After ‘that session’ at Alt-C
Well the cattle have been rounded up, the settlers have lit their home fires, and the preacher and the gadabout are safely departed to bother someone else. Apart from the comedy value of our session on open country (blogged by David Kernohan at http://followersoftheapocalyp.se/oer-the-cowboy-gospel-altc2011), what were the serious messages from the debate at Alt-C?
Amber Thomas, Helen Beetham, David Kernohan and Dave White at ALT-C 2011
David argued that ‘My contention was that OER was a symptom of a wider systemic issue, which takes in publishing, the idea of the public intellectual, online life, online practice and information as a right.’
David White (in the cowboy hat) offered the insight that the open use/reuse of online content is now so deeply embedded that on the demand side there is little need for the term ‘open’ – though arguably the term ‘educational’ might be more distinctive of the kinds of content being developed by the OER programme in the UK.
Amber as the ‘lady sheriff’ described how open standards (the ‘law’) can facilitate relations in open country but also emphasised that institutions have to continue to deliver learning at a time when existing models of higher education funding are under threat. We should beware snakeoil salesmen bearing the promise that open content can fill the void when teachers are dismissed.
Finally, my own slides (http://www.slideshare.net/hbeetham/open-country-hb) explore some issues emerging from final reports, which no doubt will be expanded on as we dig deeper. It has been exciting to see so many projects not only producing and sharing more resources under the UK OER banner, but reflecting deeply and productively on the wider issues of open education.
Photo: Josie Fraser
OER at Alt-C 2011
There are a number of papers and symposia at this year’s ALT conference that will be interesting to UK OER projects and followers. Links are to the Crowdvine site which requires a conference log-in. Papers may well be mirrored in other locations at a later date.
The Paradox of Openness: the high cost of giving online explores the real costs of online participation and sharing of resources. It asks, among other things, whether content sharing via open platforms is always ‘fair’ and whether academic communities can sustain open practices in times of financial constraint.
Making open educational resources happen comprises three short papers with several presenters from the UK OER programme. They explore designing for openness, supporting openness in institutions, and open content for interprofessional learning.
The World Collaboration session includes discussion of a proposed open learning exchange – not exactly open content, but drawing inspiration from the mutual sharing of content as a model.
Are we in Open Country? is a UK OER symposium with a wild west theme (!) that explores the promise and reality of working with open content. I plan to draw on emergent findings from some of the phase 2 projects, along with my co-presenters, to ask whether some of the wilder promises of the open content movement are relevant to life in present day universities and colleges, and what open practices are most valuable in uncertain times.
Three high profile UK OER projects combine to present Happening Resources, a session that touches on accessibility, OER in clinical education, and the role of the SCORE Fellows in advancing OER research and practice.
Finally, the session on the GLOmaker Tool could be of interest to those designing reusable open content from scratch, and for those concerned about the digital literacy of end-users.