OER ACHIEVEMENTS, CHALLENGES, AND NEW OPPORTUNITIES
Figure 9—Boundaries between social and technical work can be shifted in either direction.
According to their model in creating the OPLI, the key question is not whether this is a "social" problem or a "technical" one. The question is whether we choose, for any given problem, a social or a technical solution—or some combination. It is the distribution of solutions that is the object of study. An everyday example comes from the problem of e-mail security. How do I distribute my trust? I can delegate it to my machine and use pretty good encryption for all my e-mail messages. Or I can work socially and organizationally to make certain that sysops, the government, and others who might have access to my e-mail internalize a value of my right to privacy. Or I can change my own beliefs about the need for privacy—arguably a necessity with the new infrastructure. A thorough discussion of the Star and Ruhleder model is beyond the scope of this report. The key points here are:
- perhaps without thinking about it in these terms, Hewlett has in fact been nurturing the creation of infrastructure in the OER initiative; and
- there is a substantial body of literature, experience, and academic expertise that could assist is creating a principled approach to the OPLI initiative.
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