Current trends in education indicate a move toward increased
use of Open Educational Resources (OER’s) in academic instruction and academic libraries. There have been a number of academic articles
promoting the benefits and identifying the challenges of using and curating an
expansive repository of OER’s.
Some of the benefits to widely available OER’s include:
- Eliminating a class textbook through extensive use of OER’s, thereby reducing educational costs to the student (Hilton, 2010)
- Allowing for increased diversity in perspectives of instructional viewpoints (Richter, 2012)
- Access to high quality educational tools for developing nations (Richter, 2012)
- Broad dissemination of academic literature (Mitchell, 2014)
- Access to free and low cost educational resources for cash-strapped educational budgets (Mitchell, 2014)
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| Pexels; n.d.; https://pixabay.com/en/books-students-library-university-1281581/ |
However, there are challenges associated with implementing
high-quality OER availability:
- Content creators need to be mindful of licensing features and limitations such as the “Creative Commons” license (Hilton, 2010)
- The tools used to create and edit OER’s need to be commonly available with access to an open source file (Hilton, 2010)
- End users can have difficulty finding and adapting OER’s to individual needs/applications (Richter, 2012)
- Purely providing resources/OER’s to educators without themselves participating in the adaptation process may not increase overall quality of education (Richter, 2012)
- Lack of cultural diversity as the majority of OER’s are developed by Western cultures and ruling elites (Richter, 2012)
- Outside established journal/publisher review procedures (Mitchell, 2014)
Most of the challenges facing OER’s can be addressed through
wider use, development, and implementation of OER’s by larger groups of more
diverse educators. However, one of the
challenges that I find particularly interesting is the sourcing of these OER’s. While many OER’s can be found in curated
repositories like the UNESCO OER Wiki, I wonder what sort of vetting and/or
oversight the majority of these OER’s undergo.
While something like a textbook can go through extensive peer review,
vetting, and criticism when preparing for publication, overall oversight of OER’s
could be less rigorous overall. Would
the overall quality of educational resources be diminished if common practices
moved away from the publishing model to a more open resource model? Is crowd sourcing and iterative improvement,
similar to the process Wikipedia implements, enough of a check on overall OER
quality?
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| Altmann; n.d.; https://pixabay.com/en/system-network-news-connection-1527676/ |
I also wonder if moving to an open resource model disincentivizes
quality content creation. If an academic
expert is not going to profit monetarily from the publication of a textbook or
increase his or her reputation through publication in an academic journal, is
there a clear motivating factor other than altruism? If OER usage supplants traditional
publication, will the overall quality of academic resources diminish?
References:
Hilton, III, John, et al. "The Four 'R's Of Openness
And ALMS Analysis: Frameworks For Open Educational Resources." Open
Learning 25.1 (2010): 37-44. Academic Search Premier. Web. 1 Feb.
2017
Mitchell, Carmen, and Melanie Chu. "Open Education
Resources: The New Paradigm in Academic Libraries." Journal of Library
Innovation, vol. 5, no. 1, 2014., pp. 13-29 ProQuest Technology
Collection, https://search-proquest-com.proxy.libraries.uc.edu/docview/1537996473?accountid=2909.
Richter, Thomas, and Maggie McPherson. "Open
Educational Resources: Education for the World?" Distance Education,
vol. 33, no. 2, 2012., pp. 201-219 Research Library, https://search-proquest-com.proxy.libraries.uc.edu/docview/1034609551?accountid=2909.
Hello IcarusRising,
ReplyDeleteYour article poses a lot of questions, and valid points. And interestingly enough, by the end of the article I started really questioning if creation of OER is as good of an idea as it appears to be after all? While reading "The four ‘R’s of openness and ALMS analysis: frameworks for open educational resources” by John Hilton III*, I was inspired and enlightened about the ideas of OER. Especially because I have never known such educational resources system existed.
But like with everything, there are pros and cons. From your and my analysis of the "The four ‘R’s of openness and ALMS analysis: frameworks for open educational resources” and OER itself, it seems to me that there are more benefits. However, the cons (issues) are still there, despite OER’s good amount of benefits.
A few particular questions (issue) from your article “Benefits and Challenges to Utilizing Open Education Resources” I would like to look at are “I wonder what sort of vetting and/or oversight the majority of these OER’s undergo?” And "Would the overall quality of educational resources be diminished if common practices moved away from the publishing model to a more open resource model?” I too, have the same questions and concerns.
While reading your article, it occurred to me that we can certainly address some of the issues and concerns that we have with OER in order to create a more convenient and modern system of public access to low cost education resources. (Hilton, 2010). And it would absolutely be worth the effort.
We do not have to jeopardize the quality of OER. “Like a textbook”, material selected to be placed in OER system "can go through extensive peer review, vetting, and criticism when preparing for publication.” Thus, avoiding maintenance, and quality issues of the resources while existing in OER.
If we bring educational resources to the same standards and quality prior it’s entrance into OER, we could save ourselves time, and eliminate some of the issues/questions an educator/student might have. Perhaps, I misunderstood the issue, or oversimplified a solution. But could there be a chance that we do not have to give up our valuable traditions of preservation and equality, to create a new, also valuable system with low cost, minimal maintenance, and almost no supervision by keeping our traditional methods of publication, and only then entering the educational resources into OER? What are your thoughts?
References:
IcurasRising. (2017, February 1). Benefits and Challenges to Utilizing Open Educational Resources. http://noviceteacherblog.blogspot.com/
Hilton, III, John, et al. "The Four 'R's Of Openness And ALMS Analysis: Frameworks For Open Educational Resources." Open Learning 25.1 (2010): 37-44. Academic Search Premier. Web. 1 Feb. 2017
Hi Icarus- I really appreciate the questions that you pose. The question of quality has really stuck with me. While doing my own reading about the open sources, I had not taken it to the next level to think about sources that I use every day for quick information like Wikipedia. I hesitate to even bring this up because it is not a source that one would want to use for coursework, but we know our students will use those kinds of resources. I think the questions you pose make it more and more important for us to not only teach just our students but also really focus in on ourselves when it comes to being conscious consumers of information, resources, and media.
ReplyDeleteHello all,
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed reading this blog and I have to say that you pose some great questions. OER's are tricky because of their innate openness. I do think that wider use of them would increase the amount of scrutiny (in editing) that they receive. If education starts relying solely on OER's instead of regular "textbooks", we would have to implement some sort of editing, vetting and peer review. The worst thing possible for students trying to learn new information is getting incorrect information. Sometimes it is difficult for students to learn and it only makes it worse if they are getting incorrect or conflicting information. Therefore, we need to make sure that whatever we choose to use in the classroom is in fact correct and viable. In answer to your question, I believe that it is possible for the quality of education to diminish if the OERs supplant the traditional publication and the vetting and scrutiny that accompanies those publications. When discussing education, crowd sourcing is not a good enough kind of vetting for OERs to undergo. I believe education is too important to leave editing to chance. Wikipedia is not a viable source of information for many teachers and there is a reason. It has not been edited and vetted. The same should go for any other information that a student could access, especially sources that we provide to our students. It is important to make sure that students obtain the right information so that their learning is not thwarted or diverted in any way.
Jonathon,
ReplyDeleteThis is a great topic for discussion since our world is turning more and more to technology as we progress. I agree with some of the comments above regarding the concern for making sure that students are given the right information and not something possibly biased. even deeper than that, I worry that if students use OERs instead of traditional textbooks, they may miss out on their own further investigations. For example, maybe OER instruction included only what the creators felt was important for the student to know. With a textbook, the student may read required material, but may also look at material in the textbook that was not indicated by OER. I worry not having additional information available to the student may halt them from continuing self exploration of material.
Current issues in the educational system and its management leave me deeply concerned about what type of vetting or review would be done regarding OERs. I personally have deep rooted concerns about leftist control of our current system; thereby giving me even more concern about students being misdirected in their education.
Additionally, you posed the question of "If OER usage supplants traditional publication, will the overall quality of academic resources diminish?"I am concerned about how much time students actually spend using technology based learning devices rather than textbooks and field study. Part of learning comes from the processes themselves, and the materials used throughout that process. Navigating new online resources is not always an easy task for students. Some give up out of frustration. However, with using a traditional textbook, students know how to go to the index, or check the table of contents for previous material that may aid them in their work. They can even look for post it notes that they may have already inserted in the book. I know that students can do all of those things through OERs as well, but feel that it is more difficult to do for students who aren't as handy with technology. I feel like this in itself will halter their educational process.
If OERs become more prominent in our educational system I do believe that traditional resources will lose quality due to lack of funding for said materials. Development and publication of traditional educational materials is expensive, and if funds are diverted to OERs I am certain that traditional resources will suffer.
My question to you is, if OERs become more prevalent, who should be in charge of the review/vetting process of the materials that are to be used to educate our future democratic citizens? Should it be state organized, local, governmental? Should Betsy Devoss be in charge of deciding what our future students learn and whether it is through traditional texts or OERs?
Thank you all for your comments on my blog post! I think the general consensus from your posts are that utilization of OER's is an overall net positive for our educational processes, and I agree. As Lacey and Helena mentioned, it is common for people to use Wikipedia (a potentially under-regulated/peer reviewed source of information) for quick references, but we also all know that Wikipedia is not an acceptable source for academic writing. I think a similar approach is warranted for educators looking to use OER resources. As long as the educator can vet the resource or obtain the OER from a trusted site (like UNESCO's OER Wiki), we should be able to continue providing high quality resources to our students.
ReplyDeleteI also agree with Oksana and Helena's point that wider adoption of OER's would necessitate an increase in overview and peer review of the resources, particularly if they were to replace traditional texts.
Overall, I believe wider adoption of OER use in classrooms is positive, and I hope that teachers take the time to evaluate the source and rigorousness of the resources when choosing them for their classes.
Thanks for your responses!
Miss Kendrick,
ReplyDeleteThank you for your comments. Your observation that OER selection by the teacher may limit a student's independent learning is a concern that I had not thought of and one that is very valid. With traditional instruction materials, students get two points of view, that of the teacher and that of the text. If a teacher were to use OER's exclusively to the elimination of traditional text, the teacher would have to be sure to curate a holistic view of the content and be aware of his or her own biases. I'm not sure this is a realistic expectation for teachers to be able to accomplish in addition to their other responsibilities.
With regards to your question on who should be in charge of reviewing and vetting OER content, my approach would be to have publishers (like those who currently review textbooks) and similar organizations be responsible for the curation of the OER library. I too worry that educational content could easily become politicized if the government was responsible not only for outlining the concepts that need to be taught, but also the content itself. I would hope that officials in the government would have the best interests of students and the educational system in mind, but I think that's not always a given and these decisions probably don't belong in the purview of politicians.
Thanks again!