OER debate

The anti-OER case
Martin Weller
Elia Grant-Fraser
Dorothy Cooshna-Naik
http://www.flickr.com/photos/christopherdale/23860378/

<I don’t necessarily believe all of this!>
http://www.flickr.com/photos/devildoggie/225651847/

Sustainability
Lack of reuse
Reuse is hard
Individual/institutional resistance
Leave it to others
Lack of evidence
Cultural imperialism?
Quality/Depth
Learn through creation
http://www.flickr.com/photos/maistora/3237164755/

MIT OpenCourseWare costs $3.5M annually
Connexions: 5,221 modules only 15 modules were used, reused, or adapted more than five times.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/daviddmuir/2125697998/

Some suggestions
Little OER will beat big OER
Only when alternative outputs are recognised will academics do it
Education will not lead the way
Easy aggregation will work, large scale reversioning won’t

Sustainability
Large projects with big overheads
MIT OpenCourseWare costs $3.5M annually
What happens when funding runs out?
What happens when cutbacks hit?
Conclusion: OER projects are an expensive way to do ‘open’

Lack of reuse
Connexions: 5,221 modules - 3,519 reused in a collection or adapted in any manner elsewhere on the site - 15 modules were used, reused, or adapted more than five times.
(http://opencontent.org/blog/archives/905)
Compare with CommonCrafteg http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0klgLsSxGsU

Reuse is hard
Need to locate array of resources
Change to suit context, learn skills etc
Often easier just to do it from scratch

Resistance
Why share?
Unease
Not suitable
Institutions don’t like giving stuff away

Educational institutions don’t do this well
Leave it to YouTube, Slideshare, etc

We all agree that idealistically, altruistically it’s a good thing.
But…

imperialism
Influence from one lecturer?
Social/humanities subjects more context dependent

OER debate

by Martin Weller on Nov 29, 2010

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OER debate — Presentation Transcript