My A.T. Still University Experience : free culture

Open Educational Resources and Open Learning Management Systems

SteveFoerster — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 20:10:00 GMT

“Alternatively, let this be a call to arms to develop [open educational resources] broad enough and deep enough to make situations like this moot in the future.” — CWE

So for the last few days I've been talking about the present and possible future of Learning Management Systems (LMS), those online classroom systems with which eLearners quickly become very familiar. And before that I touched on the reasons why open educational resources (OER) are useful, not just because people don't have to pay to use them, but because they can be adapted by anyone for any purpose without payment or permission.

The need now is to find better ways to fit all the pieces together. My friend Wayne Mackintosh, the founder of WikiEducator, remarked recently, “Education is an act of sharing knowledge freely. So where are all the free education materials that we can adapt, modify and reuse without restriction? Why has humanity taken so long in achieving a free knowledge base for us to share for the common good of education and society? Why are the majority of our global population under served when it comes to education?”

Fortunately this is happening. For some time now there have been efforts to build free educational resources, but now there is effort not just in developing content, but also in making it easier for fellow educators to use. I think one of the best ways to facilitate this, and it's something we're not doing that well yet, would be to put together packages of free educational content that fit seamlessly into Learning Managment Systems. I'm especially referring to Moodle, as it's the dominant open source LMS.

This isn't an original idea. Pearson, the academic publishing giant, bought an LMS called eCollege, and their strategy for marketing it seems to include making it very easy to drop in pieces of Pearson's vast supply of content. Indeed, many textbook publishers have related content that they make available to instructors who can then drop it effortlessly right into their online courses. In this way they make both their own textbooks and their LMS more attractive, so that the odds improve that either or both of those resources will be adopted.

Those of us producing open educational resources should get better that this. For example, MIT gets a lot of attention for its impressive OpenCourseWare project. It's possible to access materials from nearly two thousand courses on their site. Wow! But it's one thing to make lots of content available, and another to make it easy for others to adapt to specific use. They do tend to make their courses available in a format that's easy to import into an LMS. But just imagine if everyone out there producing free content did the same thing, so that educators who were willing to try Moodle, or to try OERs, would know that each would work well with the other. By packaging that content in such a way, its value would be that much greater, and the appeal of the overall system would be multiplied.

I do realize that there are some who are doing this, like MIT. Sites like MoodleShare offer course archives that can be used as is. But we need more of this — a lot more! The better that content people and delivery people cooperate, the sooner we can fulfill the dream of a complete set of free curricula that can be used the world over.

Next up, is Harvard Extension School really Harvard?

Image courtesy of geishaboy500

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The Truth vs. The Whole Truth

SteveFoerster — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 17:10:00 GMT

“Being convinced one knows the whole story is the surest way to fail.” — Philip Crosby

Usually a news article that presents one in a reasonably good light is a happy occasion. That happened to me today with an article in eCampusNews that includes my experience having earned nearly a year's worth of credit as an undergraduate from the College Level Examination Program, or CLEP, which is a program from the College Board that offers credit by examination.

Before I explain why I'm actually not as happy as one might expect, I should say that the writer of the article, Denny Carter, is faithfully relaying what I told him. He did a great job, and the error here is all mine.

So, what's the problem? Well, the end of the article refers to whether open educational resources can be a good tool for those who are studying independently to prepare for these sorts of credit-bearing examinations. In the article, I'm correctly quoted as saying, "Student may have to go through an awful lot of material to prepare," he said. "I think the tests are better suited for people who already have a broad understanding of the subject.… [Open courseware] isn't perfectly designed for this."

Now, I did say this, and I meant it. The problem is that I missed a chance to follow up and explain that the beauty of open educational resources is not just that they can be downloaded and copied freely, but that they also can be modified by anyone who has an idea on how they might serve a different purpose. Without mentioning how that freedom to adapt open educational resources is such an important part of their value, it's not possible for educators to see how useful they really are.

So, for the record, I also believe that there is enough educational material that has been released openly that it would be possible for people to adapt them into study guides that would be an ideal resource for those reviewing independently for credit by examination programs like CLEP, DSST, Excelsior Challenge Exams, and TECEP, and I'd be excited to find out there's a project out there to do just that.

In the meantime, yes, I know the article's good, but I can't help but feel like I'm having a shot of Fail in my morning coffee for how I could have helped make it better.

Next up, should universities erase Blackboard?

Image courtesy of Hans Gerwitz

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Students Paying The Copyright Tax

SteveFoerster — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 15:30:00 GMT

“Copyright, put simply, is a personal monopoly on an original writing, song, piece of art, or a group of any of those, for 70 years after the death of the creator. If a corporation is the creator, the copyright monopoly lasts for 95 years.” — Public Knowledge

Did you know, long suffering U.S. taxpayer, that you pay twice for federally funded research?

The first time is when you pay taxes. The federal government uses that money to fund various agencies such as the National Institutes for Health, the National Science Foundation, and others. These agencies then have a vast array of grant programs which then go to all sorts of recipients, including universities and specific academic researchers. If you want a sense of how much of your cash is flowing through this federal subsidy for higher education, you can check out Grants.gov, which was helpfully set up to make it easier for universities and others to apply for your money.

Now, let's assume for the sake of argument that this is money well spent. How do you pay the second time? Well, once that research is conducted, the way that professors and other academics make it available is by publishing it in academic journals. Most of these journals are published by big publishing corporations, they're middlemen who stand between people who want to learn and the research they need to do that learning. As a student, some of your tuition goes to pay off these publishers so that you can have access to journals online (or, if you're not an online student, in paper form in the library).

There's a growing movement, called the Open Access movement, that thinks that this is unfair. They figure that since you paid for the research to be conducted in the first place, that you deserve to actually get what you pay for without enriching corporate publishers. They say that taxpayer money for research should come with the condition that whatever comes of that research should be published online where anyone can read it without paying a second time. There's a bill in Congress right now called the Federal Research Public Access Act to make sure this policy is adopted by Uncle Sam.

Sounds pretty straightforward, right? Not so fast. As the saying goes, "Invest in America, Buy a Congressman," and in this instance the bought-and-paid-for legislator is Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), who chairs the powerful House Ways and Means committee. He's shamelessly introduced a bill to ensure that you pay twice, with the upside-down name of the Fair Copyright in Research Works Act.

While that's pretty nauseating, the very name of that bill showcases a more basic problem here than just corrupt legislators: copyright itself. The point of copyright, as stated in the Constitution, is supposed to be "to promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries". But that's unnecessary in this situation, because that progress of science and useful arts is already being promoted by taxpayer-funded grants.

So what's the solution? Well, by definition, anything that's published by the federal government itself is placed in the public domain, meaning that it isn't copyrighted at all. The idea is that taxpayers have paid for it, so it should be completely available to all people. But the principle is the same with this sort of research. So to me, the Open Access people have the right idea, but they don't go far enough. If federal taxpayers are really going to get their money's worth, then not only material that is federally authored should be in the public domain, but material that is produced thanks to taxpayers' funds should be as well: not just open access, not just eventually free to view with certain restrictions, not copyrighted at all, but in the public domain.

Next up, I have an opportunity to do more course design, and I'm pretty excited about it!

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Moving to Free Software

SteveFoerster — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 21:31:00 GMT

“The Linux philosophy is 'Laugh in the face of danger'. Oops. Wrong one. 'Do it yourself'. Yes, that's it.” — Linus Torvalds, creator of Linux

I've been a computer guy for a long time. My Bachelor's degree had a concentration in Information Systems, and it built on a decade of experience in the industry. When I first got into higher education, it wasn't an accident that it was as an educational technologist. Even though my work isn't really technical these days, I'm still a techie at heart.

One of the kinds of IT I've always liked is called "open source" software. When computer programs are open source, it means that anyone can look at the programming code and copy it, change it to make it better, or otherwise not worry about artificial restrictions on it like there are with most software. It's the same philosophy as open educational resources, where materials are free for anyone to use, copy, adapt, translate, or do whatever they wish.

You may have heard of something called "Linux". This is an operating system that is an alternative to Windows or the Mac operating system that anyone can download and use for free. There are lots of programmers who have worked to build this and other open source software applications, and nowadays it's very easy to use Linux, in some cases no more difficult than it is to use Windows. And it has a cute penguin named Tux for a logo, for whatever that's worth.

I've been a Windows user since the early '90s. It was easy to remain as one, since it tends to come preinstalled on any computer I would buy, or would already be installed on any computer that I would get as surplus from somewhere I was working or otherwise. I've occasionally found opportunities to play around with Linux, but I hadn't had the chance to start moving things over in my household until now.

My eldest son has come to live with me, and he'll need to have a computer to use to do his schoolwork. The only computers that are working in the house now are my and my wife's laptops, so we ordered a new, inexpensive computer for my son to use. Having a choice about which operating system would be installed on it, I decided now was the time to start moving the family over to software that costs less, is more secure, and which makes a positive statement about the power of people coming together to create and share powerful tools. I ordered a computer that comes with Ubuntu Linux, a type of Linux that is well supported and easy to use.

So how is it so far? Well, the computer just arrived and after plugging it in and turning it on I'm using it to write these words. I've been checking out the most important web sites to make sure there aren't any unpleasant surprises, but it works fine with both the eLearners.com site and A.T. Still University's online classroom system. One of the things I wanted to know was whether it would be simple enough for the non-technical members of my family to use, and for that I'm calling it a success. My wife and I are both just about ready to replace our aging laptops with new ones, and I think we'll be an all Linux household by the end of the year.

I actually have to disagree with Linus Torvalds, though. There's no need to do everything myself. The computer I bought comes with a year's worth of technical support in case I can't figure something out. With my background I'm pretty sure I'll be fine without it, but it's nice to know it's there. So in a sense, it's more like I'm empowered to laugh in the face of danger after all!

Next up, did I get punk'd by Roxanne Shanté?

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Dr. Roxanne Shanté

SteveFoerster — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 14:48:00 GMT

NOTE: It turns out that the facts in this story are uncertain.

“I don't believe that you actually know what the recording industry does. They don't just burn music to CDs and sell it at a reasonable price. They are purely monopolies that control our entertainment. The RIAA just aids in making it illegal for us to have enjoyment.” — Ray Cowles

As you can see, I'm not a big fan of the Recording Industry Association of America. Their approach of extorting everyone from kids to grandmothers with threats of lawsuits who they suspect of file sharing is repugnant, and the paltry percentages that their members' contracts provide for the artists who sign with them are exploitative.

But no one knows how little the recording industry cares about the artists who enrich it better than Dr. Roxanne Shanté. She was an early hip-hop star, recording best-selling Roxanne's Revenge in 1984 when she was just fifteen years old. Her success was absorbed by others, however. As she explained to the New York Daily News, "Everybody was cheating with the contracts, stealing and telling lies. And to find out that I was just a commodity was heartbreaking."

Truly Roxanne did have her revenge when she realized she could take advantage of a clause in her recording contract that said her label, Warner Music, had to pay for her education for life. While they initially tried to get out of it, eventually they were forced to make good on their promise, and not only did they pay for her tuition for a Bachelor's degree at Marymount Manhattan College, she then stuck them with the $217,000 bill for her to do a PhD in Psychology at Cornell University. Wow.

When I read her story I admit that I wanted to share it in part because she was a rare example of someone who found a way to turn the tables on the recording industry. And I wasn't a fan of hers growing up; I was listening to things like the Police and a-ha and New Age music during the '80s, and later on got into ambient and dub, not hip-hop. But I also think she's inspiring because she's someone who when faced with adversity turned disadvantages into advantages and found ways to realize her dreams. That's a really powerful story, especially for those of us who are trying to find a way to get through school while working and raising a family, and it's a story that deserves to be more widely told.

Next up, I receive a student loan debt survey.

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