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

[leutha at fabiant.eu]

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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