Discussions started by Scott Leslie

So we've reached the end of the scheduled 3 weeks - I hope all of you have enjoyed it and found it as helpful as I know I have.

The Introductory post helped us get to know at least 25 others who participated (I know there were many more who participated by reading, just as important) - an amazing group of professionals from at least 4 continents that I could count.

Week 1 found us exploring ways to find OERs, introduing the use of social networks, specific search tools like the OCW meta-search and flickrCC search, as well as a number of special OER collections. I know part of my own practice is to always expand the methods and sources I have for combing and filtering the mass of resources out there, and hopefully you also found some useful techniques in this thread.

Week 1 also found spirited discussions on the nature of "Openness" and who is taking leadership in OER. In the former, what emerged for me was a multi-facted understanding of openness, that it needs to be understood on many levels (all of which are important). The leadership discussion interestingly morphed into a discussion of "Open Textbooks" which I think could easily turn into an entire seminar in itself!

The main focus of week 2, 'creating OERs' found what was for me a valueable discussion on the value propositions of OER; this for me is very important, as too often the value propositions are described solely in turns of who wil use OER, but as the discussion showed, there are many reasons why OER can be valuable to instructors and institutions themselves.

Finally, in week 3 we dug in a bit to ways in which OER could be made less content-centric. I personally think this is a rich vein for Open Education to explore, as I think it not only can improve the experience for those accessing the OER, but for those initially learning with them as well.

I hope you got something useful from the three weeks - either a new insight into the importance of openness; more energy to help bring to fruition one of the many fantastic imagined futures for OER, or just a new tool or site you hadn't seen before. In any case, it's been great, and I look forward to speaking and working with you in the ongoing conversations and projects that are happening ALL the time online, in blogs and wikis and other forums everywhere.

Cheers, Scott Leslie

So ostensibly the seminar is scheduled to go until Sunday, but over the next few posts I am going to try and do some wrap-up and summaries. (I find it funny, the idea of this discussion 'starting' and 'ending' because for me it's an ongoing one, out in the open blogosphere, to which you're all always invited, but that's another post I guess...)

What I'd really like to hear, from all of you, is "What is your ideal future for OER?" To get more specific, what would you like to see happening at your institution with OER in 5 years? In 10 years?

What opportunities would you like to see for independant learners in the developing world, in 5 years? in 10 years? For instructors at institutions in the developing world?

And what are YOU going to do to help make it happen? ;-)
This issue is related to the other I just posted about OER's being 'content-centric' but is perhaps more subtle.

Many existing OER projects are re-publishing instructor materials that were developed for explicitly instructor-led and -paced classes, yet one of the primary uses cases for OER is by independant learners in self-directed study.

To what extent do you see this as a problem? Are there ways in which instructor-led materials can be repurposed to work better for self-directed learners, or is itself simply carrying on a 'banking' model of education?


Well, it was pretty quiet in here over the weekend; hopefully this means that you, like me, were out enjoying it with your loved ones, but if it's because people's energies for the discussion are waning, that's fine too. I'm going to toss out a few last big topics and see what happens, but already I feel like there has been a lot of productive discussions over the last 2 weeks, and hopefully you've gotten something useful too.

I think it's undeniable that there now exists large numbers of both formal and informal OER, but a criticism we see fairly regularly now is that, in focusing on the 'publishing' of static resources, the OER movement is promoting a 'shopping cart' model of education, one that is too content-centric.

Do you think this is true? If it is true, is it a problem? If it's a problem, what can we do differently? How might we change our educational practices themselves to become more open, or position educational resources to facilitate more learner to learner interaction?

Some great discussions so far in the 'How do you find OER' and 'Creating OERs...so - why?' threads - I promise I'll spend some time when I get it to distill some of the points in there and add them to the wiki. I know I am learning lots!

Thought I'd introduce a topic which is, as an educational technologist, something I've focused on a lot - the actual practice of how we create educational resources (in general) and how we could do so in way that both enables OER to flourish and is also more sustainable.

I'll start with a provocative statement - "LMS are where OER go to die." That should get some reactions I hope ;-) But it should probably not come as a surprise that systems made to prevent access are not very good vehicles for sharing.

There are some important exceptions which should be emphasized, because much as I personally disdain them, LMS represent the common way in which people deliver online education throughout much of higher ed these days. To me, one fantastic example of a 'have your cake and eat it too' situation is Moodle and Modern Education & Technology Associates' (META) OCW MetaMod (aka OpenShare). Because Moodle is open source and easily extensible, the developers at META were able to create a module for Moodle that allows instructors to "open and close all or just parts of a course." So, without really any additional effort, an instructor can use the same platform they are developing and delivering their course in a formal setting to also share the content more widely.

There is much to critique about the very model of education that this supports, as well as the content-centric model of 'open education' it enables, and I do hope we will get into those, but as far as those go, this is one of the slickest things I've seen, one that does not require people to radically alter their workflow or do much to 'publish' their materials (which in my books goes a LONG way towards sustainability).

I've got many other techniques to share in this regards, but how about you - how do you go about creating online course content? Are you doing it in a way that then is easily shareable? What are some other things to consider that can help make the actuall process of building and sharing OERs more sustainable, more part of the everyday workflow of teaching and learning?