[Open-education] Is there still an OER movement?

Fri Aug 22 08:44:41 UTC 2014

Hi Mick,

Great question and ties in nicely with last week's discussion related to 
Wikimania on what fuels the open movement.

So here's a list of OER related groups (taken from the handbook) 
<http://booktype.okfn.org/open-education-handbook/_draft/_v/1.0/groups-of-people-or-individuals-interested-in-oers/>:
OER-Discuss Jisc mailing list, Open Knowledge Foundation Open Education 
Working Group, OER research hub, SCORE fellows, OER Asia, OER Advocacy 
mailing list, OER University, School of Open Google Group, UNESCO OER 
community, Educause Openness Constituent Group, Open Courseware 
Consortium, OER Community at Athabasca University, OER Forum, 
WikiEducator, P2PU Community

There's also a heap of OER event and conferences (the OER14 conference I 
attended this year was great).

However a lot of these are based on funding of some sort, or are related 
to a funding programme. So are they a movement?

One talk I attended at OER14 was about how OER is moving away from 
something academia does to something that is led by practioners. The 
talk was called When two worlds don't collide: the marginalisation of 
open educational practices outside academia 
<http://www.medev.ac.uk/oer14/87/view/> and used the example of OERs 
created about autism by autism experts and doctors (not academics).  
Again maybe this isn't a movement, but it could make for a sustainable 
model.

I suppose there is a question to be asked about whether there needs to 
actually be a movement as such or whether OER work is about something 
more practical - getting appropriate, open licensed resources to those 
who need them. So do we need a community of practice rather than a movement?

Marieke

On 22/08/2014 08:57, Mick FM wrote:
> Hi there,
>
> I emailed Marieke suggesting this as an area for debate and she said go
> for it so here's a starter.
>
> I'm pretty new to the theory in this area so I've tried to think of some
> questions that might spark debate as I'd love to know what people on
> this list think.
>
> In reading around this subject I notice the term "OER movement" a LOT.
> It's quite an evocative term. Maybe it's just to me, but it suggests
> grass roots action, social movements, maybe not people on the street
> but... you get the idea.
>
> Is OER really a movement in the above sense? How do you see it? Is the
> movement moving a bit less nowadays? If so, why?
> What makes it a movement compared to, say, a favoured funding track of
> certain Foundations?
> Are members of the movement moving else? If so, where? To other movements?
> Is there still really an OER movement now that there's less funding out
> there?
>
> yours inquisitively,
> Mick
>
> ps - We've been doing lots of fun things as part of the Duct Tape Uni
> process and we've put photos and reflections up on the project blog here
> - http://blog.ducttapeuni.org/
> _______________________________________________
> open-education mailing list
> open-education at lists.okfn.org
> https://lists.okfn.org/mailman/listinfo/open-education

-- 

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