In a word, No. OERs, as the content-centric part of a philosophy which is demanding more transparency of ALL our institutions. has about the same chance as all the other "opens" = edu, gov, networks, software, science, etc.
Taken separately, as they all are, they are isolated parts of a lovely idea. E.g. The OER concept couldn't exist if its individual projects weren't funded by some government or philanthropic organisation. So we know, as the GNP of most nations reduces, so will the funding for its well-intentioned participants' projects. The reasons for this are quite clear. OERs is simply about producing content and reducing its production, aggregation and distribution. So it misses the primary point (leaving out most ideas about an aethestic education. i.e. education for its own sake). It doesn't focus on the jobs for which an education is required. So the accountants can keep playing with their stimulus plans (as they do). But if you want a picture of economic growth over the past 4 years, this one addresses reality. http://www.zerohedge.com/news/guest-post-chart-tears-apart-stimulus-package As for the picture on the other side of the Atlantic; as you know, it's much worse, especially if you're under 30 (with a degree or two or three). And that doesn't take into account the (30%) reduction in teaching wages and pensions in countries like Spain, Portugal, and Greece, or municipal bankruptcies in the US. So in light of much hard evidence, and the length of time OER projects have been running, I think WE can conclude that our institutional habits and dreams about making content freely available have become, and are becoming, increasingly irrelevant to economic growth. It seems to me, as I haven't the well-developed belief system of people of people in the political/education system, that the drivers to economic growth are provided by reasons like this. http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/07/03/us-europe-economics-teaching-idUSBRE86207O20120703 Mind you, I treat ALL media (like the links above) as an OER. It's just the stuff which comes out of edu/research institutions which i find largely irrelevant, because it always relates to a National public employee's institution and not my (their?) Global private communities. Thankfully, they DO seem to be starting to coincide. N.B. Institutions DO matter. Just not the ones we've got today. http://www.cairn.info/article.php?ID_ARTICLE=JIE_009_0003 regards, si On Saturday, 7 July 2012 02:38:59 UTC+7, Cable Green wrote: > > Follow up article to the 2012 Paris OER > Declaration<http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/33089> > ... > > *Guardian: Are OERs the key to global economic growth?* > > > http://www.guardian.co.uk/higher-education-network/blog/2012/jul/04/open-educational-resources-and-economic-growth > Cable > > > > Cable Green, PhD > Director of Global Learning > Creative Commons > http://creativecommons.org/education > http://twitter.com/cgreen > > -- 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]
