Hero Versus Superhero: You Can Wear a Mask and Be Open

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7 comic superheroes made from Lego bursting through a grey wall B. Toenjes | flickr: Justice League #36 | CC BY-SA-NC

I have no turkey to prep; I think I am actually going to make pizza for Thanksgiving dinner. This leaves me with some extra time on my hands – not always a good thing!

I have been mulling over and eventually mashing up a few unconnected posts from the past week.

  1. George Siemens’s comment to my colleague, Terry Greene, “Canada has been slow on several fronts for open education”.
  2. Terry’s own earnest and appreciative “Looking at stars” post declaring, “When people teach and learn in the open we can see those heroes of learning”.
  3. My short rolling credits kudo | gentle shaming for those not on the list highlighting the superheroes of open textbook adoption in Ontario. [This post will underline my erroneous label of superhero, but I am not changing the video!]

What jumped out for whatever reason (well, I did see Kingsman: The Golden Circle this weekend, too) was the idea of hero versus superhero. Full disclaimer movies based on comics is where it starts and ends for me: I have never read a superhero comic book; I have never attended a Con of comics; I have never dressed as a superhero for Halloween.  

To my mind, a major difference between the hero and superhero is identity. The former’s is most often out in the open, while the latter remains hidden. In fact, unmasking the superhero is not singularly freeing, it often precipitates greater problems ~ internal turmoil as well as external complications and hardships. Now, bringing it back to reality…

Terry highlighted heroes of open and I do not dare dispute his list; it is packed with remarkable people. But I wonder about the number of superheroes mightily, but in quiet grace, contributing to the same ideals? This aligns more to Siemens’s remark about Ontario being behind. Perhaps in our formal cohesion of open education initiatives we appear behind, but I would venture there are countless Ontario open superheroes sharing across the province. Plus, we now have David Porter, and any perceived surface gap will undoubtedly close at the speed of light. Does that make David The Flash? I will have to run that by him…

I don’t have the right to unmask, but I have the privilege of knowing some of these superheroes of education.

With the greatest admiration for Amy Collier, I want to care like Charlene. You won’t find her at conferences or blogging. After tirelessly educating and protecting the most vulnerable in society each and every day, she retreats to her home sanctuary. There, any spare money that could fund a conference or new technology is spent fostering abused and neglected animals. And yes, she ends up adopting the ones that cannot be placed – another reason she’s not able to fly off to conferences and connect.

CogDog is still to be commended for his creativity, connecting, and comic touch, but I want to share like Dave. His boundless and bottomless tech talent keeps so many balls in the air and bits and bytes flowing. He honestly has no idea how remarkable he truly is and how much better we all perform and grow because of him. He gets out from behind his hide, but not to conference or keynote ~ it’s to cycle the globe, couch surf, and even fly out to help a friend camp across country when returning (yet again) from a prolonged western adventure. More recently, his efforts channel into step-dad-ding and partnering while still coding and patching his heart out to facilitate the needs and wants of others.    

Jesse Stommel was new to me, but I understand and underwrite the nod after investigation. But I want to teach like Keith. He always embraced the toughest teaching assignments and managed to reach learners who were in danger ~ at the precipice. He not only re-imagined education in theory as so many of us can do, he remade it into reality. From family classes, where multiple grades collaborated and learned across curricula to ensuring the arts were injected into every lesson. Even after a double amputation and into retirement, Keith volunteers to inspire.

You will have never heard of my superheroes, who share their ideas, time, and passion. Indeed, people working in their orbits likely don’t know of their superpower combo of kindness and brilliance. And they wouldn’t want it any other way. As much as we need our heroes, those sharing out in the open, we need the superheroes, too.  And as these heroes work out in the open, I guarantee that these and other superheroes in education are continuing to answer the call | bat signal | spidey senses | etc. in their own way. It is worth remembering for every star out on stage and in the limelight, there are similarly talented people working away in the shadows. But since this is veering off into another metaphor, it’s time to stop.

However, now that I am now on a superhero kick, I will end by using the superhero name generator to uncover my superpower.

I am Doctor Random:

“You were a seemingly normal university professor – until you cracked a seemingly impossible mathematical conundrum, a feat that unlocked strange and bizarre abilities for you! Now, you lead a team of heroes while also searching for the true meaning of the formula that changed you!

Probability Adjustment is my superpower – Your powers give you the ability to manipulate and control probabilities, meaning that you have a seemingly-supernatural level of luck!”

Thoughts on copyright

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So here’s a video in which I prattle on about copyright and fair use. I thought about opening with a mashup of No Expectations chords and Houses of the Holy lyrics, but I realized that a) I can’t sing and play at the same time, and b) I can’t sing. So much for that idea.

Coincidentally, I ran a copyright workshop for faculty Friday afternoon, using The Copyright Card Game. A few of us have been working on adapting the UK version, from Chris Morrison and Jane Secker of UK Copyright Literacy, for the US audience. We can do this because they were nice enough to release their game under a Creative Commons license. I’m interested in any input on the adaptation I can get. If anyone wants to help us work out how to incorporate the TEACH Act into it, I especially welcome the help. If anyone wants to make use of what we’ve done, that’s what it’s there for.

 

My framework for teaching meta-learning: an informal introduction to connected learning ecologies

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Over the past several years I have developed a framework or approach to my own teaching that has been in slow but constant evolution.  This framework has been particularly linked with my own learning across various aspects, spaces, and contexts in my life, including in the sciences of teaching and learning, language learning (French, Spanish, Portuguese), cognitive sciences, spirituality, gastronomy, music, family life and relationships, and the various sports that I participate in (ultimate, surfing, cycling and cycle touring, basketball, swimming, trekking etc.).   I will not go into all of the detail here, but I will offer an informal introduction, an appetizer if you will.  

At different times I have called this framework a Connected Learning strategies approach, inspired by Mimi Ito and the DML crew and their work on Connected Learning.  Connected learning is largely a sociocultural approach (an approach that informs much of my work) that views learning as embedded in meaningful practices and supportive relationships, situated in cultural contexts.  Connected learning is socially embedded, interest-driven, and oriented toward educational (or economic or civic) opportunities. The most essential feature of connected learning is when learners pursue a personal interest or passion and are able to link a range of informal learning opportunities, whether self-directed, incidental, or tacit to their learning in formal academic or professional contexts.  The concepts, therefore, of connecting learning across one’s life (lifewide learning) and throughout one’s life (lifelong learning) are essential themes in my work.

The work of John Hattie has also been very influential, whose thesis of Visible Learning states “when teaching and learning are “visible” – that is, when it is clear what teachers are teaching and what students are learning, student achievement increases”.  Hattie’s work taught me that the essential role of the teacher is to evaluate the impact they have on their students.  We should, therefore, always be reflecting on the impact our teaching has on student learning (or achievement, or whatever else you’d like to call it).  Additionally, his work highlights two of the most essential skills for learning (any task, knowledge, skill, or performance) as concentration and deliberate practice, two concepts I introduce regularly throughout my teaching.  In particular, deliberate practice  has been elaborated by K. Anders Ericsson in his work on expertise (listen to a great podcast here on what leads to greatness, by one of my favorite shows, Freakonomics Radio).  In short, deliberate practice involves the following elements:

• It is doing activities that are specifically designed (often by a teacher) to improve performance.

• It can and should be repeated a lot.

• There is continuous feedback available that should be acted upon.

• It is highly demanding physically or mentally.

• It isn’t much fun.

By the way, for those familiar with the popularization of the 10,000 hour rule by Malcolm Gladwell (who also has an excellent podcast called Revisionist History) in his book Outliers, this rule is based on the principle of Deliberate Practice. 

For me, a learning strategies/learning routines approach is essential for deep and meaningful learning.   It is equally important to realize that learning IS demanding, and often not fun, pushing students to the boundaries of their comfort, but this is where the learning happens, where expertise comes from, from math, to languages, to computer science, learning is a demanding and sometimes pleasureless activity.

Finally, my research and teaching has recently been significantly influenced by the work of Brigid Barron, Norman Jackson and the Edulab Research Group (among others) who have advanced the analytical and conceptual framework of Learning Ecologies.  My current doctoral research strives to make visible the contribution of digital learning ecologies to the development and process of student learning in higher education.  This research uses Barron’s definition of a learning ecology as “the set of contexts found in physical or virtual spaces that provide opportunities for learning. Each context is comprised of a unique configuration of activities, material resources, relationships, and the interactions that emerge from them” (2006 p. 195). My research analyzes the ways online graduate students shape and configure their digital learning ecologies as well as how they approach learning (what they do to learn) and conceive of learning (what they think they are learning) in networked online higher education across a spectrum formal and informal digital scenarios.

Of course, I have a variety of other interests in the new sciences of learning, or meta-learning, including going deeper into metacognition and metacognitive strategies in the classroom, the concept of flow and learning as the secret to happiness, (see Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi), exploring ecological views on learning, understanding self-regulated and self-determined learning, and, as John Biggs (1985) explains, further digging down into meta learning as the state of “being aware of and taking control of one’s own learning”.   It appears I am on a constant quest of being aware of, and taking control of my own learning across all areas of my life.  This blog, then, is an open invitation to join me on this adventure.  And, as the nature of my own research, teaching and learning suggests, it will be at times formal and other times quite informal, incidental and social. Come join in.

Oh yeah….and podcasts.  Lots and lots of podcasts (as you can see, I referenced two in this first post).  That’s the secret to learning!!


Creative Commons and More (#OpenEdMOOC)

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Below, I address copyright, public domain, and creative commons by discussing the following points, thinking mainly within the context of formal education:
  1. Effectively argue why protection of “intellectual property” is important and useful
  2. Explain the purpose of copyright (in the US)
  3. Critically evaluate the degree to which current copyright law appropriately balances limited incentives to creators and free public access to their works
  4. Define the public domain
  5. Describe the three components of a functioning Commons (An Introduction to Open Education).

Copyright (points 1, 2, & 3)

A copyright can be defined as “a government grant giving the copyright holder exclusive control over the reproduction of a literary, musical, or artistic work” (McAdams, 1995, p. 241). Clarkson, Miller, Jenna, & Cross (1992) define copyright slightly more broadly as “an intangible right granted by statute to the author or originator of certain literary or artistic productions (p. 162). They go on to state that any works created after January 1, 1978 remain protected by copyright law up to fifty years after the author’s death; publishing houses retain copyrights for a period of seventy-five years from the date of publication or a hundred years from the date of creation, whichever is first; and works by more than one author retain copyright protection for fifty years after the death of the last surviving author (p. 163).
Regarding international protection, if any American writes a book, his or her copyright in the book must be recognized by every country that has signed the Berne Convention of 1886 (Clarkson, et al. 1992).   As of September 2016, there are 172 states that are parties to the Berne Convention, which includes 170 United Nations member states along with Holy See and Niue (Berne convention, n.d.). However, a solid international system of protection for intellectual property still is lacking and must rely on national legal systems for protection and proof of infringements, which still can be difficult to enforce (McAdams, 1995).
The government sees intellectual property as a form of wealth.  Like other forms of wealth (e.g., patents, trademarks, etc.), intellectual property then should have certain protections by law.  “Laws protecting patents, trademarks, and copyrights are explicitly designed to protect and reward inventive and artistic creativity” (Clarkson, 1992, p. 161). Thus, writers have the right to earn a living if there is a demand for their artistic creativity.  If writers did not have this right: that is, they were not allowed to copyright any work whatsoever, there would be less incentive for creating the work in the first place.  There remains an ethical and legal obligation for recognizing and protecting one’s original work when it comes to the creation of intellectual property.
Current copyright law does provide a defense for those who have unlawfully use copyrighted material.  Under the “fair use” doctrine (i.e., the Copyright Act of 1976), copyrighted material may be used if the following are considered:
  1. “The purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
  2. the nature of the copyrighted work;
  3. the amount and substantial it’s of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
  4. the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work” (Band & Gerafi, 2013, p. 68).
Later, the Technology, Education, and Copyright Harmonization (TEACH) Act, signed by President George W. Bush on November 2, 2002, improved the Copyright Act of 1976, and applies to 1) institutions which are accredited as a non-profit educational institution, 2) the use of works as part of mediated instructional activities, 3) the use of works limited to a specific number of students enrolled in a specific class, and 4) the use of works either for ‘live’ or asynchronous class sessions.  If these criteria are met, then…
  1. instructors may use a wider range of works in distance learning environments;
  2. students may participate in distance learning sessions from virtually any location; and
  3. participants enjoy greater latitude when it comes to storing, copying and digitizing materials (The TEACH Act, 2011).
The 112 Congress of The United States provided further details regarding the TEACH Act depending on the particular purpose and context.
Although these provisions allow some flexibility in how copyrighted material may be used, copyrighting material is still limited when it comes to the use of textbooks and making education more open overall.  Distance learning environments under the TEACH act would need to be closed and restricted to a rather small group of learners to the extent that it ends up being virtually the same as a small face-to-face (more traditional) classroom scenario.  For this reason, alternatives to a more open learning environment are needed in order to make learning more equitable.

Public Domain (point 4)

“The term ‘public domain’ refers to creative materials that are not protected by intellectual property laws such as copyright, trademark, or patent laws” (Welcome to the Public Domain, 2017). Basically, no one owns a piece of work, nor can they ever own it… the public owns it.  Works in the public domain are the most open and flexible since permission is not required (nor is giving attribution) to reuse, revise, remix, and/or redistribute the work.

Creative Commons (point 5)

Under a Creative Commons license (CC), one can use the work of another without getting permission, as long as attribution is provided (i.e., giving credit to the author, creator, etc.).  Work under a CC can be for commercial or non-commercial purposes and CC can be applied to work that cannot be modified (i.e., non-derivative) or which can be modified.  Some work under CC can only be used if subsequent licensing respect the original CC type while other cases allow subsequent CCs to vary depending on the discretion of author(s).  A list of the CCs are as follows (most to the least open):
  • CC0 = Public Domain
  • CC BY = Creative Commons
  • CC BY SA = Creative Commons Share Alike
  • CC BY NC = Creative Commons Non-Commercial
  • CC BY NC SA = Creative Commons Non-Commercial Share Alike
  • CC BY ND = Creative Commons Non-Derivative
  • CC BY NC ND = Creative Commons Non-Commercial Non-Derivative (Creative Commons license, n.d.).
In summary, the three components to a Creative Commons license are 1) commercial vs. non-commercial, 2) share alike vs. non-share alike, and 3) derivative vs. non-derivative. It’s worth noting that work in the public domain may be grouped and licensed together under a Creative Commons license (Welcome to the Public Domain, 2017).

Reaching out to the community…

  1. Regarding Americans and copyright protection covered by the Berne Convention, I assume expatriates (Americans residing outside of The United States) would enjoy the same protections?
  2. If anyone has a direct source listing the Berne Convention member states, please share by leaving a comment below.
  3. Admittedly, most of the sources in the copyright section are over 20 years old, so if any corrections are needed, please leave a comment below and changes to this post will be made.

Disclaimer

I am not an attorney (nor do I play one on TV – smile), so when making decisions about copyright and related protections, please seek the advice of a professional.  Although I feel that Creative Commons license is generally the best option for promoting open education, information in this post is for informational purposes only.  Making specific decisions about the best license will depend on the purpose and other considerations related to one´s own teaching and learning contexts: audience, distribution channels, local laws, etc.

References

Band, J. & Gerafi, J. (2013). The fair use/fair dealing handbook. Retrieved from http://infojustice.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/band-and-gerafi-2013.pdf
Berne convention. (n.d.). In Wikipedia. Retrieved October 8, 2017, from https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berne_Convention
Clarkson, K., Miller, R., Jentz, G., & Cross, F. (1992). West’s business law: Text cases legal and regulatory environment. New York, NY: West Publishing Company.
Creative commons license. (n.d.). In Wikipedia. Retrieved October 8, 2017 from https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creative_Commons_license
McAdams, T. (1995). Law, business, and society. Chicago, IL: Irwin, Inc.
Welcome to the Public Domain. (2017). Retrieved from https://fairuse.stanford.edu/overview/public-domain/welcome/
Photo Attribution (Select image.)

Why Open Matters

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So it begins

This week wraps up the first week of the Introduction to Open Education MOOC offered through UT-Arlington’s LINK Lab.

One of the reasons why I am taking this course is to connect with others (already saw a fellow MN educator in the group), to compile additional resources for my lit review, and to find out about the fantastic open initiatives taking place all over the world. It will also be fun to blog again ?

The first week kicked off with overview videos from the course facilitators, George Siemens and David Wiley. As someone who finds the history of disciplines and academic fields endlessly fascinating, I enjoyed hearing about the genesis of the open movement, which as they note, is in its second decade. Both facilitators shared their stories about how they became interested in and got started with open education. I was familiar with Wiley’s history in terms of being inspired by the open source movement and his work with Lumen Learning. I was less familiar with Siemen’s background – he was part of the first 1:1 laptop programs in higher ed in Canada and views learning as open – as in transparent. When he talked about his current interests with learning analytics and data, this stood out to me:

How we make decisions with that data needs to be as transparent as the content

Additional names mentioned during their conversations include: Stephen Downes, Darcy Norman, Alan Levine, Bryan Alexander, and Dave Cormier. Supplemental resources mentioned include The cathedral and the bazaar and Open education: International perspectives in higher education…and many more in the ‘articles to read’ section.

From there we moved through a series of videos about why open matters: from the perspectives of librarians, students, Paul Bond, Bryan Mathers, and Stephen Downes! What I particularly appreciated about his video was his emphasis on people: “it’s not about what you do with stuff, it’s about what you did with each other.”

At this point, I am starting to wonder about other voices in this space….and then we came to the link to Jenny Mackness’ post. I echo her comments about this course, in that we collectively engage in “a critical approach, encourage diverse perspectives and be willing to surface and challenge assumptions.”

Longing for Openness

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In his Foreword to the recently published book, Open Education: International Perspectives in Higher Education, David Wiley stated, “When properly understood, openness is a value.”  This is intriguing.   In the eight years that have passed since I had the opportunity to hear Dr. Richard Baraniuk speak about the open education movement, I’ve been seeking to know more. And as my all too human brain often does, I’ve been trying to understand it by examining the parts.  But considering openness as a value has taken me to a new place, which has provided a glimpse of the whole.

Over the years, I’ve examined many elements of Openness in Education.  I’ve considered benefits and risks of open educational resources –  such as greater affordability and access versus the possible loss of incentives and quality assurance.  I’ve thought about opportunities and challenges of open pedagogy – the opportunities for increased agency and engagement against the challenges of meeting and assessing desired (or program mandated) outcomes.  I’ve studied the beauty of open licensing while wondering about the unintended consequences of disruption.  But I don’t believe I’ve ever thought about this subject in the philosophical terms introduced by the idea of openness as a value.

Through my analytical approach, I long ago decided that, in general, open is good and closed is bad.  I’m an advocate for opening up education. However, re-framing the picture to consider a value based perspective leads me to think about this in new ways.  It’s no longer a black and white view of open versus closed.  In value laden terms, “closed” no longer adequately describes the alternative.  Competing values, such as safety, security, convenience, and comfort now enter the conversation.

To reach a deeper understanding, I’ve been thinking of this idea in metaphorical terms.  I love to walk in the foothills that rise above my home.  A longing for the openness calls to me. When I climb out of the order and control of the city streets and up into the winding dirt trails, I find a sense of freedom, a feeling of independence, and a space of solitude that feeds my soul.  I value the openness of those foothills.  However, in my wanderings, I take Tanner, my fearless protector, and I stay on the trails.  Trails that have been mapped out and maintained.  Trails where I often pass other people.  I value the safety and convenience offered by the well worn shared spaces. And after my adventures, when I’m exhausted, I also value the comfort and security of my home in the orderly and controlled city.

So now I’m thinking about open education in terms of these different, competing values.  Values are complex and situational. It’s important to balance the value of openness in education against other worthy values, such as safety, security, comfort, and convenience. To many, elements of the existing educational system may represent these or other values.  And from the view of competing values, some people may put these above the value of openness.

I’m still an advocate for openness in education, but I may become a more critical advocate.

 

Open Truly Matters to Me

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I’m Taking an Open MOOC and I Like It.

An excellent opportunity to take a MOOC “Introduction to Open Education” (also available on the open web at #OpenEdMOOC) on the edX platform appeared on my radar over the summer. I was kicking around for months which platform to leverage for a reset of my #OpenFlip cMOOC which introduces learners to the four pillars of flipped learning with the Flipped Learning Network in collaboration with my institution the Tecnológico de Monterrey. When I landed at the edX page, it suggested this course for me.

The fact that this was led by David Wiley and George Siemens sealed the deal.  Ever since I stumbled across their work a few years ago (more about that below) I have admired the work of both of these pioneers in open education.

You will also notice the ¨redundancy¨ of using Open in the title when it already says ¨MOOC¨. More below.

The Way Back Machine

I have been teaching since the mid 90s; first as a graduate students at the University of Washington´s department of Computer Science and Engineering and since 1995 as a professor of Computer Science at the Tecnológico de Monterrey in Guadalajara, Jalisco, México.

My formal training is as a computer scientist and particularly in software engineering. I took an interest in Linux as an operating system for my own machines (and later all of my server setups) back in 1993 when we would install Slackware from multiple 3.5 inch floppy disks. I was an early adopter of open source software and brought that to my students.

WayBackMachine view of Ken Bauer´s old homepage in August 1999
Way Back Ken Bauer flickr photo by kenbauer shared under a Creative Commons (BY) license

So I guess in a way I made open software a key to my teaching early in my career. My students from the 90´s still reference my push about anti-piracy and pushing them to look for open solutions. Let me explain why the mention of piracy besides the fact that it tends to be rampant for students. Many of us pirated software during high school and college, this author included.

This is where I make my key point about Open for myself: my open is about freedom (the Spanish translation being ´libre´) and not about the ¨free as in beer¨ (´libertad´) with a nod to Richard Stallman and the Free Software Foundation.

  • Open is the freedom to share my work and practices to allow others to benefit from it.
  • Open is the freedom for others to critique my work.
  • Open is the freedom for others to build on my work.
  • Open is showing my students that giving is just as important as receiving. Here a nod to Visitors and Residents and David White, Donna Lanclos, Lawrie Phipps and others.
  • Open is also showing my colleagues (locally and internationally) the same.
  • Open is a core philosophy of my pedagogy and andragogy.

I like to emphasize Open MOOC here since I have seen too many MOCs that are not open in my opinion.

Late to the Party

I came across the open education community just recently (December 2014) when I stumbled across the work of Alan Levine and Brian Lamb and their course The You Show that they developed for Thompson Rivers University. That led to looking up the work of Jim Groom, Howard Rheingold, Martha Burtis, Audrey Watters, Laura Gogia, Maha Bali, Ben Werdmuller, Kin Lane and this list could go on forever.

It led to my attending #OpenEd16 (blog posts here and here) and in a way #OpenEd15 through the work of Tannis Morgan and the award winning #UdgAgora project that she organized and I had the fortune to participate in via an invite by Alan Levine.  You can view my story about this in original form or in Alan´s keynote.

I knew about Creative Commons in early days and was excited. Again I look back on my fourteen year volunteer history with the OOPSLA conferences and in particular the keynote at OOPSLA 2003 by Lawrence Lessig titled ¨Free Culture: The limited but essential role of property in building an environment for creativity¨.  I was the Internet Technology Chair that year and jumped at the chance to have a (short) discussion with Dr. Lessig.

Image of some books on my office bookshelf including Open Sources.
2017/365/46 Bookshelf flickr photo by kenbauer shared under a Creative Commons (BY-NC-SA) license

One of the resources suggested for this week ¨The Cathedral and the Bazaar¨ is an essay from the book ¨Open Sources: Voices from the Open Source Revolution¨  which has been on my office shelf (and read by myself twice and lent to students many times). Again, I see the links between my past and present.

Why did I not seek out this community earlier? We won´t know but I sure am happy to have found these people. You all make me a better educator.

I find it interesting that my first formal introduction to #OpenEd and #OpenLicenses was in Anaheim in 2003. This week I return to Anaheim to attend #OpenEd17 and help coordinate the VConnecting onsite presence of another important community Virtually Connecting.

Image of VConnecting post about our participation at Open Education 2017.
We are excited to connect with participants at the Open Education Conference 2017 in Anaheim, California! We are facilitating conversations between people onsite and offsite who would like to connect at this annual conference that focuses on multiple aspects of open education.

Colophon

This blog post was publishing use WordPress, images prepared using Gimp and written on my home Kubuntu Linux desktop machine. All of those being open source projects

Feature Image Credit

Open Meme with Katy Perry shouting ¨ I´m Taking A MOOC And I Like It¨
I´m Taking A MOOC And I Like It flickr photo by kenbauer shared under a Creative Commons (BY) license

Meme created with original image katy perry purr flickr photo by Eva Rinaldi Celebrity and Live Music Photographer shared under a Creative Commons (BY-SA) license

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Why Open matters

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I have been involved in Open Educational Resources since 2001 when the company I worked for signed an agreement with MIT to translate some one hundred courses from of their OpenCourseWare into spanish and portuguese. Altough it was exciting to work with such an institution and such talented people, I recognize that, at that time, I didn’t understand why would they share their most valuable asset, knowledge, for which people paid a lot of money. Then, a couple years later I met with some one (I don’t remember his name, otherwise I would give him attribution) that gave me the clue and opened my eyes: “Knowledge is the only asset that grows when shared”. His point was that if I was hungry, he had an apple and gave me half of it, the two of us would still have one apple. On the other hand, if he tought me something, our knowledge on the subject would have doubled. That conversation really made me think about the amazing oportunities that sharing knowledge offered.

A few years later, the MIT created the OpenCourseWare Consortium (today the Open Education Consortium) to share best paractices with other higher education institutions around the world. We thought that we should join inmediately and have our member institutions from Spain, Portugal and Latinamerica (over 1.200 universities at the time) join as well. In the next couple years we managed to enroll about 80 institutions to the consortium. It really wasn’t any hard. Joining a consortium of universities led by the MIT was very appealing and “glamorous”. The lesson I learned then was that building their own OpenCourseWare sites was a great marketing tool for universities. Some of the really had their (well over) fifteen minutes of fame.

Then, 2012 and the MOOC revolution arrived. Again we thought that we should do someting about it. Our competitive advantage was the spanish (and portuguese to a lesser extent) language. Our universities had an opportunity that institutions from other european countries such as Germany, Netherlands or Sweden to name some didn’t have. German, Dutch, or Swedish don’t have the critical mass of speakers needed for courses to become as massive as spanish or portuguese do. At the time, both Spain and the bank that sponsored the company I worked for were almost bankrupt. We were lucky to meet with Telefónica Learning Services (today Telefónica Educación Digital), realized that we both had the same ideas on the issue and agreed to join efforts. By the end of the year we launched Miríada X, the MOOC platform for spanish and portuguese speaking universities, professors and students. In a few months we managed to run a few hundred courses that gathered millions of students. Then we realized how eager to learn and how grateful for the inititive many people from all over spain, portugal and many latinamerican countries were. Also we started to have huge amounts of data and an embryo of “learning analytics”.

Today, blockchain, yet another revolution is set to shake (once again) higher education. The possiblity of creating unhackable ledgers to keep track of the creation, use, reuse, adaptation, enhancement, learning outcomes, competencies and certificates will be very interesting to witness in the next years. Is academics’ hayday arriving?


Why Open Matters

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Silhouette of a woman against a sky holding her hand out.
Stand Alone Complex by haribote licensed CC BY-NC.

There are many efforts to “open” education and scholarship: open access, open data, open educational resources, open licensing, open pedagogy, open scholarship, open science, open source, and more. But why are we opening all these things?

We are motivated to open these things to improve education, research, and other knowledge practices, looking to increase access, affordability, engagement, efficacy, reproducibility, and more. We foster openness as an improvement to knowledge practices because in turn, we believe that improved knowledge practices will benefit both individuals and the common good, generating better knowledge, more widely shared, and therefore justice, equality and progress.

But the existence of things like open educational resources, open licenses, open data, or open-source software do not by themselves guarantee that people benefit in their efforts overall as students, teachers, researchers, scholars or librarians, or that their success in turn improves our common good.

Sometimes we get so caught up in providing open resources or in establishing the necessary conditions for openness that we mistake that work as the ends, when it is only the means. In order for the benefits of openness to develop and persist, it is not enough that open just be technically possible or that open artefacts exist. Openness is not the goal, it is a mechanism.

People must be equipped and practice to succeed with open. We need to actively support not only infrastructure and materials, but also communities and practices that build motivation, understanding, skills, and values for people to engage over time for their own benefit and the public, common good.

Openness is our vehicle, not our destination.