these infrastructural constraints are removed is of little value to higher educational institutions in the short to medium term.
Thus, the value of OER projects and initiatives should be measured, in practical terms, against the extent to which they advance core educational objectives; and the principles of operation that govern OER communities should be driven by this imperative. Education is a social investment, and should be protected as such if it is truly to fulfil its potential in creating a more equal world. This makes it critical to find practical ways to build business models that will ensure the success of the online educational commons. Critically, we would do well to accept that – until this new model is established – it is likely that we will need to retain open minds and a spirit of compromise in engaging the interests of different parties seeking to open access to educational content.
At its most effective, creating and sharing OER is essentially about working together towards a common cause, whether this be within a single faculty or across a global network. Sharing materials that others can adapt and use recognizes the value inherent in team work and the improvements in thinking that will emerge from such collaboration. Doing this openly, using the already proven innovations of the Internet to facilitate sharing of content, presents a practical way to use cooperation to find simple solutions to pressing problems we face in education. If educators start doing this in large numbers, the values of the systems for which they work will catch up, as all systems ultimately are simply a codification of how people have agreed to work and interact with one another. Consequently, rewards and incentives will shift to reflect appreciation for sharing and communal building at the expense of individualism and unhealthy competition. Conversely, if we wait for systemic policies to change before we start collaborating, then we have only ourselves to blame if the system’s values are never shifted.
As with all such communal processes, the initial results will be messy – and there will be many problems to solve, such as how to create appropriate curriculum frameworks for storing content, and mechanisms to help with assessing quality. But online communities have demonstrated the now indisputable power and value of lots of people working collaboratively towards a common cause. And doing this in education has the potential to re-focus educational systems, restoring the core values of building and sharing knowledge that underpin good education, and systematically encouraging us to work with and learn from one another.
References
- Brafman, O. & Beckstrom, R.A. (2007) The starfish and the spider: The unstoppable power of leaderless organizations. New York: Portfolio
- Commission of the European Communities (2001) The elearning action plan. Designing tomorrow's education. Commission Staff Working Paper, March, Brussels. Accessed January 2011, http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/eeurope/2005/all_about/elearning/index_en.htm
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