1. THE CONSTRAINTS
OF POLICY
A CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS OF OPEN
EDUCATION POLICIES IN VIRGINIA
JAMISON R. MILLER | THE COLLEGE OF WILLIAM & MARY
JRMILLER@WM.EDU | @MILLERJAMISON
Public Domain Image: N°. 2 – Les utopies de la navigation aérienne au siècle dernier

2. ● Context of my doctoral research
● Context of this policy research
● Research questions
● Theoretical frameworks
● Methodology and methods
● Findings
● Discussion & implications
FORMAT:
Image: Public Domain | Une classe by Pieter van de Heyden, 1557

3. Open education has the
potential to sustainably
transform existing
educational institutions
into more equitable and
democratic forms.
Public Domain Image: The subscription room at Lloyd's of London in the early 19th century

4. TRANSFORMATIVE POTENTIALS
OF OPEN EDUCATION
IN THEORY, POLICY, AND
PRACTICE
JAMISON R. MILLER | THE COLLEGE OF WILLIAM AND MARY
@MILLERJAMISON | JRMILLER@WM.EDU

5. OPEN EDUCATION IN
1) THEORY
Open Education as a Real Utopia
2) POLICY
The Constraints of Policy: A Critical Discourse
Analysis of Open Education Policies in Virginia
3) PRACTICE
From EDUPUNK to Open Policy: Critical
Technology Praxis in Higher Education
Image CC (BY-NC) Jonathan Cohen

6. Public Domain Image: N°. 2 – Les utopies de la navigation aérienne au siècle dernier
GLOBALLY, PROVISION OF AND ACCESS TO HIGHER
EDUCATION HAS COME TO BE UNDERSTOOD AS
UN Declaration of Human Rights (1948)
World Conference on Education for All (1990)
UNESCO World Education Forum (2000)
A SOCIAL
JUSTICE ISSUE

7. Public Domain Image: N°. 2 – Les utopies de la navigation aérienne au siècle dernier
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY & COPYRIGHT LAWS
(Chon, 2007; Lessig, 2010; Slaughter & Rhoads 2004)
SYSTEMATIC ATTACK ON EDUCATION AS A PUBLIC
GOOD
(McMahon, 2009; Newfield, 2008; 2016)
BARRIERS

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OPEN UNIVERSITIES “...to promote educational well-
being of the community generally...”
OER 2002 UNESCO Paris Declaration (2002)
Cape Town Open Education Declaration (2007)
Blessinger & Bliss (2016)
OPEN EDUCATION:
POISED TO TRANSCEND
THESE BARRIERS

9. Tidewater Community College
Z-Degree, Lumen Learning
Virginia Community College System
Zx23 Program
Virginia
WHAT IS GOING ON IN VIRGINIA?

10. TWO QUESTIONS
1. How is open education discursively framed
within institutional policies?
2. Do discursive framings in policies support open
education and OER as transformational for education,
and if so, how?
Image CC (BY-SA) Véronique Debord-Lazaro

11. Public Domain Image: N°. 2 – Les utopies de la navigation aérienne au siècle dernier
THEORETICAL
FRAMEWORKS
● Tkacz (2015), Wikipedia and the Politics of Openness
● Critical Theory (Horkheimer, 1947;1972)
● Critical Approaches to Open Education
(Bayne, Knox, and Ross, 2015; Deimann and Farrow, 2013; Hall, 2011;
and Knox, 2013)

12. Fairclough (1993, 1995)
Texts present ideologies,
beliefs, messages, and
meanings.
CDA proposes to
illuminate these
messages, how they are
framed, and how they can
be resisted and usurped.
Gee (1999)
Language is not merely a
means of communication,
but also orders social
activity.
CDA is concerned with
how text presents
discursive practices- the
ways in which we are in
the world.
Martínez-Alemán (2015)
Has been applying CDA in
higher education policy
analysis.
Identifies its primary
purposes as 1) to reveal
ideological foundations of
discourse, and 2) to
provide evidence (data) to
support corrective action
CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS (CDA)

13. Image CC (BY-SA) Pleuntje
DATA
COLLECTION

14. DATA ANALYSIS
Image CC (BY) Angie Garrett
Following Martínez-Alemán (2015) and McGregor (2004),
CDA is derived from an array of social science techniques and not a singular method:
Establishing context(s)
● Identification of connections between aspects that construct and restrict discourse
○ CULTURE, SOCIAL IDENTITY, and LANGUAGE
● Identification of linkages between TEXT, STRUCTURAL POWER, and CONTEXT
Framing the text (McGregor, 2004)
● Power relations: who is depicted in power, who has agency, who does not?
● Omission of information, nominalization (converting verbs to nouns), passive verbs
● Presuppositions, what is assumed by the author?
● Insinuations and connotations
● Tone of certainty and authority
● Register, do the words spoken ring true?

15. FINDINGS
Image CC (BY) Angie Garrett
“mandatory”
“in accordance with the provisions”
“compliance”
(TCC, 2014)
“global model for successful development
and use”
(VCCS, 2015, para. 1)
“creating a world where each and every
person on earth can access and contribute
to the sum of all human knowledge”
(Open Education Declaration, 2007, quoted in
University of Edinburgh, 2016, p. 2)

16. FINDINGS
Image CC (BY) Angie Garrett
“improve student success through increased access and
affordability, and improve teaching efficiency and
effectiveness through the ability to focus, analyze, augment, and
evolve course materials directly aligned to course learning outcomes.
Faculty will be supported in their use of OER to achieve both of the stated
outcomes.”
(TCC, 2014, p. 1-2)

17. Image CC (BY) Angie Garrett
Faculty who incorporate OER materials into their courses shall
assume all responsibility for maintaining the integrity
of the course content as related to copyright and scholarly merit. In order
for a course to carry a Z designation within TCC’s Student Information
System, faculty must follow the procedures contained
in this policy.
(TCC, 2014, p. 2, emphasis added)
FINDINGS

18. Image CC (BY) Angie Garrett
Faculty are to use only materials that are published under a
Creative Commons License or exist in the Public Domain.
(TCC, 2014, p. 3, emphasis added)
It is the faculty member’s responsibility to ensure that such
content is eligible for and meets the standards for a CC-BY license. As
such, no portion of such work may be claimed by others in whole, in part,
or as a derivative work. This requirement is mandatory for Z
courses and strongly encouraged for OER courses.
(TCC, 2014, p. 3, emphasis added)
FINDINGS

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DISCUSSION/IMPLICATIONS
● “Open” is non-deterministic
Both conservative and progressive forces are at play
● Openings established for an emancipatory and
social justice agenda
● Constraints are made explicit

20. THE CONSTRAINTS
OF POLICY
A CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS OF OPEN
EDUCATION POLICIES IN VIRGINIA
JAMISON R. MILLER | THE COLLEGE OF WILLIAM & MARY
JRMILLER@WM.EDU | @MILLERJAMISON
Public Domain Image: N°. 2 – Les utopies de la navigation aérienne au siècle dernier

21. Public Domain Image: N°. 2 – Les utopies de la navigation aérienne au siècle dernier
REFERENCES
Benkler, Y. (2006). The wealth of networks. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Castells, M. (2010). The rise of the network society. In The information age: Economy,
society,
and culture (2nd ed., Vol 1). West Sussex, UK: Wiley-Blackwell.
Castells, M. (2013). Communication power. London, UK: Oxford University Press.
Dewey, J. (1916). Democracy and education: An introduction to the philosophy of education.
New York: Macmillan.
Floridi, L. (2011). The philosophy of information. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
Freire, P. (2000 [1970]). Pedagogy of the oppressed. New York: Continuum.
Giroux, H. A. (2014). Neoliberalism's war on higher education. Chicago, IL: Haymarket Books.
Goldrick-Rab, S. (2016). Paying the price: College costs, financial aid, and the betrayal of the
American dream. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

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REFERENCES
hooks, b. (1994). Teaching to transgress: Education as the practice of freedom. New York:
Routledge.
McMillan-Cottom, T. 2017. Lower ed: The troubling rise of for-profits. New York, NY: The New
Press.
Newfield, C. (2008). Unmaking the public university: The forty-year assault on the middle
class. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Newfield, C. (2016). The great mistake: How we wrecked public universities and how we can
fix them. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Slaughter, S., & Rhoades, G. (2004). Academic capitalism and the new economy: Markets,
state, and higher education. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Wright, E. O. (2010). Envisioning real utopias. London, UK: Verso.
Wright, E. O. (2012). Transforming capitalism through real utopias. American Sociological
Review, 78(1), 1-25. doi: 10.1177/0003122412468882

23. ASSUMPTIONS
● Built on the assumptions that language is more than the mechanics
of communication; it orders social practices and expresses ideology
and thus holds impact on actions
DELIMITATIONS
● Focused on institutional and state-level higher education policies
from Virginia from 2007-2016
LIMITATIONS
● As open education policies are only just emerging, there are relatively
few examples from which to draw
● This study will not be analyzing the impact of evident discourses
Image CC (BY-SA) Edith Soto