Hi David, I "share" your sentiments :-)
For me, the differentiating feature of OER and the free culture movement is the fact that it is driven by the core value of sharing -- the act of doing something for the benefit of another. It's an act of humanity. Nellie likes to sign her emails with the simple but profound message: "Sharing is caring". Thankfully this transcends culture, economic models, instructional design paradigm etc. That's why I love the OER movement -- it's so well aligned with the core the reason for teaching -- i.e. sharing knowledge for the benefit of our learners ;-). To personifying OER, I would think that open content wants to be free. At least from the rationale of the economic supply-demand rhetoric is doesn't matter whether OER artefacts where supply driven or in response to some demand. OER is essentially free to move across these boundaries. What troubles me is how the world has been regulating ownership of ideas -- and very often this is a supply driven rationale. Not rocket science, regulate and limit supply -- you've got a good chance of increasing the price. OER is changing this landscape for the better :-) In the digital world with a licensing culture of granting permissions (as opposed to restrictions), no longer will the distributors of knowledge regulate supply. Now the rightful owners -- the creators of educational artefacts are regaining their freedom. Hypothetically -- I wonder what the ratio of closed to open resources are in the world? Given the total population of digital artefacts used to support teaching and learning -- I wonder what percentage are free? My gut feel is that this is in the minority and collectively the free culture has a mammoth task ahead of us -- fortunately we have tremendous leverage. We don't need every educator in the world to subscribe to the notion of sharing :-). Imagine if one percent of the educators around the world were to dedicate their "production" of educational resources to OER -- how long would it take to have free digital teaching materials in support of all national curricula in the world? With a little more sharing, I think we have a fighting chance in getting this right by 2015. When that happens we can then focus on the really important stuff like learning. Great discussion. Cheers Wayne On 31 March 2010 05:46, David Wiley <[email protected]> wrote: > Discussions of "demand-side" issues in OER have been around for > several years and continue to fascinate me. I hope no one takes my > remarks as a personal criticism, because they are not directed toward > any particular person. > > To my mind, OER is primarily about sharing. We all hope that the OER > we share will actually be useful to others. However, there's something > that strikes me as odd in thinking about one user's "demand" that > another user "share" something. This starts to sound like entitlement > thinking to me. > > Personally, I think the most productive version of the demand-side OER > conversation is the one that makes clear what kinds of resources are > in demand. An empirically validated "wish list" - sort of like a > wedding gift registry. Then people who are in a position to share OER > can look at the list and see if there's something they can contribute > that would be useful. If not, they may still choose to contribute > something "unneeded," and we should still be grateful for their > generosity. > > This is indeed a very interesting conversation that I'm sure we will > continue to have... > > David > > On Tue, Mar 30, 2010 at 10:12 AM, jkelly952 <[email protected]> > wrote: > > The following link will help in answering some of your questions: > > > > > http://www.oerafrica.org/acemaths/ACEMathsMaterials/ACEMathsUnitSix/tabid/268/Default.aspx > > > > Jim Kelly > > Pittsburg, CA > > > > > > On Mar 29, 9:52 pm, valerie <[email protected]> wrote: > >> Is there a way to work from the demand side? Are there unmet needs > >> that collaborative OERs can address most quickly and effectively? > >> > >> Who will use OERs? What topics are most needed? Can we find some > >> specific end users of the collaboratively built OERs? Are there some > >> important courses topics without course materials? > >> > >> Who wants to collaborate? What is your subject expertise? > >> > >> I wonder if any of the 1000s of instructors teaching the top 50 > >> enrolled courses are the ones who need OERs most? Are they the most > >> likely to use and benefit from these collaborations? > >> > >> Just asking... > > > > -- > > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google > > Groups "WikiEducator" group. > > To visit wikieducator: http://www.wikieducator.org > > To visit the discussion forum: > http://groups.google.com/group/wikieducator > > To post to this group, send email to [email protected] > > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > > [email protected] > > > > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to wikieducator+ > unsubscribegooglegroups.com or reply to this email with the words "REMOVE > ME" as the subject. > > > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google > Groups "WikiEducator" group. > To visit wikieducator: http://www.wikieducator.org > To visit the discussion forum: http://groups.google.com/group/wikieducator > To post to this group, send email to [email protected] > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > [email protected] > > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to wikieducator+ > unsubscribegooglegroups.com or reply to this email with the words "REMOVE > ME" as the subject. > -- Wayne Mackintosh, Ph.D. Director, International Centre for Open Education, Otago Polytechnic, New Zealand. Board of Directors, OER Foundation. Founder and Community Council Member, Wikieducator, www.wikieducator.org Mobile +64 21 2436 380 User Page: http://wikieducator.org/User:Mackiwg Skype: WGMNZ1 Twitter: OERFoundation, Mackiwg -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "WikiEducator" group. To visit wikieducator: http://www.wikieducator.org To visit the discussion forum: http://groups.google.com/group/wikieducator To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to wikieducator+unsubscribegooglegroups.com or reply to this email with the words "REMOVE ME" as the subject.
