The Disaggregated Future of Education and Open Access Movement

The Disaggregated Future of Educa3on
Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Internet

David Wiley, PhD
Department of Instruc3onal Psychology & Technology
Brigham Young University

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Friday, June 12, 2009

The Trucker Tale

A parable of ingenuity and despair

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http://www.ﬂickr.com/photos/farleyj/2768941171/

http://www.ﬂickr.com/photos/pagedooley/2810314243/ CC BY

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http://www.ﬂickr.com/photos/chicagoeye/2710749425/

http://www.ﬂickr.com/photos/striatic/2192192956/

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http://www.ﬂickr.com/photos/booleansplit/2634767088/

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http://www.ﬂickr.com/photos/ﬂissphil/245158736/

Terms of Distribu3on

Surrender rights to the product
Truckers keep 100% of all sales
Perpetual deal, no review or modiﬁca3on

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http://www.ﬂickr.com/photos/glutnix/47989973/

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The Moral of the Story

This is a tale about faculty and their
research

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• Come up with ideas for research,
• Find grant funding for the research,
• Iden3fy and hire graduate students
and other professionals,
• Conduct the research,
• Write up the results of the research in
a clear and concise manner, and
• Surrender all rights to the wriPen
results of the research to a publisher.
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The Open Access Movement

Free Online Access to Research Ar3cles

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Stewardship of Public Funds

If the taxpayers funded the research,
the results belong to the taxpayers

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Public Investment in Research

$105,385 to $119,913 per ar3cle
(US NIH‐funded research)

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Publisher Investment in Research

$2750 per ar3cle, including
administra3ve and all other costs

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Does This Make Sense?

Publishers make approximately 2% of
the overall investment

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Unbelievable Proﬁts

Elsevier + LexusNexus = $1,500,000,000
in 2008

(Not revenue ‐ proﬁt)

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Have You or U of S Ever Been Paid?

(You also do all the reviewing and edi3ng)

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US NIH Public Access Mandate

Ar3cles must be placed in PubMed
Central upon acceptance

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Otherwise, You Pay Dozens of Times

Once to fund the research, and then
over and again for each library

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Advance the Field / Bless the World

BePer access catalyzes the development
of new knowledge more quickly

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“The Faculty of the MassachusePs Ins3tute of
Technology is commiPed to dissemina3ng the
fruits of its research and scholarship as widely as
possible. In keeping with that commitment, the
Faculty adopts the following policy: Each Faculty
member grants to the MassachusePs Ins3tute of
Technology nonexclusive permission to make
available his or her scholarly ar3cles and to
exercise the copyright in those ar3cles for the
purpose of open dissemina3on.”

MIT Faculty Open‐Access Policy
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Secret History of Open Access

A story of disaggrega3on: 1000 ‐ 1600

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Restric3ng Access to the Bible

When policy and technology collide

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11th Century

Vernacular transla3ons of the Bible
forbidden

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12th Century

Possession or memoriza3on of
scriptures forbidden

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14th Century

Wycliﬀe ﬁnishes English transla3on

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15th Century

Anyone caught reading the English Bible
will quot;Forfeit land, caPle, life, and goods
from their heirs forever.quot;

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A Kinder, Gentler DMCA

And all this before publishers even
came into existence!

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15th Century

Gutenberg, the prin3ng press, and
metallic movable type

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15th Century

The church leverages technology to
print indulgences at scale for a
frac3on of the cost

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16th Century

English and German Bibles are mass‐
produced and pirate Bibles are smuggled
in ﬂour sacks and coPon bales

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16th Century

Empowered with access, people
won’t tolerate foolishness
(indulgences)

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16th Century

Luther’s 95 theses

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quot;They preach only human doctrines who say
that as soon as the money clinks into the
money chest, the soul ﬂies out of purgatory...
Any truly repentant Chris3an has a right to
full remission of penalty and guilt, even
without indulgence lePers.quot;

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16th Century

Luther and others work to reform
from the inside, but #fail

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16th Century

Protestant sects form and the Church
loses membership and revenue

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17th Century

30 Years War ends Pope's pan‐European
poli3cal power

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17th Century

Popular reforms carried out
(too liPle too late for most)

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The Morals of the Story
‐ Don’t bet against the transforma3ve
power of informa3on technology

‐ You’re going to end up adap3ng anyway,
why not do it on your own terms?
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Skipping Ahead a Few 100 Years

Could something like this happen again?

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“The World is Changed”

Galadriel, Lord of the Rings

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It’s Actually Worse (or BePer)

The World is Changing

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Analog ⇒ Digital

Music, Phones, TV, Newspapers,
Movies, Journals, Communica3ons,
Intelligence, Defense

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Tethered ⇒ Mobile

Phones, Internet Access,
Employment

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Isolated ⇒ Connected

People, Content, Systems

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Generic ⇒ Personal

Cars, Computers, Mobile Phones

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Consuming ⇒ Crea3ng

Radio / Podcas3ng, Newspapers / Blogs
Movies / Vodcas3ng

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Closed ⇒ Open

Souware (OSs, Applica3ons),
Data (Weather, GIS),
Content (Blogs, Wikis)

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Then vs Now
Analog ⇒ Digital
Tethered ⇒ Mobile
Consump3on ⇒ Crea3ng
Closed ⇒ Open

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Educa/on vs Everyday
Analog ⇒ Digital
Tethered ⇒ Mobile
Consump3on ⇒ Crea3ng
Closed ⇒ Open

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“Daily Divide” Is a Huge Threat

And the wider the disconnect,
the bigger the threat to higher
educa3on

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But Wait! We’re Educa4on!

Our historic monopoly is (gratefully)
being challenged on almost every
front

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Why Do Students Come?

Content, Support Services
Social Life, Degrees

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Content

MIT OpenCourseWare, Wikipedia,
Flat World Knowledge, etc.

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Research

Public Library of Science, Arxiv.org,
Google Scholar, etc.

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Support Services

ChaCha, Yahoo! Answers,
RateMyProfessor, Email, Instant
Messaging, TwiPer, etc.

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Social Life

Facebook, MySpace, MMOG,
iPhone loca3on‐aware apps, etc.

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Degrees

MCSE, RHCE, CCNA

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The Monopoly Is Being Busted

Everything we provide is now oﬀered
by someone else

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When Ins3tu3ons Specialize

They usually provide bePer quality
at a bePer price

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Higher Ed, On the Other Hand

76% increase in cost over 10 years
How’s our quality?

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Industries Failing Everywhere

Banks, Insurance, Automobiles
Higher Educa3on?

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A Bail Out for Higher Ed?

More like double‐digit budget cuts

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No Monopoly and No Bail Out

How can we innovate to stay relevant?

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What About E‐learning?

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What About E‐learning?

Quite innova3ve in 1995!

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Characteris/cs of E‐learning
Analog or Digital
Tethered or Mobile
Isolated or Connected
Generic or Personal
Consuming or Crea3ng
Closed or Open

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Openness is the Cornerstone

Openness underpins everything interes3ng
happening online and is “what they know”

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Why Make Such a Claim?

Let’s ask Alexa what the 50 most
popular sites on the web are…

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Sites Where Anyone Can:

Share a video, share a photo, share a blog
post, share their personal info, share their
ra3ngs, share their ﬁles, share their exper3se

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Characteris/cs of E‐learning
Analog or Digital
Tethered or Mobile
Isolated or Connected
Generic or Personal
Consump/on or Crea3ng
Closed or Open

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Connec3ng

You can’t connect to something if you
don’t have access to it

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Personalizing

You can’t adapt or localize something
if you don’t have the rights to modify it

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Crea3ng

You won’t be crea3ve if there’s no
outlet for your work

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How Might We Open Things?

Once again there is a demand for greater access

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The Open Access Movement

Providing access to the research created
at the university

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The Open Educa3on Movement

Providing access to the teaching and
learning materials created at the
university

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Connec3ng and Openness

Sharing some experiments

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Crea3ng and Openness


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Being Even More Open


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Character Classes

• Bard (Master of the lore, history, and poli3cs
of the ﬁeld, know what's “out there”)
• Ar3san (Has materials produc3on skills in all
the necessary Web 1.0 and 2.0 tools like
HTML, video sharing, podcas3ng)
• Monk (Master of copyright and licensing
arcana and defender of the university brand)
• Merchant (Deals with short‐ and long‐term
sustainability issues)
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Educa3on Will Eventually Be Open

And involve connec3ng, personalizing, and
crea3ng ‐ just like everything else does

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Will Your University Be Open?

Can your school ﬁnd the
ins3tu3onal will to change?

Or will you ﬁght a 30 year war,
lose, and change anyway?
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Ins3tu3onal Disaggrega3on

MIT OpenCourseWare,
Western Governors University

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Value of Integra3on?

As compared to
“specialized pieces loosely joined”

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Not a Technology Problem

Look around the Internet – not only do the
technologies we need exist, they’re open source

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This Is a Policy Problem

Higher educa3on is behaving like
the recording and movie industries

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Policy To Defend Tradi3on

Rather than innova3ng

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You Must Engage in Policy Reform

Ignoring the problem is not a strategy

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“It is not necessary to change.
Survival is not mandatory.”
W. E. Deming

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Student Learning May Suﬀer

The market will likely meet
students’ increasingly unmet needs

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Your Employment Will Suﬀer

When your ins3tu3on collapses
as Googlers ﬁnd bePer alterna3ves

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“The last tempta4on
is the greatest treason,
To do the right deed
for the wrong reason.”
Archbishop Thomas BeckeP (T. S. Eliot)

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Innovate for the Students

To fulﬁll your sacred trust as a teacher

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Thank You!

david.wiley@byu.edu

hPp://davidwiley.org/

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The Disaggregated Future of Education and Open Access Movement

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Editor's Notes