Why Clare is not a hypocrite: OER in a world of ‘academic capitalism’
Despite the efforts that have gone into Open Educational Resource (OER) initiatives, these resources appear to remain largely unused by university academics. For example, Eliza Anyangwe asked “why don’t more academics use open educational resources? Many academics are happy to share their research, but far more are reluctant to do the same with teaching resources”. In her OKHE1 post, Clare made a similar point stating that despite being a supporter and a user of OER, when it comes to contributing and sharing her own teaching material she doesn’t openly distribute them. Clare therefore asked, “am I a hypocrite if I didn’t share my knowledge?”
Nick (OKHE1)attributed unwillingness to share learning resources to the tension between ‘openness’ and ‘ownership’ which arises because universities are the first owners to the rights of any work made during the course of employment. While I agree with Nick’s point, I provide here a further explanation for such unwillingness by connecting it to academic labour processes and the rise of ‘academic capitalism’.
My argument is that with the current changes in higher education (HE), where the value of academic labour is measured in capitalist terms, anything ‘good’ academics do will have to be commodified, and will be exchanged rather than given for free. Hopwood (2005) commented on the implications of these changes on academics stating that “in days of rankings, audits and assessments, be they individual or institutional in nature, at times it is as if the very act of publishing in journals has become more significant than the additions to knowledge that result from this… Such concerns have become so ingrained in the consciousness of some institutions that members now talk of their hits more than the content and direction of their investigations”.
Are OER proponents missing something?
Proponents of OER view it as a global revolution in teaching and learning. Global as well as national educational institutions are developing a vast pool of educational resources that everyone can access for free (Stacey 2013). This is creating a new pedagogy where educators and learners create and shape knowledge together and deepening their understanding along the way (Daniel and Killion 2012). OER is assumed to have the capacity to solve the problems of access and inclusion which have been long-standing educational issues (D’Antoni 2008, 7). By developing a universal educational resource available for everyone, OER seeks to enhance the quality of human life, reduce poverty and assume the role of a “social transformer” (Caswell et al. 2008:1). In this sense one can argue that OER resonates with the concept of the ‘commons’. A common is a good produced to be shared by the public , whilst a commodity is a good produced for sale (Bauwens, 2013). The emphasis here is on the difference between the forms of ownership and sharing. With the notion of a commodity, private owners exist, and exchanges occurs between them . The concept of commons on the other hand presupposes collectivities — associations and assemblies — within which sharing is organized. Thus, the concept has become a term used to conceptualise the notion of Open Education and OERs (Neary and Winn 2012).
According to Dyer-Witheford (2007), the commons are the building block of a society beyond capitalism. Therefore, the interesting question is: can OER survive the current trend towards ‘academic capitalism’ and the profit-oriented entrepreneurial practices in the field of education? . The capitalist logic has a very contradictory relationship to the common (Allmer 2015). So, can the two coexist? Before answering the question, I will describe what is meant by academic capitalism.
The neoliberal project and academic capitalism
Academic capitalism is defined as a framework implemented by a network of actors through governmental policies, university practices and public attitudes (Slaughter and Rhoades 2009). Academic capitalism affects every stakeholder of a university– including students, faculty members, administrators, university advisors, and society at large. It explain the shift in higher education (HE) from a “public good knowledge/learning regime” to an “academic capitalist knowledge/learning regime” (Slaughter and Rhoades 2004). Within this academic capitalist regime, the claims of academic actors supersede the claims of the public, with knowledge privatization and profit-taking prioritized over democratic citizenship education (McClure 2014).
The literature has described how higher education institutions are now operating within a contemporary neoliberal framework as governments have slowly pulled back with privatisation of the market. This rise of neoliberalism has led to a change in the way universities define and justify their institutional existence. The traditional culture of HE institutes has been substituted with institutional stress on performance and universities are being run like corporations driven by a need to earn and generate profits, so they can prosper (Readings, 1996: 22). Additionally, the effect from the massification of HE has led to universities being managed in similar ways to large industrial organization (Mok and Jiang 2016). With the pursuit of market activities to generate revenue, academic capitalism forces HE institutes to become more entrepreneurial and corporate like; hence the term entrepreneurial university. At the heart of academic capitalism is the entrepreneurial university that views students as consumers (rather than learners) and faculty members as producers of capital (rather than educators) (Somers et al. 2018). With these shifts in HE, the role of academics as contributors and users of OER becomes questionable, and this what I will discusse next.
Academic labour
The changes to the HE system have in turn made it increasingly difficult for academics at all levels of the hierarchy, to manage and keep ownership of their careers. Gonzales et al. (2014) talk of the ‘striving’ university and the resulting strain it places on faculty members. The concept of striving is used to describe ‘prestige-seeking’ universities whose main goal is advancing in rankings and increasing institutional prestige (O’Meara 2007, 123). The notion of striving rise is linked to Readings (1997) idea of the ‘University of Excellence’ which is based on elitism, competition and hence follows the neoliberal agenda. The concepts together can provide an explanation why the teaching and research goals of universities has become distorted by their obsessive quest for obtaining grants and publishing articles in prestigious journals, as they work to compete in a global market.
Academic capitalism, and its underpinning framework, neoliberalism, shape the work life of faculty members inside a striving university (Gonzales and Elue 2014; O’Meara and Bloomgarden 2011). The time pressures created by academic capitalism causes time to become a limited resource used to get grants and accumulate publications (Gonzales et al., 2014). Faculty members in striving universities face increased work expectations in relation to research and high service demands, and mostly without adequate support and infrastructure (Gardner 2013). Additionally, advances in technology have expanded the spaces in which academics are expected to carry out their work (Walker 2009).
According to Ylijoki (2013) this caused academics to constantly attempt to ‘outsmart’ time by saving it for ‘real work’ (research and grant writing) and spending less of it on aspects of their work like teaching and advising. In a study of 180 faculty members by Gonzales and Elu (2014), the majority stated that they made changes to “their work habits because of the university’s research aspirations”. This focus on publishing in highly selective journals and engaging in research that contributes to the bottom line of HE institutions in the form of grants, contracts and patents has led to some negative experiences (Gardner 2013). Furthermore, faculty members at striving universities reported an increased sense of surveillance of their work outcomes, including the imposition of measures that they don’t not fully agree with (e.g. number of publications, impact factor for publications and grant funding) or don’t not fully understand (Gonzales and Elu 2014). Striving yields heightened surveillance which can led to a sense of self-doubt causing some to doubt the value of their work.
The transformations caused by academic capitalism and the massification of HE have intensified academic labour with increased work-loads, longer hours and more invasive management control (Butler et al. 2017; Bousquet 2008). In turn this has deeply affected the professional as well as the personal lives of academics, contributing to elevated stress levels, alienation and other negative emotions (Clarke et al. 2012; Gill 2017). Some scholars have discussed the possibility of resisting the regime of academic capitalism’ (Butler et al. 2017; Clarke et al. 2012; Willmott 2013). Butler and Spoelstra (2017) suggest short-circuiting the publishing game by using methods to become ‘less excellent’ in a system tilted towards highly ranked journals. Additionally, Rolfe (2013) suggests developing a ‘rhizomatic paraversity’ which functions below the surface of neoliberal institutes and helps to re-establish the ‘nonproductive labour of thought’.
OER: Myth or Reality?
. Generally, the OER global community effort is to create educational commons that is made freely and openly for anyone to use under a Creative Commons license (Hylén 2007). While the OER openness attempts to liberate intellectual work from the constraints of intellectual property law, it does little to liberate academics from the constraints of the academic capitalism. Hence, the fundamental question that arises when discussing OER amid the academic capitalistic regime is- why should anyone give away anything for free? The incentives for individual researchers and academics to share learning resources are far less discussed in the literature than the motives for institutions (Hylén 2007). A questionnaire carried out by the OECD reported that academics and researchers most common motive for engaging in OER activities was to have more flexible materials (Hylén et al. 2012). More philanthropical motives like outreach to disadvantage communities and assisting developing countries are less important. From the perspective of institutions, they engage in OER initiatives because it is good for public relations and can attract new students. For example, MIT has received a lot of positive attention for their decision to make their resources available for free. Dholakia (2006) argues that institutions launching OER initiatives need to use revenue models in order to sustain the long-term viability of OER. One model proposed in the Conversion model, where “you give something away for free and then convert the consumer to a paying customer”.
There are contradictions that emerge between the altruistic vision of OER and academic capitalism. These create barriers, both institutional and personal, to the mainstream adoption of OER in higher education. The individual barriers mainly arise as a consequence of institutional barriers, and these barriers stem from the academic capitalist regime and the striving universities. The result is ending up with institutional policies that creat problems and confusion regarding ownership rights of learning materials (Hart et al. 2015; Smith 2013). Additionally, there is a lack of professional recognition, reward and incentives for faculty members for the use of and contribution to OER (Tabata and Johnsrud, 2008). Lack of acknowledging or encouraging academics inhibit them from actively contributing to OER (Glennie et al. 2012; Kursun et al. 2014).
Furthermore, individual barriers caused by striving universities have made faculty members less open about sharing because after spending significant time invested in the development of OER, they find the benefits to be inadequate (Hew and Hara 2007). Generally, the more time involved in creating resources the less likely sharing is to occur (Mishra 2018). Contributing to OER takes away from the time academics can possibly spend on ‘real work’ as described by Ylijoki (2013). Academics are already under higher work pressure, and contributing to OER will increase this workload further without any reward. This in turn reduces their desire to engage in OER initiatives (Coughlan et al. 2013; Prasad and Usagawa 2014).
In addition, academic capitalism has caused institutions and in turn individual researchers to become concerned with the loss of financial gain from sharing their creative work (Davis et al. 2010). Some HE institutes are so dependent on payment for the use of educational materials for teaching that the potential of losing revenue stops them from adopting OER (Mishra 2018). Terrasse et al. (2012) reports that universities in the private sector are highly concerned about losing their competitive edge and reducing their revenues by making their content open.
If OER are to be mainstreamed into HE, it is necessary to integrate OER work into the current teaching and learning system because according to Mishra (2018) academics view OER as additional work due to their existing workload. Academics would use and contribute more to OER if they had more release time to work on creating materials and received recognition for this work.
My response to Clare’s question
Thus, in addressing the question that Clair posed at the beginning of this post, I would tell her “Dear Clare, You are not a hypocrite. Your attitude is the normal outcome of the ongoing changes in the higher education landscape, resulting from an academic capitalist knowledge/learning orientation where knowledge is valued for its profit-creating potential. Unlike the public good knowledge regime which is the underlying logic of OER, the academic capitalism knowledge regime values knowledge privatization and profit taking in which institutions have claims that come before those of the public. And unless this regime changes, the majority of academics including yourself will continue to feel this unwillingness to share and contribute to OER movement. So it is not you who is a hypocrite, rather it is the HE system in which we operate.”