Open education relies on open educational resources (OER). According to Atkins, Brown & Hammond (p.4), « OER are teaching, learning, and research resources that reside in the public domain or have been released under an intellectual property license that permits their free use or re-purposing by others. Open educational resources include full courses, course materials, modules, textbooks, streaming videos, tests, software, and any other tools, materials, or techniques used to support access to knowledge« . Weller (2012) follows the distinction proposed by Hoyes (2009) between big and little OERs, arguing there’s a continuum in granularity, quality, and intended learning intentions.
- « Big OERs are institutionally generated ones that arise from projects such as Open Courseware and OpenLearn. These are usually of high quality, contain explicit teaching aims, are presented in a uniform style and form part of a time-limited, focused project with portal and associated research and data.
- Little OERs are individually produced, low cost resources. They are produced by anyone, not just educators, may not have explicit educational aims, have low production quality and are shared through a range of third party sites and services. » (Weller, 2012)
The OER movement, and the Learning Objects movement before him – I would be interested in deepening the relatedness and differences between those two movements, following for example Robertson (2010) – pursue a humanist goal :
- « The intent of this new Hewlett Foundation program component was to catalyze universal access to and use of high-quality academic content on a global scale » (Atkins, Brown and Hammond, 2007, p. 1);
- « We hope to give everyone access to the world-class education that has so far been available only to a select few. We want to empower people with education that will improve their lives, the lives of their families, and the communities they live in. » (page « About Coursera », Coursera website);
- « Open content has the potential to change the playing field when it comes to every individual’s right to education« . (Hatakka, 2009).
I find that a priority key issue about this OER movement would be the analysis of whether this goal is succeeding or not :
- Who are the people effectively learning through OER ? How many are they in the world ? What are their profile ? Are they learners with the most special needs, those who can’t benefit from regular forms of education, in schools and universities ?
- How could we answers such questions ? How could we measure uses of OERs, especially from little OERs ? How could we evaluate their impacts ?
- Is the question of impacts of OERs relevant ? Can educational resources, which are only pieces of a puzzle, have an impact by themselves ? Do teachers take advantage of the wealth of educational resources to build high-quality and economic courses for their learners ?
About this last question, a beginning of an answer : Hatakka (2009) observes and analyses the lack of use of OERs by teachers in developing countries (well, also in developed countries to tell the truth). He highlights eleven categories of inhibiting factors for reuse of educational resources made by others. The major obstacle seems to be deeply grounded in the teaching profession : teachers consider their job is to create learning resources for their learners. Thus they are not willing to use someone else materials. « They want to incorporate their own ideas, their innovations and their perspective in the content » (Hatakka, 2009, p. 14).
Is it because teachers don’t take advantage of OERs in their courses that some organizations have started to offer entire open courses ? Are the MOOC organizations as Coursera, edX… the third trial to offer education to most needing people (after the Learning Objects trial and the OER trial) ? Will this trial be more effective ? Will it reach the desired public and enlarge the individual’s right in education ? How will we be able to observe and measure such impacts with evidence ?
References :
Atkins, D. E., Brown, J. S., & Hammond, A.L. (2007). A Review of the Open Educational Resources (OER) Movement: Achievements, Challenges, and New Opportunities. Report to the Williman and Flora Hewlett Foundation.
Coursera Company (29 March 2013). About Coursera. Coursera website. Retrieved from https://www.coursera.org/about.
Hatakka, M. (2009). Build and They Will Come ? – Inhibiting Factors for Reuse of Open Content in Developing Countries. EJISDC, 37(5).
Robertson, J. (2010). Are OERs just Re-usable Learning Objects with an open license ? John’s JISC CETIS blog.
Weller, M. (2012). The openness-creativity cycle in education – A Perspective. Journal of Interactive Media in Education.
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