When reading literature proposal this week in the course Introduction to Open Education, and seeing the parallels that are set with free software, I remembered that some years ago, when I first heard talk of free software, I had many doubts.
Eduard I explained the philosophy of the project. He was very clear that knowledge should be shared and that we should make the necessary efforts to make it so. I am encouraged to install on my desktop Mozilla Firefox, Open Office, GIMP, ...
Juanjo told us that there was an emerging business. A product of free access to attracts an sector young and idealistic . In fact, he established his own successful business.
Jordi, however, was one of those talented young people attracted to the change. A graduate in Computer Science, he designed projects exclusively with free software. Among them, an educational project based on Ubuntu, we share and which is licensed under Creative Commons.
Her work is unpaid because they are not confident that a free program could be efficient. But it worked perfectly and in the end, he was hired.
The same can be said of the OER. Sustainability is not dependent on the ability to obtain financing for the project. The sustainability depends on the use they make of them the teachers and the ability to generate confidence in end users.
The globalization has taught us that the knowlege is not vertical. Is the user who decides. In education, users are teachers and students.
The users we can be convinced that what we buy with money is better than we get for free.
The institutions are afraid of losing customers. However, educational resources, alone, can not compete with the knowledge and the experience accumulated by the teacher (professional of the education). Therefore, using the OER's also possible to maintain the prestige.
In traditional education, the transfer of information among students is a daily occurs. However, only a small proportion of teachers often share knowledge on a subject with their colleagues.
The knowledge of the teacher is published in journals that have previously validated the texts, proving its quality and personal prestige.
New Concept
The Web 2.0 offers a new way of understanding things. Åre no longer looking for the author, but the content. Increasingly, you get a reputation for publishing open.
The change is evolving as rapidly as technology. Therefore, in a short time, I think that any of the funding models proposed by Downes and Dholakai may be valid.
To accelerate this change is necessary to promote awareness, more build networks of exchange, more tools to facilitate their development, quality assurance and unify criteria authorship.
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Resources
- Advancing Sustainability of Open Educational Resources (Koohang and Harman)
- On the Sustainability of Open Educational Resource Initiatives in Higher Education) (David Wiley)
- Models for Sustainable Open Educational Resources (Stephen Downes)
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