I have been critical about aspects of LMSs in the past. I’ve been critical of Blackboard in particular–primarily because of my complaints about the functionality of the Vista LMS, the “must use standard LMS for everything” attitude of some university CIOs, and Blackboard’s past behavior with respect to patent claims. And while one professor encouraged me to wear my “Supporting Innovation, Not Suing It” t-shirt to class, and while I at some point last night woke up saying, “If we tell you all our ideas, will you patent them and sell them to us later?”, I wanted to open my mind to the potentials of the discussion and not be obtuse as a matter of course.

(The following notes identify ideas by speaker, but please note that the words are only verbatim if I use quotes.)

Dr. Wiley began by directing us to consider the history of the LMS, it’s purpose as manifest through functionality and initial usage experiences. A common conclusion was the LMS attempted to replicate what happens in the classroom online: requiring little faculty tech expertise, providing quizzes, assigns, grades, content delivery (paper reduct), discussions [JMS: yes and no. online discussions are both similar and dramatically dissimilar], admin and teaching functions, and integration with campus academic and student information systems.

In response to our growing list, Russ responded, “This is just a collection of things… but there is new capability, and by tying the corporation together we enable new processes. Technology enabled a transformation.”

(JMS: Agreed as a potential. Technology is nothing without appropriate training and inspiration on proper educational application. Through the LMS we quickly accomplished teaching with technology, but not technology-enhanced teaching. But if we ask, how can we leverage technology to make teaching and learning better and easier? We must examine our educational goals, audience, and environment. We must problem-solve, creatively using applications of the available tools.

(Also, there are some ways in which the technology itself has changed the way we teach, albeit slowly:)

1. Quizzes become more reasonable as self-assessments and formative learning activities when done online
2. Discussions become fully participatory, time-liberated dialogs that allow participants to branch and focus on strands that are personally relevant.
3. Digital content is searchable – discussions, texts, etc. This provides different, easier, faster access to materials and ideas that support a participant’s focused interest

We began speaking of the cultural shift associated with (or accompanied by) Web 2.0, and how that may impact education.

Justin makes the good point, if LMs is adaptation of teaching, it also seems this idea of PLE/PLN is just a 2nd generation adaptation of the LMS, i.e., teachers consider, How can I do X, Y, Z — which I did in the LMS easily — without the LMS?

JMS: Some who look at the PLE see it as something constructed by new media, connectivism, not as a substitute for the LMS. Those folks admit they don’t know what a PLE looks like and are uncertain if learning outcomes are similarly measurable. Those most comfortable with the idea of a PLE have some confidence in the organic conditions of it as a learning environment, despite it’s fuzziness.

Granted, some do see the PLE simply as an escape from the LMS, and even though they might be trying to simply recreate what they did in the LMS, they can gain some advantages just by being open: Openness, adaptable, personalized, ownership, persistence, authenticity.

I caught something of Justin saying that the open source (OSS) community is ignoring hard problems… OSS technology fails to provide sophisticated learning features like adaptive release, adaptive testing… The OSS community not taking it on…

(JMS: I accept that specific example as an inadequacy of available open PLE/PLN or Web 2.0 tools. There aren’t currently automatic gatekeeping (pre-programmed or “smart”) tools for PLE/PLN tools and media. Siemens and others might say teachers are naturally the gatekeepers. Users are the gatekeepers (though perhaps this is inadequate). Or maybe we don’t need those gatekeepers at all, that is, we can encourage the fundamentals of information fluency by directing students to assess and re-direct themselves.)

JMS: OS community is not taking on education in general. Why would they? Education is still a niche. Adaptive release is a very education-centered feature. OSS e-learning, like Moodle, include or plan to include it.

David Wiley: “Data. Through the LMS I can capture and use data in a way I never could before.” Also, liberty of users to control consumption of content. E.g. playing course media at 2x speed.

Justin Johansen: Teachers can teach to a style, users can adapt to their preferences (disruptive).

Sara Joy challenges, suggested/asked if LMS can be a “disruptive technology”.

David: At USU an instructor with no budget for “clickers” went to the dollar store and bought $1 laser pointers to accomplish the same thing. Throw up a slide, students with laser pointers indicate choices anonymously on screen. It’s personalized (and probably more fun).

Russ: “Isn’t one of the fundamental issues also location independence?”

Justin: “Definitely, esp. when gas prices were $4/gallon.”

Dr. Wiley whips out slides of 6 changes:

• analog –> digital
• tethered –> mobile
• consume –> create
• generic –> personalized
• isolated –> connected
• closed –> open

Jon Mott: There’s a book about organizations being like spiders, which can regrow a leg, or starfish, which have legs that, if severed, can grow into a new starfish. Are we like spiders or starfish? Best organizations are hybrids. Starfish-like activities. eBay features of a spider.

JMS: Some in education want that severed starfish leg to turn into a bird. But education’s history doesn’t show that we’re evolutionary–there’s no dramatic mutation between generations that changes the species. Education is certainly not, historically, subject to revolution either! It’s adaptation at best. It’s incremental change.

Aaron Johnson: Web 2.0 can be transformative in, for instance, using a blog publishes homework online, for the world to see–maximal exposure.

Dr. Wiley points out that several class blog posts have been picked up by Stephen Downes, which impacts the community, impacts the class, impacts the writer.

Justin: In the old system publishing homework was your mom putting your assignment on the fridge with a magnet.

Aaron: It’s also transformative in a way that democratizes access. But how are things changing in how people behave and interact? Do I get more out of that?

(JMS: We’ve seen that young people’s sense of privacy may be changing, and also that online exposure can bite us in the rear.)

Justin: I haven’t had a transformative e-learning experience in the classroom discussion forum. It’s usually, “do this boring thing for class or else”.

JMS: I have. (That’s what put me in e-learning over a decade ago, and I have them with some regularity now)

Jon: I learn something everyday on Twitter. I follow about 150 people, all of the ed tech related. My network has expanded, and for the better.

JMS: And learn to filter junk out, hopefully!

Russ: Yes, adding people, one by one… “adding diversity, accumulating collected knowledge… but at some point you reach a threshold.”

JMS: At first there’s a lot of noise, but you learn to filter that out, or cut it out. I follow around 60 people, but that changes from week to week. I’ll follow a lot of people who I will later un-follow, not because I don’t like them, but because their use of Twitter may not contribute to or match my own personal way of valuing Twitter. (JMS: I’ve talked too much. Time to listen more.)

Aaron: A lot of us still use the web for adaptations of normal life. Despite my tech-savvy nature, I hear about Web 2.0 stuff and I think do I really need that? Is the real transformation in the things that we do, or in helping people understand what they can do now, with this ability to use technoloy?

Jon: Novelty of technology is not enough. You have to be evaluative. How is using this going to help me? I user twitter not to be social, but to be professional.

JMS: The beauty of these tools is the personalization. The beauty of the PLE is the personalization.

Jon: I’ve used delicious for my own purposes, but have finally found a use for it in collaborative environment.

Justin: (To his group) Why aren’t we using delicious on our OER project?

(JMS: Note to self, we might put our group’s open ed project links list on a wiki instead of a Google Spreadsheet. Then reach out to community and get additional links for free.)

We somehow manage to move the conversation back to the future of the LMS.

JMS: I see the future of the LMS being not a replication of these open, existing tools, but a way to structure, organize, and adaptively control or smart-sequence these. As Justin pointed it, adaptive releasing, setting and resetting paths, etc.

Justin: Would we, by using the LMS as a place to integrate Web 2.0, personalized tools, push folks away from using those tools?

(JMS: Is Justin talking about the creepy treehouse-ness? I don’t get a chance to ask…)

Russ: “Is it not a false choice to give proprietary vs open source? … Is it not a distinction without a difference?”

(JMS: There are potential advantages in both that we should not lightly dismiss, e.g. proprietary may have quality advances, resource advantages, corporate attention, collaborative integration and first-choice with publishers; openness may have adaptability, customization, lower cost, ownership. [To me the subscription model is so painful, I personally want the ability to keep and maintain code perpetually, for example, stay at WebCT CE 4.1 for a decade if we wished.])

Russ: For a while technology was pulling the practice, but now (as we talk about web 2.0 tools) but now it seems we’ve flipped that.

Wiley: “Forget open code source for a minute. Forget APIs. Look at YouTube, Flickr, GoogleMaps. They all have a common language: RSS. APIs are great if you like that. But these tools are bleeding syndication, and they don’t punish you for mashing it up.”

John Hilton: Free access vs. open source vs. paid license.

Jon: “Once upon a time there was a Blackboard.com where you could create your own course for free.”

Russ: “It’s back.”

So we are talking about interoperability of the learning object (LTI)?

Wiley: “But LTI is so complex. RSS is sooo easy. Some clever folks, like Tony Hirst, will use Pipes or APIs. There’s technical accessibility, then there’s an expertise-less accessibility.

Jon: Having APIs and web services is critical. Maybe we need more than single sign-on.

Russ: “To Dave’s point about the data, if you want to use the data you have to have that captured in an environment.”

(JMS: Data can be made accessible through APIs, no?)

Jon: Livetext does program assessment and portfolios. You can build and expose your portfolio. Creators can easily export.

Dave: Yes, let’s just get data out of the end. Because even with standards everyone speaks their own dialect.

Aaron: Searchable.

John: By Google?

Aaron: Internally? Or… What do we mean by LMS for open ed?

Wiley: “Simplest example–and OCW is 1.0 simple–I built my course in Bb. How do I publish as OER? I probably need 30hrs to do it.” (JMS: Push-button public publishing?) Content publishing, content importing.

Justin: A lot of our Bb courses are full of PDFs, PPTs, DOCs, maybe HTML…

Aaron: What does Bb add in terms of content ability? It sounds like you’re talking about the same thing, replicating a course structure. Or how do you get the content out without having it trapped in the LMS’s structure?

JMS: You could do it both ways:

JMS: You have a “repository”, though I dislike that word. It’s a plain web server, or a wiki, or WP, or even an LMS repository. It contains the content–PDFs, PPTs, DOCs, HTML. You can share those straight off of the repository as disagreggated pieces. OR you can link to them directly from your individual LMS course structure. This eliminates course-to-course redundancy. OR you can link to them directly from your opencourseware platform. AND/OR your LMS has a way to select which pieces of the individual course to “open”, and then publishes an open version of your course with some parts hidden.

Wiley mentions OpenShare mod.

JMS: OpenShare does part of this for Moodle: lets you incrementally tag license metadata for resources and activities, and then mark those resources and activities as open or closed. Public can view those open items; registered students can view all the items.

Process

In order to notify faculty of open publishing, during the CTL design process faculty will be asked to sign the BYU OER Participation form. This form will:

• Describe the BYU OER project and the mission of CTL
• Acknowledge BYU ownership of IP produced by or in conjunction with CTL
• Explain CC By-NC-SA license
• Describe possible OER usage

Faculty who sign the BYU OER Participation form acknowledge the aforementioned and may choose to have their name (along with BYU and CTL) attributed to the OER. Faculty may opt out of attribution or not sign the form, however such refusal will not alter BYU’s ownership of CTL-produced IP or CTL’s ability to publish and share the CTL product as OER.

Technology

(The following is hypothesis only at this stage)

CTL OER products will be stored on a publicly accessible BYU OER web site (powered by Equella). The web site will:

• provide search features based on title, description, and other metadata
• list OER by topic or academic department
• attribute OER to BYU, CTL, and faculty contributor(s)
• demonstrate OER
• ? support direct linking to instances of OER
• support downloading of OER as modular packages
• ? provide source code or raw data of OER where applicable
• ? support community interaction by allowing user
• ? allow registered user commenting on OER
• ? allow registered user keyword tagging of OER

SPARC provides a form that faculty can sign and send with manuscript publishing agreement we need a NSF mandate to automatically

This Week’s Challenge

Figure out how to put Center for Teaching and Learning resources into a library for open sharing.

1. Faculty disclosure in CTL process
2. License recommendation / “default” IP policy with override for third party publishing
3. Figure out Equella thing for publishing

Jon Mott recommends Equella for publishing platform. Equella is a CMS built by post-Bb guys, The Learning Edge International (JMS: Is it CMS or LMS? Sounds like the latter). An experimental Equella environment is available at BYU. “Activity assembler” available for sequencing LOs. Bill Lundt can talk about it.

(JMS: All these LMS innovators [GoCourse, eInstructure, Equella] had better consider what their “moat” will be to beat out Bb, D2L, Angel, Moodle, etc.)

IP Licensing

In context of CTL “walk-in” center, What license do we recommend? (JMS: Is CTL able to license materials? Does BYU have/need a process for approving CC licensing? I suppose we will find out…)

Perhaps CC By-NC (I am currently anti-SA, but that might change).

Dr. Wiley suggests SA may not be terribly meaningful. John Hilton gave a good case study, paraphrased:

If I publish By-NC then someone takes and remixes the content, s/he is not obligated to release under By-NC because of lack of the SA, so could a derivative version be licensed as By and then commercialized? Seems like the answer is yes.

(JMS: This sounds like a good thing to me as a creator. I only want to disallow commercialization of copies, but not necessarily of significantly altered works, remixed works, or derivatives.)

Justin: If NC then Creative Works Office doesn’t have to get involved(?)

(JMS: When in flow workers seem exceedingly efficient. How do we foster a work environment that inhibits interruption of workers’ flow?)

Documentary Filmmaker’s Guide to Fair Use

Here’s what we’re going to claim as Fair Use. If anyone has a problem with it, they can deal with us as a whole.

Movement amongst higher ed institutions in the works to apply Fair Use to media held within an OER (without altering the license of the © work).

Fair Use

1. Purpose (educational non-profit)
2. Nature of copyrighted (e.g. factual vs creative works)
3. Amount and significance
4. Impact of the use on potential market

BYU Center for Teaching and Learning Walk-In Center

• Anything within scope of employment belongs to creator.
• Anything created with any additional BYU resources, such as CTL staff, belongs to BYU.

CTL OER as default: we will share, but faculty may opt-out. Would such a form hurt the culture of BYU? Justin suggests a one-time form to opt-in.

CTL has 40-50 new projects a month, e.g. scanned images, PPT backgrounds, Flash animations, video, et c.

What about intentionality? Capture directions for use? Do we preserve teaching info as metadata? CTL Tracker tracks information. What about forum/discussion area for teacher-contributed suggestions for use? Could be. I’m seeing this like a Podcast on a blog platform.

(JMS: The CTL Tracker sounds like a great way to start and track a new project. Sounds like my original course design mapping app, but better. I wonder what software they use? Something home-grown? We need one of these, similar to our dP but more expansive, updating everthing such as Google Spreadsheet. How could dP be mod’ed to facilitate this?)

Independent Study might be able to contribute 10hrs a week to uploading OER to platform.

We could/should also go back in time to get permission on existing materials because there are so many great materials. Also, we could get MBA students working on case studies, Engineering students working on problem-based learning scenarios. (JMS: I’m feeling overwhelmed by the availability of resources her.)

(JMS: At UVU could we get a temporary blanket approval for OER from the President’s office, e.g. to say, From May 2009 – April 2010 we authorize all UVU-owned, DE-developed learning materials to be licensed under a CC license for use as OER. Renewable with signatory.)

(JMS: Seems like the first hurdle that we are skipping is getting BYU approval for CC licensing of CTL materials. Will this be done from CTL up?)

Seth: wants to go back to Equella and the importance of metadata. I agree, but the technical aspects of this seem far more easily manageable than the licensing process, which frightens me.

Tracker creates a new folder for each project. When project is completed it creates an archive folder. Completed product is moved physically and project folder is deleted. Is there a readme? No, you find data through the Tracker. Tracker stores faculty information. (JMS: How would we do this with dP? Is it built-in?) JMS: Could tracker take stored info and spit out a readme? Why not?

Could we provide both final file and source file(s)? 4 Rs. These would be uploaded/handed off to (OER) librarian for archiving and indexing. (JMS: Does DE need to get UVU librarians involved? Who is the institutional librarian at UVU? Jean D’emall might be or might know.

(ClassTop’s plugin uses Facebook to reuse OER and create self-organizing learning communities.)

Do we need to actually ask faculty to opt-in, or does this wrongly imply that faculty own the materials (in conflict with BYU IP policy)?

In an opt-in form we articulate that the materials are BYU owned under IP policy and that faculty acknowledge this when opting-in. We would do so as a professional courtesy, for even though faculty do not own this, they think they do. We are at the early stage of nurturing a cultural shift towards openness. Baby steps.

Is that Tracker software open source? (JMS: I might be able to mod it as suggested if UVU can have a license to the software. Will follow up at CTL afterwards)

Clarified that we will draft the document for CTL to request upper administrative permission to license ALL CTL-products as OER.

Spend Thursday as a group writing proposal document.

Class has moved from Know and Understand to Analyze and Apply.

Discussion with Russ Osguthorpe of BYU’s Center for Teaching and Learning

Russ to class: Why and how should BYU CTL open the many digital learning objects and materials created over the years?

Dr. Wiley notes we will tackle this as the guild Challenge 1. (JMS: Initial thoughts: if it’s open licensed and open sourced the increasing momentum of the open ed movement might drive usage if the task or cost of structuring and organizing the mass of learning objects is too high, consider flat, unstructured with folksonomic metadata [e.g. anyone can search; registered users can tag].)

Scale of higher cost of development. Royalty pay-off of quality content through publisher, e.g. Virtual ChemLab is high-quality, in-demand, and proprietary. Pearson carries and distributes, pays royalties to BYU.

(JMS: Could we, should we balance commercialization and openness? It’s not necessarily an either-or proposition–an open resource could be commercialized by the CC-license holder. But, anecdotes aside, does that approach damage or impact revenues? See RIAA–regardless of the validity of RIAA’s inflexible, exploitative posturing for copyright holders, the fact remains that illegal sharing [undocumented migratory openness?] has critically injured recording industry revenue stream.

(But does the thrivancy of illegal sharing of RIAA IP bolster arguments against the commercial model, and even prophecy the demise of commercial viability of digitizable materials?)

Some projects merit commercialization by providing significant benefit to creator. Reach is farther. Millions of dollars, millions of users.

Other projects may have an audience-impact potential that outweights commercial benefits, e.g. the philanthropic effects of providing introductory vocational.

Need this to be part of every new project process, e.g. starts with the faculty member to opt-in opt-out.

(JMS: Excited by commercialization. Should I try to sell, partnering with UVU, before giving it up for free? It would good to have authentic, first-hand experience on both sides of the argument.)

CTL Show and Tell

Preview of BYU’s Syllabus Builder

Syllabus Builder is similar to an LMS syllabus creator, but far more robust, extensive, and reusable. Draws information re. instructor, classes from campus information system (at BYU this is “AIM”). Some of the pages and prompts:

• Would you like to load in your syllabus from last semester?
• Choose course (from AIM load assignment)
• Choose section
• Import which instructor details and then edit details
• Text & materials (same as before?) ISBNs. (JMS: Link to somewhere, maybe hook in using existing API, eg. Amazon.com, Netflix, choosing from drop-down)
• Grading Scale
• Grading policies
• Participation requirements & policies
• Assignment descriptions
• Learning outcomes
• Plans to pull in program outcomes from wiki (JMS: With UVU wikilearn we too could create a program outcomes page for each program)
• Prereqs (JMS: is this stored in UVU Banner?)
• what days/weeks does it meet?
• Drag and drop calendar/schedule of assignments. (JMS: This could be a Moodle add-on to update assignments etc.)
• Bring in service entities contact info from campus (e.g. Writing Lab, Library) (JMS: could UVU bring this in from Banner? Or the CMS? Or the phonebook?)
• Bring in standard, required policies etc. (JMS: We already do this in our template. Recall the failed Yoshi syllabus template project)

When complete, exports to a separate live server (JMS: e.g. desource.uvu.edu). Can save as HTML or link to “live” page.
(DW: Faculty need to add hyperlinks. Also, Copyright/CC/PD status of the syllabus should be a drop-down. Warn that anyone can see it.)

(JMS: Notes for Ken: SYLLABI are stored as generated PHP files. Default must be “latest” with archives of old based on dates. Brought into course by hardlink. Updated by the professor or course managers.
And what about a LESSON BUILDER?)

Questions

Q: Is this going to be open source?
A: Yes.
Q: If so, when can I get my hands on source code?
A: Don’t know. (But I have e-mail of Tonya Tripp who may put me on a mailing list)
Q: Is AIM homegrown?

Preview of Mid-Semester Student Survey

CTL has gathered evidence that a mid-semester student survey helps improve teaching. Two most important questions: What was most helpful to your learning? What one thing could improve teaching? Open-ended and scaled questions. E-mail goes out to students (drawing, presumably, from SIS–AIM). Sends when the red button is clicked.

(JMS: Could be scheduled with cron)

Preview of iFlipper

Downloads AIM class roll with pictures to make flashcards of students, with algorithm to calculate which are missed the most. Flashcards for everything and anything! (JMS: If Ken wants an iTouch he can earn one by corrabolating with BYU…)

Mentioned a BYU campus-wide content management.

(JMS: All amazing stuff. But most amazing because it may well be open source. Note: invite someone from CTL to present Syllabus Builder et al. at TTIX.)

Looking Ahead toChallenge 1

Propose a solution for CTL (JMS: UVU) to go open with produced digital learning materials and objects.

Challenge 1 is bumped up and begins after next week.

Meta-day – “Choosing”

Classes

Artisan (1), Bard (4), Merchant (3), Monk (2)

Guilds

Join by listing your name and class on the wiki. At least one of each class per guild. I’ve settled on Artisan after no one else seemed interested–very feasible (a relief for my stress level, if not the most challenging or applicable class).

Quests

6 quests; Q5 & 6 are collaborative. Loosely based on “updated” Bloom’s taxonomy: remembering, understanding, applying, analyzing, evaluating, creating.

CYOA

New quests may be proposed, and should map into Bloom’s taxonomy. However, Q5 requires pairing; Q6 requires guild.

JMS: How can I match these quests to current UVU OER project? I need an excuse to devote time to the class.

Next deliverable: Quest 1 for character type (Artisan). Report/artifact/blog post. Due 11:59pm a week from Saturday (Feb 7). Jigsaw.

Discussion

What about desires for non-attribution? What if a derivative work reflects negatively on the original creator?

Refer to attribution clause. Requires “a credit identifying the use of the Work in the Adaptation”. Also, derivations “may not implicitly or explicitly assert or imply … endorsement by the author”.

JMS: I think, especially for visual design, a By-ND license is adequate for most uses. Is mere cropping a derivation?

One option: Be “hardcore and serious”: provide a “terms of use” on the site for the license to prevent bad derivations.

Value proposition needed for the institution.

JMS: I should have waited to write that last blog post on sustainability. This topic is too expansive and engrossing for me to summarize in a few hours of reading and writing.

Can a balance of commercial and open products sustain both? Balance as in one-for-one (one commercial, one open), or as in half-and-half (“open” demo and paid full-version, shareware-like). What is the track record for success of this in software?

Justin Johansen’s dissertation study (anyone know Justin’s blog URL?): can opening content increase revenue through conversion model? Students view open content, and then enroll for credit.

If an institution’s “owned” work is either copyright or open, we can ask if it will generate: revenue? pr? good will?

In case of BYU CTL there is no opportunity cost — I think this means that creator wouldn’t have benefited from it through other, non-open means.

Libraries tend to be advocates of openness because of open-access. Randy Olson of BYU library, also Gideon Burton (JMS: Note to self: check out Gideon’s Academic Evolution blog).

Several students expressed skepticism of the deep value of MIT OCW. Seth “pushed back” a bit. My own thinking: Mike Caulfield asserts that transparency is a, if not the key value of MIT OCW. To me, that transparency illustrates potential(s) for the course: What could this course become for MIT? by revealing it’s inner workings and even it’s discrepancies as an online learning resource, how could it be better? And there’s potential with respect to the outside world. Tony Hirst demonstrates some of that potential through his mash-ups using the IMS package as a road map. David Wiley suggested that overlays of MIT OCW might also prove their value, whether that’s through reframing of content as Academic Earth has done, or as linking the path to a degree using OCW as nodes.

The value of these potentials are still confusing to me, and they may simply be “happy accidents” without significant long-term value, but worth noting in conversations that might aim to critique projects like MIT OCW.

University of the People. Not accredited, but inspiring.

Having some experience examining both projects prior to this review, I brought in the following generalized opinions:

• MIT: broad, but shallow -many courses with marginal amount of content and activities
• OLI: deep, but narrow – few courses with significant content and activities constructed for learning

The motivation for these directions seems clear: MIT OCW seeks to reinforce itself by providing semi-useful, translucent access to content from each and every existing course. OLI seeks to define itself as a provider of in-depth, quality, online learning experiences. UNESCO’s OER Wiki describes the two projects as follows:

• OLI “adds instructional design grounded in cognitive theory, formative evaluation for students and faculty, and iterative course improvement based on empirical evidence”
• MIT’s OCWs “convey the parameters of the course’s subject matter and pedagogy, ideally representing a substantially complete set of all the materials used in the course”

MIT’s French 1

French 1 from MIT OCW is comprised primarily of a syllabus, calendar, readings list, and assignments list based on the textbook Parallèles–a textbook that the syllabus almost fails to mention. the navigation is find and click, but simple enough to learn and use.

The syllabus reflects the fact that this is an existing course that has been “photocopied” for the MIT OCW project–instructions and expectations are restricted to registered students. For instance, it references the MIT Language Learning and Resource Center — a resource unavailable to distance students.

The course site provides PDFs of instructions for in-class activities. Otherwise assignments simply walk learner through textbook activities. Online resources are tacked on to the end almost decontextualized from real learning patterns.

As I opened separate pages for the materials, I wondered, why not combine assignments with readings into calendar as one big course guide? There seems to be no usability rationale for current architecture, except that it fits a single MIT OCW template.

You can download (presumably all) course materials; each index page of PDFs or other content features the CC By-NC-SA license.

OLI’s Elementary French 1 Online

OLI’s French 1 course’s subtitle, “Open and Free: Jan – Jun 09″, immediately reinforces OLI’s assertion that these are full courses to be taught by instructors, or taken by students. The content confirms that this is a complete online learning experience: the structure provides enhanced linear navigation using a combination of tabs and in-page hyperlinks. I found the navigation is somewhat similar to Moodle‘s and I wondered if it may have been based on this LMS originally. Aside from a couple broken links, the content itself seems to be fully-fleshed out learning materials, richly media-enhanced with no textbook needed. The content pages include text, images, and video with inline Flash-based q&a activities for self-learning.

Like the MIT course, OLI’s French 1 included a number of external online learning resources, however these came in context at the beginning of the course, and thus I was more inclined to click on several to investigate how they might enhance what was to come.

There does not seem to be a way to easily download all course materials at once, though they are clearly marked CC By-NC-SA on each page. This brought me to a question re. the Flash files: if I download the SWFs and crack them, essentially converting them to FLAs, is that acceptable use under the applied CC By-NC-SA license? Presumably yes, as the source code is inseparable from the finished product.

MIT’s Logic 1

MIT OCW’s Logic 1 course utilizes a web site architecture that is very similar to French 1, ensuring that user learnability of the web system is high. In addition to the basics of syllabus, calendar, and readings this course provides PDFs of lecture notes, which provide surprisingly good, text-book like information and examples. Indeed, I read through several of these and got at least the “feel” for the course.

OLI’s Logic and Proofs

As a user trained to recognize shifts in my scent of information, the first thing I noticed in Logic and Proofs is that this course site’s navigation system was inconsistent with the French 1 navigation system. This is not to say that the alternative navigation is illogical, only that the change hurts my head.

This course features introductory movies that orient the learners to the subject, with a media-enhanced transcript for alternate learning styles. A note on my personal preference: for a subject like this, I prefer text with images over video.

The main content of the course is primarily text, but notably enhanced with relevant learning comprehension and self-assessment questions that open in new window (they didn’t in French) with a separate look. Because of this, Logic seems to be quilted together from 2 different systems.

I have to say that symbolic logic has always captivated me, and while the MIT OCW Logic course intrigued me, the completeness and linearity of the content in the OLI course kept me interested and engaged. As I was indulging in one activity I thought, “I should be getting college credit for this!” Upon investigating this impulse I found that not only does OLI provide instructions for instructors and learners, it provides a means by which students can use the OLI web site to receive credit through their home institution. Talk about mashing up your education. Brilliant!

MIT’s Paradox and Infinity

Similar structure to previous MIT OCW courses–enough so that I see a very predictable pattern here. Readings refer to a standard textbook and (usually “closed”–few available online) articles, as well as problem sets — PDF available for self-challenge (however, notably absent is any electronically mediated method of receiving feedback–automated, community-based, or otherwise).

Interestingly, the course site provides hyperlinks to (discounted) purchase via Amazon.com; does MIT get a cut as a way to offset production costs?

OLI’s Physics With the Andes Workbench

OLI Physics features similar navigation and structure to Logic 1, which is unfortunate as I believe OLI’s French 1 had the most modern and intuitive nav system so far. This OLI course is highly activity-based; lesson information (primarily text, but some video) is immediately taken up into “Learn by Doing” activities use Andes tutor software, available for download and installation on Windows (I couldn’t get it running on Ubuntu through WINE).

Again, I found elements of other OLI courses: complete content, linear construction, self-learning activities and assessments. I am not overstating my impression when for a fleeting moment I thought about quitting my job and returning to student life; I am envious of this and future generation of students who can make their own schedules with flexibility provided by the Internet, and I regret to admit I probably got away with a lot simply by exchanging seat time for credit. If personal responsibility is adhered to, the accountability and outcomes of online learning may be higher, and achieved more efficiently.

Aircraft Systems Engineering

MIT OCW’s Aircraft Systems Engineering course site follows the structural pattern of the other MIT OCW courses (syllabus, calendar, readings, etc), with one notable enhancement: video of class lectures. Listed under lecture notes, the video components make this the most compelling MIT OCW course reviewed so far. Fairly rough Real Media video of in-class guest lectures by experts in the field are provided with PDFs of lecture slides, and MP3s. On Ubuntu I couldn’t locate the RM codec I needed to view the video, but did give the audio files a listen, and these were high enough quality to download and bring on bus rides or road trips. Combined with the slides this makes an interesting, remixable OER.

Prior to embarking on this particular task I had generalized these two OCW projects as being about shallow breadth (MIT OCW) or narrow depth (OLI). My reviews supported this earlier generalization if the primary quality objective is prêt-à-porter OER. With respect to learner value I considered an additional analogy: these 3 MIT OCW are like Polaroid snapshots of authentic MIT courses, scanned in and uploaded to bear the MIT brand; these 3 Carnegie Mellon OLI are more akin to planned, staged, shot, enhanced, and sequenced for online learning, and specifically created to define the OLI project (not the other way around).

• Reuse – verbatim (easy)
• Redistribute – share (fairly easy)
• Revise – derivatives (harder)
• Remix – combinations

Open is a continuum; “Things can be more or less open, like a door.” Watch for 2R vs 4R OER. 2R is waaay better than nothing, but 4R (should be) far superior still. E.g. open Access movement (free access to peer-reviewed articles). Paraphrasing Wayne Mackintosh: “I’d rather have an #@$!? open resource over a great proprietary resource because I can fix the #@$!? resource.”

Media issues outside of licenses (SLAM):

1. Meaningfully editable? (e.g. HTML vs. JPG/PDF of notes or printed text)
2. Self-sourced? Ready-to-edit and ready-to-use? (e.g. HTML –> HTML vs. fla –> swf )
3. Access to editing tools? (e.g. HTML vs. MS OneNote)
4. Level of expertise? (e.g. DOC/ODT doc vs. 3D model, Flash quiz)

If you’re not paying attention, an open-licensed OER may still be “closed” for all intents and purposes, because of the 4 Rs.

OCW Examples:

• MIT Simplicity Theory. Clearly handwriting on lined binder notes, scanned in.
• MIT Mathematics. Powerpoint and LaTeX source files are available upon permission.
• MIT Linear algebra. Video, transcripts, downloads in different formats, YouTube.
• OLI Predicting college success. Course has Flash-based quizzes and diagrams.

Context suggests meaning. E.g. Airplane: Q. “Surely you’re joking.” A. “I’m not, and don’t call me Shirley.” and Police Squad: Q. “Cigarette?” A. “Yes, I know.”

Putting things in time or place suggests more meanings. (e.g. Obama, Obama by Lincoln, Obama by bin Laden, Obama flanked by two black athletes). The more things are put together, the more we specify intended meaning.

We can usually tell when things don’t fit the context.

Size of a resource is a function of the context inside the OER.

David’s reusability paradox. An OER/LO teaches effectively vs easy to reuse. (JMS: this plays into what I recall of George Siemens’s work, especially re. connectivity. Will teaching invest in helping students make connections, creating or finding context. Does the (immediate) future of networked information culture require that users be able if not deft at finding connections and making context or meaningful connections between disparate pieces of information? Will technology soon be able to facilitate connecting or providing context for an individual resource? Would “new” ideas of information fluency allow students to adapt to the deficits of high reusability? For instance, scanning and ignoring non-critical information?)

MIT structured content like course so context is apparent, but you can take the context apart. The structure is an aid for helping you find and use individual components. Course as (full of) disposable content. (JMS: Another good perspective on my recent conflicts with textbook publisher e-packs.)

Collections — a collection of marbles doesn’t exist in a strict sequence, but a string of pearls does.

Referenced today’s article in Chronicle on “courseocentrism”. What can we do with “courses” that we have been too limited to do? 2R “open” resources have been accused of being a “Trojan horse”, as evidence of hedgemony of the West, of cultural imperialism. (JMS: Whatever.)