[Open-education] [Fwd: Re: Friday chat: Do open educational resources have to be available online?]

[Jacky Hood]

Open Educational Resources do not even have to be DIGITAL, let alone
online. Public domain novels, poetry, photographs, and vidos are wonderful
OER. Modern creators can open license their artwork, film photographs and
videos, and hand-written or manually-typed materials. These can be
reproduced using photocopier techniques. Even some sculptures can be
reproduced using molds.

Even those materials that are digital need not be online; they can be used
on paper or on devices not connected to the Internet. Two studies (PIRGS
and PEARSON) show that students prefer bound textbooks 3 to 1 over
digital. If open textbooks are to compete with commercial textbooks, they
must be available as bound paper boooks.

If we define online as "on the Internet" then we are overlooking other
technologies to share resources: radio, television, telephone, and text.

MOOCS were not invented just a few years ago. Much earlier MOOCS were
correspondence courses invented by, among others, Briton Isaac Pitman in
1840. American university level distance education began in 1874 at
Illinois Wesleyan University where bachelor and graduate degrees could be
obtained in absentia. Educational radio began in 1920 and educational
television mid-century.

Regards,
Jacky Hood
Alliances Director
Open Doors Group


--------------------------- Original Message ----------------------------
Subject: Re: [Open-education] Friday chat: Do open educational resources
have to be available online?
From:    "leutha at fabiant.eu" <leutha at fabiant.eu>
Date:    Fri, June 27, 2014 11:22 am
To:      "open-education at lists.okfn.org" <open-education at lists.okfn.org>
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

There is no reason to see online as part of the definition.

On reflection I discovered my introduction to Open Education Resources was
when
I was 11.

My school venerated William Hunter in terms of the Open Bible
<https://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/User:Leutha/How_Open_is_Open/Open_Book#Presentation>
!

I am not a Christian, but have seen this in terms of the ability tfor the
learner to make their own interpretation of the learning materials.

all the best

Fabian



> On 27 June 2014 at 18:05 Venkataraman Balaji <vbalaji at col.org> wrote:
>
>
>  I have not come across any definition of OER that makes “online” a
necessary
> condition. There is a need to encourage OER producers to offer an offline
> version wherever feasible. Khan Academy is exemplary in this regard. At
least
> two different groupings of Wikipedia (in English) are available for schools
> offline and I found that they are highly valued in schools in relatively
> remote locations (for example, in the islands of Fiji or in Vanuatu).
>
>
>
>  I have also noted a robust reluctance in the mainstream IT community
> (corporates as well as most academic researchers ) to work in anything
offline
> because today’s big profits in IT are available in Internet technologies.
> There is no reason why a MOOC cannot be partly offline. In fact, processes
> like examinations-for-certificates are increasingly “offlined” if
they were to
> have value to future or current employers (an example:
> https://onlinecourses.nptel.ac.in/explorer   ). Similar to the examination,
> part of an online course can be delivered offline. Back in ‘90s, a lot of
> emailing in India used to be part offline: people composed email in a
> stand-alone computer and bicycled to an Internet café from where it was
> emailed and mail was also received. As recently as 2007, a small campus
of an
> international Ag research center in Niger enabled staff to compose email on
> the LAN (Yes, there was a mail server, which was not connected to
Internet).
> Twice daily someone carried a CD to the only city nearby to up/download
> messages. Users certainly thought that it was not a bad thing.
>
>
>
>  In my understanding, there is a hidden assumption that unless one has the
> level of IT infrastructure fairly comparable with what one obtains in a
> mid-level OECD country, many of the online processes would not be
viable. This
> is not valid. It is also important to note that, in “emerging
economies”,
> Internet access from mobile devices is fast outstripping access from
laptops
> and PC’s- a fact reported in the famous Meeker’s report (KPCB) on
Internet
> Trends even in 2013.
>
>
>
>  Balaji
>
>
>
>  From: open-education [mailto:open-education-bounces at lists.okfn.org] On
Behalf
> Of Marieke Guy
>  Sent: Friday, June 27, 2014 7:00 AM
>  To: open-education at lists.okfn.org
>  Subject: [GRAYMAIL] [Open-education] Friday chat: Do open educational
> resources have to be available online?
>
>
>
>  The ALT MOOC SIG conference has been taking place today and I noticed the
> following tweet from Pat Lockley (not his words).
>
>  "Taking a MOOC to a developing country is the modern 'coals to
Newcastle'?"
>
>  The tweet refers to the waste of time involved in taking an online
course to
> where there aren't computers or broadband. This obvious issue also came
up at
> the recent Making it Matter workshop
> <http://linkedup-project.eu/making-it-matter-workshop/> :
>
>  "Poor infrastructure (energy, ICT, etc.) means that education can
rarely be
> carried out solely online. We need to stop making technology and device
> assumptions and ensure adaptability of resources and data."
>
>  So do open educational resources have to be available online? CC give
details
> on how to apply licenses offline
> <http://wiki.creativecommons.org/Frequently_Asked_Questions#How_do_I_apply_a_Creative_Commons_license_to_my_material.3F>
> - but what are the implications of having open resources that are solely
> offline? Are there initiatives working in this area?
>
>  Any thoughts?!
>
>  Marieke
>
>  --
>
>  Marieke Guy
>  LinkedUp <http://linkedup-project.eu/> Project Community Coordinator |
skype:
> mariekeguy | tel: 44 (0) 1285 885681 | @mariekeguy
> <http://twitter.com/mariekeguy>
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>



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