Wednesday, October 22, 2014
Openness in Education
In his TEDx talk, Wiley (2010) discusses that the internet has given educators the means to share their knowledge and expertise in an unprecedented way. He states that the "more open we are" in education in regards to sharing our content "the better education will be," and that not sharing is selfish and contrary to the spirit of education.
My first reaction to watching this TEDx talk is that this type of sharing would not be possible on a large scale in the United States. At present, university enrollments are down across the country due to changes in financial aid and military tuition assistance. Students are also doing more shopping around and research before selecting an institution that fits their lifestyle and needs. Universities are showing that they are sensitive to these changes in the market place by employing tactics such as video applications for admissions, heavy marketing and prospective student outreach, flexible hybrid or online coursework, and more career focused degree programs to hook students. If universities are competing against each other for their student body, I would understand their reluctance to "show their cards." What if they divulged the components of a popular program and another university used these notes to engineer the same/similar program?
With this thought in mind, I turned to the internet for proof that openness in education was perhaps was a bit too utopian for a capitalistic society. I was completely wrong! There are many examples of open courseware from US universities available for free online, including from: University of California - Irvine, Yale University, Tufts University, University of Notre Dame, University of Massachusetts, Utah State University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Johns Hopkins University, and New Jersey's Science and Technology University. In addition to these open courseware sites, many universities have shared content through massive open online courses hosted by providers like EdX and Coursera.
Many of these universities are ivy league schools or top ranking institutions, and may not have to compete for new students like other smaller or state universities. However, it is clear that opening access to coursework is on the minds of US educators. Although some of the open courseware sites have been available since the early 2000s, the field of open education is still developing as educators continue to experiment with different ways to open access and content.
References:
TEDx Talks. (2010, April 12). TEDxNYED - David Wiley - 03/06/10 - Open education and the future [Video file]. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rb0syrgsH6M&feature=player_embedded
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I think your research into what schools are providing those open resource materials is really interesting! The fact that the material is coming from those top ranking institutions leads me to agree with you in that those are not the schools that have to worry about getting enough students for each freshman class. At the same time, UMUC is going to an open resource model itself for the undergraduate courses at least, and I think it has gone well so far. While so far (I think) UMUC hasn't actually produced the open resource material, but rather gone out and found quality information to use in classes, I am interested to see if our high quality faculty will begin to produce their own open educational resources when they begin to find subjects that are less well studied and want to expand on research and content. Personally, I found it to be extremely interesting in OMDE 601 when we used a book or material that had been written by the professor. It made the work that much more relatable for me, and I think producing our own quality open education resources is going to be key in the future.
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