open education: from projects to policy, eden webinar 2016

Open education at the macro level: how could policy help?ALAN TAITPROFESSOR EMERITUS OF DISTANCE EDUCATION AND DEVELOPMENTTHE OPEN UNIVERSITY UK

alan.tait@open.ac.uk

Open Education

2Open Education and Open Practices

OEP From projects to policy to embedding of sustainable practices Open publishing: articles, journals and books Open text books Open Educational Resources MOOCs Digital revolution is enabler and driver for change Anti-commoditisation: from commodities to commons

Open Education

3Open publishing: articles, journals and booksFrom projects to collaboration and policy

Institutional and Research Council policy now in place e.g. gold and green routes

Open Archives: collaboration drives policy Open Access Journals funded by universities and Professional Associations Much more than projects

Open Education

4Open text books

British Columbia Provincially funded post secondary open text books

See https://open.bccampus.ca

More than project

Open Education

5Open Educational Resources

Many! Open Learn has 5m visitors per year OER University But innovative projects with rhetoric run ahead of outcomes Policy not yet embedding innovation or lower cost opportunity

Open Education

6MOOCs

35m users world-wide Major insertional policy and commitment Digital innovation feeding back on to campus Many unanswered questions: quality; student persistence;

business model; futures MOOCs have demonstrated enormous demand

Open Education

7Anti-commoditisation

from educational commodities to commons Scandal of publically funded research outputs being paid for

again by public through expensive journals Cost of higher education in North America and England Openness and access inherent in potential of web revolution

Open Education

8From projects to policy: commodity or commons?

Projects vulnerable to short-term financing and exhaustion Policy drives and confirms sustainability UNESCO open education policy is helpful but can be ignored EU ‘Policy recommendations for Opening Up Education’ Some important institutional policies But policy with funding at national levels lacking Risk of exhaustion by innovators and ‘next new thing’ by philanthropic

Foundations Battle for outcome of digital revolution in education: commodities or

commons? alan.tait@open.ac.uk