program of study.

Just wanted to note that this is an excellent example of how TESC is extracting immediate tangible benefits from the OERu while contributing to the future value of the network.

Nice one! I hope partners will follow your lead. 

Hi Jim,

Indeed - there is an impressive amount of planning and work being coorindiated by the OERu working groups (see list at the bottom of the quicklinks page.)  

I'll try to compile a short online survey tomorrow listing the main activities identified by all the working groups to gather opinion on priority rankings from the community. This will be a valuable input for the strategic planning working group. Good idea!

Developing product for a coherent programme of study is a major priority for the OERu family. It's a complex challenge - but I think we can come up innovative but workable solutions particularly if we can find creative ways to bridge the gap between the future value of the OERu network and the tangible benefits partners can extract in the near future as course assembly progresses. 

During Session 2 we will review the proposed strategic goals for the OERu 4-year strategic plan.

(Note: As an asynchronous seminar, you are most welcome to comment on previous sessions. So if you missed the first day, you can access the forum for Session 1 on the planning context here.) 

Please read the proposed strategic goals which were collated from recommendations at the OERu 2013 series of meetings. 

Guiding questions

1. Are we missing any important strategic goals for the 2014 - 2017 plan? If so please let us know.
2. What are the substantive risks which would prevent the OERu from achieving its goals?
3. Do you have any thoughts on the priority ranking of the stated goals?
4. Are there any strategic objectives missing from the list which would contribute to the attainment of our strategic goals
5. Any general comments, ideas or thoughts to help OERu achieve success?
6. How can the OERu strategy narrow the gap between the future value the network can provide and the immediate tangible benefits partners can extract today?
7. Additional consultation questions?

Have a great day!

Hi Joyce,

Thanks for your confirmation of my feelings on this. As I re-read my point and read your comments I remembered this was a key point I made to Gabi Witthaus when she interviewed me for the POERUP project. In my interview with her I said:

I think there are layers of sustainability. I think the community has got a very powerful network and is largely people who are enthusiasts, not just people who are doing it because it’s their job. So, at one level that community of interaction does have that sustainability. Colleagues like the one you interviewed from Rwanda - he’s got no value-added to being there other than that he thinks it’s a good thing to be doing, and that’s a sense I have. In terms of long-term sustainability in education, that question which I really, really wouldn’t want to be putting any money betting on, I think the network’s got significant strengths in terms of the people who are beginning to work together, but it’s also got the weaknesses that any network has. You know, this goes back to the days when I used to teach business, and you argued for why you’d have organisations that were centrally managed like a Ford or a Shell or a BP, or why you’d have organisations that were multiple small businesses that were only connected with networks, and some of the benefits of networks is that innovation, that creativity, that doing things you never expected you would do are possible. Some of the strengths about single organisational control are more direction, more clear mandate for movement, and I think the OERu has all the strengths of that sort of small business: working in collaboration, the innovation and development happens. But it has a weakness in that, without a central unit, institutions could wander off in various directions. You know, Wayne does a brilliant job of keeping people in the loop, of engaging with new partners, of getting contacts together, but currently it definitely feels like a series of spokes around a hub. I have often wondered how sustainable that network would be without a Wayne or equivalent doing the facilitation or engagement. When I think of other social networks of which I am a part, which haven’t got a central coordinating conduit... I mean it’s a weak coordinating conduit in that there’s nobody forcing us to do stuff, but networks which are more pliable and less central, you tend to, as anyone who has done social network analysis knows, get people working in groups together, whereas I think currently, and maybe because of its youth, there is still quite a strong dependence on the mid-point of keeping this network together. Which is a strength when the mid-point works well, but would be a weakness if that mid-point were ever to disappear.
Extract selected from the full interview

I reaffirm these reflections from the Skype interview with Gabi and would happily have someone use them to make this key point at the Anchor Partners' meeting. Sorry Wayne, but there is no way to spare your blushes.

Cheers,

Haydn

Steve wrote:

I suppose for our purposes there's little practical difference in whether we're officially a member or not. 

So this raises a legitimate question for our anchor partners: Apart from building open education ecosystems and social inclusion, what then are the benefits of being part of the OERu network and how does transparent planning contribute to our future success?

I think there are a number of distinct advantages taking into account that once your institution achieves accreditation you will also be free to join our network :-):

1. While I dislike industrial analogies for education, the OERu network is very similar to the notion of co-opetition where we agree to collaborate on components of our systems in order to “compete” better. Consider for example, the collaboration between Toyota, Peugeot and Citroen who share design, component parts and a jointly owned manufacturing plant to produce competing city cars. In the OERu we get to share “production plant” for the benefit of individual partners, eg central infrastructure for hosting OERu courses plus shared quality assurance models.

2. Our transparent and open planning systems build trust for prospective partners without compromising our network advantage. Prospective partners can “try before they buy” without the need for a big marketing budget. As a non-profit open collaboration, we don't have hidden business secrets. On the contrary, that's our business secret: the more partners who join, the more effective our network becomes increasing the return on investment for individual members. It's in our interests to openly share our business models and practices. We have a proven and trusted track record of openness dating back to 2006 – we've been in this game for a while. The open internet is a place where its easy to discredit the “brand value” of a collaboration irrespective of the media flavour of the month. The establishment of the OERu network pre-dates the Coursera's, Udacity's, edX's and FutureLearn's of this world.

3. The major leverage point of the OERu network, is that the individual institutional contribution to open is minimal – restricted to assembling and maintaining two courses. We are nearing the threshold where we can reduce the agreed course contribution while having access to the equivalent of a full set of courses for degree study. That's hard to replicate using single institution models when the OERu network is able to resolve the complex challenges of course articulation. When institutions use our courses, they're obligated to attribute the OERu source - -that's free advertising for us ;-). 

It's smart philanthropy and I look forward to the day when you can announce your own accreditation and consider joining the OERu. At least with the OERu family, you will have both prior and inside knowledge of who you would be dealing with ;-). 

Hi Mika,

One thing I've always admired about the US higher education system is the wide spread philosophy of a liberal studies education. 

Speaking from personal experience, my base degree was a vocational degree preparing me for the Accounting profession. This is served me well, but if I reflect on my work over the last decade, I would have been better prepared for my task with a liberal studies foundation. I do think there is value in a Bachelor of General studies -- and as you point out, OERu courses can be used towards specific degrees. 

We should keep the "reuse" scenario of OERu courses for specific degrees in mind as a potential filter for nominating OERu courses. 

Another US-based person chiming in--I think one difference between "standard" 120-credit US degrees and 90-credit degrees or 3-year degrees in much of the rest of the world has to do with our General Education requirements. This harks back to a discussion on one of the other forums about the value of a General Studies bachelor's degree, which is apparently quite low in Europe and many other places. In the US a Liberal Studies degree does have some acceptance, in part because we have the idea of a core of knowledge that any bachelor's-level graduate should have. There is certainly a lot of tension at the moment between proponents of liberal arts education and those who believe higher education should be more closely tied to specific fields of work, but it's an interesting discussion. The relevance for OERu, I think, is that, at least in the US, many potential courses could be used either towards the core of a specific degree or towards General Education requirements for any degree--so such courses would likely be more broadly useful than highly specialized ones.

Hi Kathleen,

yes so many impactful stories. We have someone working in the Quality Office in our own institution who had left school at 16 with little or no qualifications. He had become a junior at a small newspaper, they spotted his talent and appointed him as a journalist, before long he began to manage a team of 15 other journalists. Then he married and moved and found his experience without qualifications did not find him an easy next job. So he came here to work in a very junior admin post, but through his own commitment and capacity again was promoted time and again. It was a real pleasure to be able to accredit his work and life experience against the level 6, bachelors framework. He not only know it, he had done it too. Through the process he kept telling me he couldn't get recognition because 'everyone does the same' - the truth was, no they didn't! Of course based on that engagement with level 6 learning he has gone on to formal learning and is now studying a Masters in Business Administration.

It is a pleasure to share these stories and like you I have many more examples. I think it is why the OERu is so dead to me. My own commitment is because I am the first in my family to achieve higher education qualifications - and in my case I didn't 'go to uni' but had it come to me while doing a full-time job.

Cheers,

Haydn

Haydn, This is often a challenge I think.

Sometimes, once people in power hear or think ‘it is cheaper’ the classic situation where money drives the decision making / policy direction can take over, with not enough reflection on all the implications and consideration of all the variables at play.

While I do understand (in a fairly limited way to be honest) the issues of cost effectiveness / efficiency and maximising the outcomes and value of finite resources etc … being open to various options to help mix and match the best and right processes for different reasons and situations still must be the foundation I think.

Sounds a bit like the OERu .. does it? (Must be one of the reasons I like it here so much, and the great company too of course)