It was a gorgeously sweet-smelling rainy day, but I managed to bring
myself into the confines of a BYU classroom to attend David
Wiley's IPT 692R: Intro to Open Education. Today we're looking
at how an institution, BYU in particular, might approach institutional
policy and practice supportive of open licensing of teaching materials
and research publications. The conversation was shaped by
the context of MIT's model for both OCW and
open access.

Besides institutional pressure, what are incentives for faculty to opt
in (open licensing of teaching materials)?

• For BYU, incentive may be scriptural/doctrinal imperative to share
• Tap into the motivation to Do Good (Is it true that BYU fac/staff
  make _less_ than other institutions? To me, BYU seems so
  well-funded, and in some instances over-funded.)
• dissemination, reputation

Technology and Support Issues

Technology

• what system
• who pays
• who manages/hosts?

Support

• Who trains faculty, staff?
• Depositing where?
• Who pays?

• Source
  

• Who?

Concluding Thoughts and Questions

Justin: We need a raison d'etre. we do this as an
institutional community because…

Aaron: Do we anticipate a change in structure to facilitate and
support openness?

Dr. Wiley: We need to fully consider existing systems and see how they
might pipe in. Syllabus Builder, Learning Outcomes wiki

Dr. W: Should we require open syllabi? Institutional IP policy says
faculty own it; but institution would step in and claim nonexclusive
right to redistribute.

John: Sounds harsh. If you require me to, that strips away my agency.

JMS: That's agreed, but from a student-centered focus argument for
it wins.

Dr. W: We should argue that open is good because of pragmatic reasons,
not openness for the sake of openness. We'll have recommendations
for teaching practice (e.g. cost of textbooks, availability of open
resources)

Aaron: What are conflicts of interest?

Dr. W: Can't require students to adopt your textbook unless
you're selling more copies off-campus than on-campus.

Justin: For pragmatic reasons it makes sense to model our policies on
the successful approaches of other institutions, for example, MIT. No
need to be different just to be different.

Dr. W: Use our repository OR go your own way.

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.

• 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.)

The course is IPT 692R: Intro to Open Education, and Dave has structured the activities in homage to World of Warcraft; for example, each student will be required to select a class to identify the direction of their coursework, and our guild will embark on a series of quests both individually and collaboratively as we seek to level-up.

As I work through the course requirements (er, quests) I’ll be posting my outcomes and reflections here on Flexknowlogy–for the convenience of Dr. Wiley and my classmates I’ll be categorizing them under “IPT692R”. And for the benefit of everyone else, I will aim my writing at providing a context and message in line with my regular postings.

I’m not the only person who will be sitting in on this course: numerous attendees from around the world will be joining in at a distance.

Some notes from the first session:

1. Several students said they “want to change the world”. Dave suggested that one goal for the course is to “be able to say that with a straight face“.
2. I asked myself if there is a CC license post plug-in for WP. Looks like WPLicense may be the best. I’ll try it out tonight. Matthew Tabor just informed me that Per Post CC License is more in line with my needs.
3. GNU is a recursive acronym, like PHP and LAME. I note this only because now I have the right vocabulary for a long-standing geek naming tradition.
4. The “magic” of the Internet is resources are nonrivalrous: Make one and any number of people can access it.
5. Dave used a photo of one of my geek heros web standards guru Tantek Çelik. Is he involved in the open content movement?
6. Sure, we know all about Creative Commons licenses, but I hadn’t heard of CC0 (“C-C zero”) or CC+ (“C-C plus”) before. CC0 will allow for creators to give up as many rights as they can. CC+ sounds like the opposite–a Creative Commons license plus additional custom restrictions.
7. NC is predictably popular amongst producers.
8. Do we have any data as to how substantively useful SA is to users/consumers? Are there measurements of the demand for reusability?
9. While CC By is the least restrictive, some copyleft folk argue that CC By-SA is the most “free” license for philosophical reasons (i.e. it preserves “freeness” in perpetuity; restrictions aren’t mutually exclusive from freedom.)
10. I enjoyed a good lecture.
11. Three greatest challenges to OER/OCW in near future: Sustainability, Incentives, Licenses
12. Re. sustainability , universities have to say, “Look how much we can save money. Look how much we can improve on-campus education.”
13. I’ve talked about potential sustainability of the UVU OER model, but I had some more ideas:
    • We can make the tools part of the system. (e.g. use technology that can be opened up)
    • We can make publishing part of the process. (e.g. convince Distance Education or campus IT to adopt OER/OCW as part of it’s mission)
    • First encourage translucent education among faculty so it’s easy to encourage open education later (e.g. real blogs, real wikis).
14. Dave suggested that people still make money even after they’ve published an “open” version of a work because some consumers will still choose to buy the work. My question is how much of that is due to consumer ignorance vs. consumer preference?
15. My note: Copyright is the de facto license for any work in the USA. There is no legal question about it. Open licenses modify or replace the default copyright.