The OpenLearn website ( http://openlearn.open.ac.uk ) makes some materials from current and previous courses available for free. Should the OU make all its material freely available in this way?
It should in the future when it is easier (and probably more useful) to do so because of the way the materials are designed and cleared. But if they all go up the delivery mechanism to the user has to be simplified. The university also has to monetize the non-copyable/ non digital aspects of its work more effectively through making this knowledge freely available to the masses.
Nice idea in a perfect world, but the OU makes money out of selling materials and is going to need all the income it can get from alternative sources. OU materials are pretty common in other universities' libraries - would they still be there if available online?
If we are serious about OpenLearn then this would be the logical thing to do - at the moment there is a danger that folk think what we are really doing is using OpenLearn as a marketting device. Of course if we were providing electronic versions of all our course content on OpenLearn that would not prevent us from selling 'hard copies', support, access to focussed expertly moderated discussions, assessment, consultancy services, etc.. So maybe the best advert for our courses would be to provide all the content electronically for free ...
At the moment OpenLearn is not very good with the highly interactive materials that we produce for some courses, such as language courses (and I suspect things like maths too). It is not a platform that does justice to the quality of some of our materials, so even for "marketing" it is not necessarily a great tool...
Well I am biased working on OpenLearn but i do think choosing to release materials wholesale would open up opportunities and new ways to work with people. I agree that we would need to improve publishing and delivery through OpenLearn but as a position to take it could be liberating and could generate income through offering alternative ways to become an OU member as well as lead to drawing people into learning in more formal ways.
I think making all materials available as open content would be a step too far - but certainly all level 1 and 2. My caveat would be that the website should be made more user friendly - some aspectrs of it are rather clunkly.
1 year ago
Teach online to compete, British universities told
Anthea Lipsett Tuesday May 13, 2008 EducationGuardian.co.uk
"Universities should make their course materials freely available online, according to a paper for the latest edition of ppr, the publication of influential thinktank the Institute for Public Policy Research." http://education.guardian.co.uk/higher/news/story/0,,2279637,00.html?gusrc=rss&feed=technologyfull
The paper in question is this one: http://docs.google.com/View?docid=dcz4t3dt_83cx9hq3c7 "Open Source and the Benefits of Education" by Leo Max Pollak
How about at least making course materials available to Alumni through Open Learn. If they retained their OUCU or OU Open ID wouldn't this be a good way to ensure they still have access to online course materials after their course has finished? Many students complain about the lack off access at the end of the course, especially given that if they had done an offline/blended course they'd have books to keep.
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