Situating OER

The Open Movement

The integration, creation, and sharing of Open Educational Resources is just one example of a movement toward openness. A brief overview of this movement and two other initiatives that it has given rise to helps to put OER into a broader context. The bottom line is that OER, like other open initiatives, requires new ways of thinking about intellectual property and working with others.  

In Examining the Open Movement: Possibilities and Implications for Education, Alec Couros described the open movement as

an informal, worldwide phenomenon characterized by the tendency of individuals and groups to work, collaborate and publish in ways that favour accessibility, sharing, transparency and interoperability. Advocates of openness value the democratization of knowledge construction and dissemination, and are critical of knowledge controlling structures. The open movement challenges existing political, societal and corporate structures that hold power, dominance and control over knowledge, and over the tools needed for its creation, distribution and dissemination (Couros, 2006, pp. 161-162).

Couros further noted that "the open movement in practice is characterized by many local and worldwide initiatives," including software, media/art, government/civic data, academic research, infrastructure, and learning Objects/courseware (Couros, 2006). The Open Source Software movement and Open Pedagogy are just two areas which have demanded a fundamental shift in mindset as traditional practices and relationships have been challenged.

 

Open-Source Software

According to the Open Source Initiative, Open Source software is "software that can be freely accessed, used, changed, and shared (in modified or unmodified form) by anyone." The OSI describes the development method for Open Source as one that "harnesses the power of distributed peer review and transparency of process" and maintains that "the promise of open source is higher quality, better reliability, greater flexibility, lower cost, and an end to predatory vendor lock-in" (Open Source Initiative, n.d.) 

 

Open Pedagogy

In his blog Links to an external site.iterating toward openness, David Wiley characterizes Open Pedagogy as "that set of teaching and learning practices only possible in the context of the free access and 4R permissions characteristic of open educational resources." [Wiley added the fifth R (Retain) after this definition.]

Open Pedagogy is more than open resources. Wiley noted that the potential of the 5Rs goes far beyond resources because these activities can "extend, revise, and remix our pedagogy" into one in which students themselves can revise and remix materials and contribute toward improving the resources used for the course (Wiley, 2013). 

Bronwyn Hegarty noted that "[i]mmersion in using and creating OER requires a significant change in practice and the development of specific attributes, such as openness, connectedness, trust, and innovation" (Hegarty 2015). In Attributes of Open Pedagogy: A Model for Using Open Educational Resources Links to an external site., Hegarty identified these and other attributes in a model of Open Pedagogy (image below).

Peer Review,  Learner Generated, Connected Community, People Openness Trust, Reflective Practice, Sharing Ideas & Resources, Innovation & Creativity, and Participatory Technology

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


References

Couros, Alec. (2006). Examining the Open Movement: Possibilities and Implications for Education. (Doctoral dissertation). Retrieved from http://www.educationaltechnology.ca/couros/publication_files/research/Dissertation-Couros-FINAL-06-WebVersion.pdf Links to an external site.

Open Source Initiative. (n.d.) "About the Open Source Initiative" and "FAQs." Retrieved from https://opensource.org/ Links to an external site..

Wiley, David. (2013) "What is Open Pedagogy?" iterating toward openness Links to an external site.. Retrieved from https://opencontent.org/blog/archives/2975 Links to an external site..

 

For Further Reading

Attributes of Open Pedagogy: A Model for Using Open Educational Resources Links to an external site. (PDF) By Bronwynh (Own work) [CC BY 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0)], via Wikimedia Commons