Sharing Trade Secrets
As a member of Professional Support Staff (PSS) I find it difficult to consider what my role is in Open Knowledge. I have always worked within teaching and learning rather than research therefore my focus is on Open Educational Resources (OERs) and sharing teaching practices and ideas rather than Open Access research publications etc. For the last three years I’ve been working with a group who very much believe in the collective ‘greater good’ in education. This has shaped my views on collaboration and given me a small taste of how ‘openness’ can strengthen and improve academic quality. I won’t name the group I work with directly, but it was set up as a consortium to support cross-University delivery of educational programmes. At the time, there was recognition that the Universities had a stronger bid together, than separately.
Stronger together
The role of collaboration in education is becoming larger. Research universities have a history of working with industry, mostly in small-scale departmental collaborations. Despite a recent (much needed) positive government funding announcement, there is an understanding that collaborations with industry are highly important.
As well as partnerships with industry, the benefits of cross-institutional collaborations have also been explored in recent times, whether for research, teaching or other University roles such as community engagement. Some of the pros and cons of partnerships of this type are explored below.
I’m not going to assess the bargaining that went on to create the consortium I work with, or difficulties that were overcome to submit joint tenders; primarily because I was not involved with the programmes at that time and wouldn’t want to portray second-hand accounts as my own. Also, I’m sure anyone involved in the world of academia can imagine the reaction to someone saying “you know that University we compete with for students, we’re going to collaborate with them, share teaching materials and students, and it’s all going to work seamlessly”.
Theory in practice
Reading Wiley and Green’s Why Openness in Education? caused me to compare what we do with ‘traditional’ Open Access. The two have some similar elements and challenges, but in other ways are very different. The concept of sharing OERs openly is difficult for many people to comprehend. The idea that your work could be used by anyone, anywhere is a little overwhelming yet also can provide a certain amount of anonymity as resources on the internet reach a global market. But, what if, as an academic, you were asked to share your resources, ideas, teaching methods, with an academic at your closest neighbouring institution? There’s no chance to hide behind the anonymity that the internet can bring, just you, sharing your ideas, directly with your ‘rival’.
This has been no easy feat to overcome, but I have not yet found someone who’s pro Open Access, but against the concept of sharing with others in the consortium. We therefore have had the same battles as those who fight for greater OERs and Open Access research. Academic pride is understandable; I know many academics who have made their life, their work, and as with anything we’re passionate about, sound reasoning does not always overcome our internal beliefs. One thing that can (sometimes) help in this respect is money.
Education Is Sharing
say Wiley and Green, but it is also (as explored by other OKHE participants) a business. Striking the balance between the two has been particularly important to us. The consortium relies on all members pulling their weight, no individual institution could provide all the programmes we offer; sharing therefore (for some) becomes an unavoidable product. Yet, we do not want each establishment to lose its identity, because the different strengths of the institutions are what allowed us to come together in the first place. Again, a balance has to be struck, senior leaders want to keep institutional identity, and our accreditors want seamless programmes and ‘equity of student experience’ (if we even have control of that). Additional collaborations with clinical colleagues does allow us some oversight of our students’ experiences of being on the programme.
Keeping everyone happy
We are accredited on our ability to deliver the programmes, on equity of student experience where students are on pathways at different institutions. This means we must ensure that where possible, there are similarities in our delivery, if one institution decides to utilise Technology Enhanced Learning, the accreditor recommends that the others follow suit. My role is to help enable this, along with eLearning technologists, academics and administrators.
We also need to try and overcome institutional boundaries, something which resonates with the wider Open Access theme as well, “that’s not how we do things here” is I’m sure an expression that is heard by those who wish to make OERs or publish in an Open Access journal. Academia should be about challenging the status quo rather than maintaining it. Fortunately, few of the programmes that I manage work within traditional University regulations, therefore the academics I work with are used to thinking outside of conventional structures and established ‘rules’. This has definitely been a positive consequence of our subject area.
The long and winding road
Frequently we are challenged as to how our collaboration works. A lot of the credit can go to the individuals who originally set it up; many of those involved today have been part of the team from the start. We are going through changes though, which is creating challenges we need to overcome if we are going to thrive. To prove that the method works, we need to show that despite changes in leadership; development of new programmes; bringing new partners on board; we can still continue to function seamlessly. For a model to be duplicated successfully, it need to stand up to rigorous testing in multiple conditions.
For me, our current programmes may not be funded for that longer; therefore to survive the consortium needs to diversify. This will be a major focus over the next year — can we find new avenues to explore without selling all our secret formulas? Answers on a postcard please…
