The Challenges of Open Educational Resources
I Thought I Knew It All…
I didn't, I still don’t, but I'm enjoying the journey into Open Knowledge and Higher Education (OKHE). However, I hit a brick wall when formulating ideas for this blog post. Not at all because there is a lack of subject matter (the OKHE Medium page is a phenomenal starting point) but rather there are so many facets to explore. To quote Oscar de Bruijn’s blog post, ‘…I haven’t found any textbooks that offer exactly what I want to teach in my courses and how I want to teach it’, I completely agree with this sentiment and I would add its applicability to the learner perspective — as a student both historically and throughout my current undertakings I have often found it difficult to follow the ‘flow’ of the material. There’s nothing special about me other than having a disorganised mind, or perhaps a mental organisation that is misaligned to what some textbook authors consider ‘proper’ — and herein lies one of the greatest benefits of Open Educational Resources (OERs) — a diverse range of students can construct the relevant knowledge in the way they see fit. With this in mind I decided to ‘open’ my approach to this post and not necessarily follow a particular structure — rather I have started with my knowledge of OKHE and moved through various topics of interest as they have occurred to me or presented themselves in the literature. Despite my unreserved support for the OKHE movement, as a pragmatist my aim is to discuss some of the challenges facing the movement and how we might go about circumnavigating them.
My grounding in ‘openness’ came from my previous experience with the open source software movement. In my first post for the OKHE course I touched on some of the drivers for open access (even through illicit means). In terms of a real hands-on induction to open source software, my experience was borne from a fusion of a corrupted version of Microsoft Windows, an impending thesis, and a seriously unhealthy student bank balance. I had to find an alternative operating system in a hurry — I had limited knowledge of Linux and in my mind it was synonymous with being ‘free’ and ‘open source’. At the time the latter mattered much less than the former. Reading Sue’s OKHE1 post and in particular her feelings of being in unfamiliar territory with ‘openness’ reminded me of my experience. There was an enormous adjustment curve with the Linux operating system but I had to persevere until I developed a working knowledge of the system. What I was rewarded with was a powerful, flexible, customisable, and community supported piece of software that fulfilled all my previous needs and then some, all for free. There were of course some downsides that persist to this day — namely lack of user friendliness, lack of polish, and adjustment curve, but in terms of meeting basic and advanced needs I firmly believe that the Linux operating system surpasses in most ways — some of the reasons are listed here (of course this is subjective — Windows shines in ease-of-use and proprietary support).
With this in mind, it is no surprise that we are all sat around using Linux computers and… wait, what? Most of us are using, and have only ever used, Microsoft Windows.
As we can see from Graph 1, the Linux market share is tiny compared to Windows. If my assertions are correct, that Linux has at least some benefits over Windows (price cannot be argued with), why is there such a low uptake?
This blog post lists a number of reasons, which can be summarised as an aggressive promotion policy by Microsoft, leading the customer to not even consider there may be a reasonable alternative, let alone a free one.
Why Discuss Open Source?
I have mentioned the merits of Linux as free and open source software when this post is actually about OKHE — the reason I do this is that despite the concept of open knowledge (but perhaps not the etymology) pre-dating open source, open source has evolved at a rapid pace to the point where we have the free and open analogue to Windows, Linux. The equivalent step in higher education (HE) would perhaps be a totally free and open degree programme, with all materials available, with a timeframe and syllabus you could design yourself. We are not quite there yet.
So, now I have some further knowledge of openness as it relates to HE from the OKHE course unit — how does my formative view measure up against the typical definition of open knowledge? ‘‘Open knowledge’ is any content, information or data that people are free to use, re-use and redistribute — without any legal, technological or social restriction’ — fairly well, it seems.
Advantages of Open Source — How These Translate in to HE
Customisation is a huge benefit of the open source movement — and the value of this in the open knowledge arena is considerable. Oscar de Bruijn notes in his OKHE2 post the advantages of constructing overall material from other sources. From personal experience, having recently purchased a £95 textbook in order to access ONE of FORTY ONE articles (and believe me, I attempted the Sci-Hub route) I can wholeheartedly agree with Oscar. This is a far cry from openness — this is profiteering at its finest as I had previously noted in my OKHE1 post.
Improved Quality — if a free and open competitor enters the market how do the proprietary competitors respond? In the case of Microsoft, its dominance is assured at this point in time, but if Linux were to promote itself sufficiently and gain a larger foothold on the market what would a response to a free competitor look like? The only way to do this would be to shift the balance of price versus functionality — adding more features or refining the experience to make the product more attractive for the price. How might Linux respond? Well there is no impetus to ‘beat’ Windows, which is half of the problem, but in turn they might add extra functionality and an improved experience. Microsoft and Linux become in engaged in a positive spiral of improvement. Similarly, if an OER enters the arena and proves to be an adequate analogue for a certain £95 textbook, is there really any question of who would win?
There is a counter-argument on the subject of quality — It is entirely possible that through interpretation, adaption and sharing of OERs that the original knowledge and facts becomes so twisted out of shape it is unrecognisable to what it once existed as. Such quality considerations are discussed by Lou McGill in some depth.
Collaboration — open source software and OERs are collaborative projects the power of collaboration in such endeavours is often under appreciated. Linux is the overarching term that encompasses various distributions — which are effectively customised versions that have built up a considerable user base. Each distribution fulfils a different need and if you think you have a very particular need, chances are there already exists a well-supported distribution that will meet your criteria. DistroWatch.com tracks page hits and ranks the 100 most popular distributions based on this. By contrast, Windows has 24 versions since 1985 for personal computers, many of which are of course now unsupported. Just imagine what could be achieved if the 100+ Linux distributions communities came together and worked on one cohesive project — I doubt the community would admit it but the community IS fractured. This is something we must be aware of in the pursuit of open knowledge and open collaboration, however there is one advantage in that knowledge is absolute and factual, whereas software needs can differ from person to person. Now imagine if the entire human race came together to contribute to the pursuit of knowledge — as it stands there are of course partnerships and some level of sharing but if we were united under one goal we could achieve truly significant things.
Is Free and Open Really Free and Open?
The Open University (OU) was a trailblazer in terms of open education — considering where we are at currently, televised course units were way ahead of their time and the OU has had significant presence and impact since its establishment in 1969. Open entry requirements, publication of materials and the (formerly) low cost of study due to UK Government factors contributed to making it an open institution. Fees are now similar levels to full-time on-campus study. OpenLearn is the free and open arm of the Open University, and whilst there is some excellent free content, students are encouraged to register and ‘by creating an account and enrolling on a course you can track your progress and earn a statement of participation, all for free’. This is not free — you are paying with your details. I am not concerned about data capture and usage but ultimately ‘free and open’ should not have any qualifications on it, whereas this is really an exchange of goods. In fact many ‘free and open’ course providers actually operate a freemium model — usually with a paywall at a sufficiently frustrating point to maximise sales (generally at the point of certification).
I would suggest that most efforts around openness are at least partially driven by financial concerns. The OU even acknowledges this in this infographic — with efforts in open education in order to raise ‘brand awareness, student registration, asset and archive re-use’.
Sustainability
How does the ‘open knowledge economy’ work? Ultimately, funding has to come from somewhere. David Wiley provides some insight into this area in this paper. I am in agreement with his conclusions that sustaining an OER is difficult but not impossible. Do not misunderstand my meaning here — most teaching and research focused staff, as with any profession, are driven to varying extent by a passion for their undertakings. An OER requires an element of goodwill. Herein is one of the biggest challenges to open knowledge in higher education, the adequate balance of incentive in a society that is so heavily monetised. This leads me on to thinking about the concept of ownership — as human beings, when we produce something we generally want to make some sort of mark on the creation whether this be acknowledgement or fiscal gain. We need a radical re-think of our attitudes in order to embrace open knowledge.
Need-to-Know Basis
In my opening paragraph I referred to need driving me to utilising open source software. Should OERs be geared towards need? The University of Manchester provides a number of MOOCs. As a former chemist I feel comfortable picking on this one — Introduction to Physical Chemistry. It looks exceptionally well designed and exciting to me, as a chemist, and a current student. But I would question what use is a basic knowledge of quantum mechanics is to over 99% of the world who are in no position to utilise this knowledge? Yes, the pursuit of knowledge is a positive thing but from the perspective of the provider I really think we ought to provide things that are of use. To further exemplify the exclusivity of this MOOC, the course blurb states that ‘This course offers a rigorous introduction to physical chemistry for undergraduates starting university’. This is not open, in my view. Of course in an open knowledge utopia, all subject areas and knowledge would be open to all people, but we are far from this yet so some sensibility in terms of provision is something I would recommend.
China
As a small point of professional interest as I work extensively with China, this OKHE1 post alludes to the difficulty of accessing University of Manchester resources for students based in China. However, I would argue that China is on an upward trajectory with regards to open knowledge. As Jan Hylén notes, ‘Over 150 universities in China participate in the China Open Resources for Education initiative, with over 450 courses online’. Beckie Smith (2016) points out that as of the end of 2016 there are 10 million students enrolled on MOOCs in China. And as noted by Hofstede-Insights, China is a highly collectivist culture compared to the UK. This makes me wonder whether China is a fertile ground for the development of OERs and what we might see emerging in the near future.
Wikipedia
I tried to last as long as I could without calling upon the biggest gun of them all — Wikipedia. For all intents and purposes, Wikipedia is an OER. It is built around collaborative pursuit — that anyone in the world can create and edit content for OER purposes. What then are the challenges to Wikipedia as an OER? One aspect of Wikipedia that may have some commonality with other OERs is that it relies on some heavy lifting by a core community of enthusiasts. The figures for July 2018 stand at 400,924 active editors and 7,723,165,341 page views. That is a staggering amount of traffic for a relatively small band of editors to ensure the quality and completeness of entries. This highlights a difficulty in the creation and maintenance of OERs — if the small band of enthusiasts were to collapse then the resource would wither and pass into oblivion.
Superficial Openness?
In Nick’s OKHE2 post he asserts that ‘the language used in academic research means that for some, the content might as well be written in a different language’. I could not agree more with this point, but would also add the bigger challenge is the motivation to seek out knowledge. I am uncertain of whether the average person would be able to conceptualise the practical application of university research. Not because I am dismissive of the awareness of the average person, but rather, if someone has no experience or link to higher education even the concept that a university may generate useful knowledge for them may be alien. I suspect it is more important we teach people ‘how to learn’ first, rather than simply distribute OERs to a wider audience.
In Sue’s OKHE1 post she cites the Prometheus programme as an example of openness. Superficially, perhaps, but if we look more closely at the programme it is anything but ‘open’ — ‘[organisations] will be entered into a selection process to ensure that they get the most they can from Prometheus’. This is perhaps even worse than ‘closed’ — no detail is given on the selection process. The page also details the types of delegate the programme is looking for — these are all very senior positions. I suspect that rather than this programme being about open education, it is actually about the business school capturing high profile contacts. So not only is it closed, it is also potentially not free!
Conclusions
The one thing we cannot do as an institution is simply release our resources into the wild and consider our OER responsibilities satisfied. But hold on — do we HAVE any OER responsibilities? Technically, no, although the University of Manchester has a strategic goal of social responsibility that I do not think we are fulfilling to our maximum potential.
The benefits to society of OERs are well established. Personally, I consider the biggest benefit is the concept of a worldwide collaborative education system. If we all committed to the same goals we would achieve them much faster. Jan Hylén in Open Educational Resources: Opportunities and Challenges posits some compelling arguments for why we should push the OER agenda as individuals and institutions, but ultimately I wonder whether we must undergo a significant attitude adjustment before we can really progress on the path to a sustainable and effective OER ecosystem.
