The Battle for Open

Martin Weller

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So, I’m writing this

book…

Central theme

Openness has won…

But now the real direction of openness is up for grabs

This talk

The roots of open edWhy is openness successful4 areas of open ed

– How openness has won– What the tensions are now

The battle for narrativeConclusions

Why “a battle”?

1. There are real areas of conflict

2. There is real value to be won

3. The victor writes history – a battle for narrative

http://www.flickr.com/photos/clydeorama/5099069820/

Roots of (modern) open ed

• Open universities – open access, entry. Focus on methods, removing barriers, not free

• Free software – 4 freedom (purpose, change, redistribute, distribute modified). Emphasis on control

• Open source – “given enough eyeballs all bugs are shallow”. Emphasis on efficiency

• Web 2.0 – culture of sharing, open practice

Open education is…

(Avoids definition)Set of coalescing principles:• Freedom to reuse• Open access• Free cost• Easy use• Digital, networked content• Social, community based approaches• Ethical arguments for openness• Openness as efficient model

(for more, see)David Wiley: iSummit '08 Keynote Address http://vimeo.com/1796014

A history of Openness From Peter, S., & Deimann, M. (2013). On the role of openness in education: A historical reconstruction. Open Praxis, 5(1), 7-14.

Open access

[Source: University of Southampton, ROARMAP, http://roarmap.eprints.org/ Published under a CC-BY license]

Major breakthroughs

• “Free online access to scholarly works”• Major policies in many countries• Gold route & Green route• More than 50% have published OA• OA Impact advantage

Growth of OA

Laakso M, Welling P, Bukvova H, Nyman L, Björk B-C, et al. (2011) The Development of Open Access Journal Publishing from 1993 to 2009. PLoS ONE 6(6): e20961. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0020961

The battle• Gold route – Matthew

effect, can be more expensive

• No incentive to innovate• Elsevier ‘take down’ on

Academia.edu• Predatory OA journals• Changes relationship• Hybrid models

OERs

Major breakthroughs

• OpenCourseware since 2001 (LOs earlier)

• Repositories in major languages and areas

• OCWC 260 institutions• Open Textbooks

Some findingsSaylor: Increased

enthusiasm for study (59%). Increased

interest in subject (58%), Gaining

confidence (50%)

Over 30% of students reported studying their subject via OER before

joining their course

60% CCCOER identified reduced cost of

materials as a driver of student retention

OpenStax downloads 120K times, leading to

an estimated $3 million savings for students

(Green 2013)

Feldstein et al. (2013) 47% of students

purchased the paper textbooks, 93% of

students reading the free online textbook

OER Research Hub

Oerresearchhub.org Chaos.open.ac.uk

Battle

• Is there enough impact?• OCL survey• Pearson OpenClass• Overtaken by MOOCs?

• In general, an open success story?

MOOCs

Image – David Kernohan

Awareness

Figure 5.1: Google Trends plot of relative interest in MOOCs (red) and OERs (blue).

(but still not that important)

Uptake

• Udacity, Iversity, Coursera, Open2Study, FutureLearn, EdX

• Large registrations (Coursera 17m enrolments)

• On Newsnight, in NYT, etc• “If education was grunge,

MOOCs were its Nirvana” (George Siemens)

The battle

• Not really open• Commercially driven adoption of open• Openness is the first casualty• Contracts with unis• Support for learners• Centralised platform & data• Sustainability

Open scholarship

By Gideon Burton http://www.flickr.com/photos/wakingtiger/3157622458/in/set-72157612021421472/

Open practice

• Online identity is now becoming the norm• Recognised by institution• Complements existing practice• Part of research projects• Area of innovation• Open research, open data

Battle

• Promotion still not sure about it

• Disciplinary tension• Pressure to have online

identity• Exposure to risk• The quantified self• Not without cost

The Silicon Valley narrative

• a technological fix is both possible and in existence;

• external forces will change, or disrupt, an existing sector;

• wholesale revolution is required• the solution is provided by commerce.

Education is broken

The education space is massive,

very broken” (Tauber 2013)

Education is broken. Face it. It is so broken at so many ends, it

requires a little bit of Silicon Valley magic

Thrun

The models of higher education that marched triumphantly across

the globe in the second half of the 20th century are broken

(Avalanche report)

The education space is massive,

very broken” (Shirky)

Education is broken.

Someone should do something degreed.com

A disruption obsession

disruption is a necessary and

overdue chapter in our public schools.

(Christensen)

elements of the traditional university are threatened by the coming avalanche. In

Clayton Christensen’s terms, universities are ripe for disruption (Avalanche report)

OERs have not noticeably disrupted

the traditional business model of higher education .

(Korteyemer)

The MOOC media perfect storm

Education is broken!

Education is ripe for disruption!

MOOCs are technological

solution!

Outsiders with new ideas!

• Avoid “open Stalinism”• Don’t replace one mono-culture with

another• The most interesting thing about

openness is that it allows innovation

Beware• Openwashing• Free = open• Temporary openness• Venture capital

bearing open gifts• Silicon valley

sexiness

Conclusions• Openness is not just a peripheral interest• It has entered mainstream academic practice• Much of the future direction of HE relates to

openness

• So…

Ownership over the direction of openness is relevant to all those in HE

Some links:

• Battle for open article: http://jime.open.ac.uk/jime/article/view/2013-15

• Relevant Blog bits: http://nogoodreason.typepad.co.uk/no_good_reason/battle/

• Publisher: ubiquitypress.com• Oerresearchhub.org• Impact map: chaos.open.ac.uk