[Open-education] Friday Chat: The differences between open (as in access) or open (as in participatory & contribution)

Fri May 30 09:00:09 UTC 2014

not sure if the Heartbleed bug is such a good example: yes - few people
participate, but code to secure websites is not the same as educational
content. What if there is a mistake in an online course, in a textbook?
That's normal, in online, open, closed learning environments or wherever.
Even in accredited learning environments you might give the impression that
everything is true and perfect, which IMHO will dumb people down (at least
make them less skeptic). Learning to create, assess, and share knowledge
wisely is more important than making every single resource bug-free. Do we
want to support learners with failsafe learning environments or faultless
resources, or with the skills necessary to find the right ones, to assess
or improve on them?

--
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// +31651855220 // Amsterdam, Delft

On Mon, May 26, 2014 at 3:47 PM, Pat Lockley <patrick.lockley at googlemail.com
> wrote:

> I think Heartbleed is a great example of open and it's failings, and one
> of the things open was supposed to prevent - many eyes and so on. Any look
> at a github contributors graph shows that the majority of the work is done
> by the few.
>
> I worry if we talk access, then the few doing the work already become even
> more burdened.
>
> I think the lacks of tools in OER is a real problem. Access is great, but
> then what? I don't think we've solved creation yet, but it's old ground and
> no one likes old ground and trying again.
>
>
> On Fri, May 23, 2014 at 4:31 PM, Danielle Paradis <dani.paradis2 at gmail.com
> > wrote:
>
>> As Pat has pointed out, there are many (7 in fact) definitions of what
>> constitutes open educational resources. There's also open-source,
>> open-access, and I'm probably missing another one. I think the conceptual
>> idea of open is a big-tent. It really has to be when there are things like
>> MOOCs, open textbooks, and repositories of OER distributed all over the
>> web.
>>
>> Marieke really touched on something when she mentioned that there are
>> questions about the focus on being able to access resources rather than
>> contribute to them. In my experience people tend to fall into one category
>> or the other. While working on my thesis I found a few people who were
>> creating the resources and a few people who were using them. There didn't
>> seem to be a lot of cross-over, but there was a few instances. I believe
>> the tendency to participate in the creation of OER probably has to do with
>> familiarity about what they are. It's easy enough to find a free textbook
>> online and think 'cool, I will use this'. It takes a little more time to
>> understand the licensing, the repositories, and pedagogy that surround the
>> concept of open education. Perhaps then as the open education movement
>> matures we will see more people occupying a dual role of consumer and
>> developer of OER.
>>
>> This reminds me a bit of the Heartbleed bug
>> <http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/19/technology/heartbleed-highlights-a-contradiction-in-the-web.html?_r=0>
>> which occurred because everyone was using OpenSSL code, but no one was
>> checking the work. That is, I believe, a cautionary tale for OER.
>>
>> Great topic though!
>>
>> Danielle
>>
>>
>> On Fri, May 23, 2014 at 5:24 AM, Pat Lockley <
>> patrick.lockley at googlemail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> I've mumbled about this before re open access as a geography (
>>> http://www.slideshare.net/Pgogy/open-as-in-oer-and-open-as-in-mooc).
>>> The analogy I use is in the UK we have footpaths, which the public are
>>> allowed to walk on - even if say they cut across your land. Whereas in the
>>> US you might have a national park, which is open but you have to get to it.
>>>
>>> Footpaths aren't big, parks are. Footpaths tend be nearer, parks tend to
>>> be further away.
>>>
>>> I think shifting the burden of accessing openness onto developers is
>>> problematic for two reasons
>>>
>>> 1) How could they know what to do? Are we talking a Berners-Lee like
>>> star system?
>>> 2) How could taking things to people not seem a bit Victorian Empire
>>> Missionary?
>>>
>>> I would say developing an accessible first (akin to mobile first) style
>>> of openness makes sense. So make transcripts available for MP3s as an
>>> example, but again, are we having better forms of open? And can we do this
>>> and not put people off being bad open?
>>>
>>> So you can be open, but at a point of moving your openness onto people,
>>> do you close things down? Or does it look a little spam like?
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Fri, May 23, 2014 at 11:15 AM, Marieke Guy <marieke.guy at okfn.org>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>>  Hi Everyone,
>>>>
>>>> Sorry we missed our Friday chat last week - this was due to the Making
>>>> it Matter workshop (lots of good discussions
>>>> <http://linkedup-project.eu/2014/05/21/what-we-learnt-at-making-it-matter/>
>>>> there though!)
>>>>
>>>> So on the open design list there was an interesting conversation
>>>> <https://lists.okfn.org/pipermail/opendesign/2014-May/000390.html>
>>>> about the differences between open (as in access) or open (as in
>>>> participatory & contribution)? They were trying to decide which is the most
>>>> important and if we have, in the past, focused too much on access?
>>>>
>>>> I was wondering how this ties in with open education. Are conversations
>>>> too centered on resources and fail to consider whether people can actually
>>>> participate. So here a couple of things come to mind:
>>>>
>>>>    - Being where people are at - do we often trying to force people to
>>>>    come to 'a place' rather than going to where they are?
>>>>    - Language - we continue to use a lot of jargon
>>>>    - Is open education elitist? e.g. material OER is WEIRD (Western,
>>>>    Educated, Rich, Democratic), much activity relies on infrastructure,
>>>>    learning & teaching practice approaches are often tied to cultures.
>>>>
>>>> Just a few thoughts.
>>>>
>>>> Marieke
>>>>  If you have an idea for a Friday chat add it to the etherpad
>>>> <http://new.okfnpad.org/p/Open_Education_Working_Friday_Chats>.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> **
>>>>
>>>> Marieke Guy
>>>> LinkedUp <http://linkedup-project.eu/> Project Community Coordinator |
>>>> skype: mariekeguy | tel: 44 (0) 1285 885681 | @mariekeguy
>>>> <http://twitter.com/mariekeguy>
>>>> The Open Knowledge <http://okfn.org/>
>>>> *Empowering through Open Knowledge*
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>>>>
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>>>>
>>>
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>>
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