Richard Baraniuk Rice University
Houston, Texas, USA
Open Education
A Modern Approach to Teaching and Learning
vibrantinteractivecommunityconnectedinnovativeup-to-dateefficienteffective
create
share
usefreely
re-useopenly
create
share
usefreely
re-useopenly
vibrantinteractivecommunityconnectedinnovativeup-to-dateefficienteffective
create
share
usefreely
re-useopenly
vibrantinteractivecommunityconnectedinnovativeup-to-dateefficienteffective
create share
use re-usefreely openly
why?
today’s textbooks/courses lock up educational ideas – closed formats– closed copyrights
create
share
usefreely
re-useopenly
vibrantinteractivecommunityconnectedinnovativeup-to-dateefficienteffective
open education
open education ecosystem
authoring
editing
quality control
publishing
distribution
feedbackpeersuserslearning
enabler 1: technology
Web/XML
common framework for sharing
Internet
virtually free distribution
virtually infinite, permanent storage
enabler 2: new IP
intellectual propertyand copyright
make content safe to share
common legal vocabulary
inspiration: open-source software (Linux)
Connexions (cnx.org)
Usage per month:1 million unique users45 million hitsfrom 190 countries
founded 9½ years agonon-profit open education platform
500 open textbooks/courses10,000 Lego modules
from contributors worldwide in many languages
free on-linelow-cost in print
Community College Open Textbook Project80+ CC’s in USA and Canada
developing a suite of free open textbooks
Government of Vietnamdeveloping new curriculum at 40 universities
Siyavula / Shuttleworth Foundationcomplete K-12 curriculum for South Africa
IEEEeducational outreach in electrical engineering
some Connexions partners
shutouts
Catherine Schmidt-Jones
private music teacher, USA
music theory textbooks12 million uses to date
Sunil Kumar Singh engineer and parent, India
physics textbook2 million uses to date
open education opportunities
open accessfree on-linelow-cost in printnever out-of-print high-qualitycontinuously updatedtranslateddemocratic
Q: is OE financially sustainable?
Q: is the status quo sustainable?
textbook prices have risen 4x faster than inflation for well over a decade
publishers are pricing themselves out of the market
sustainability
Q: is OE financially sustainable?
A: OE (can be) compatible with for-profit publishing
enables commercial entities to add value to OERs andsustain the community
sustainability
recommendations
OER mandate– public access to publicly funded education– stop buying and start developing– open up current and future government-sponsored
educational materials
adopt truly open intellectual property– not all open licenses are as “open”– CC-By and Public Domain licenses are open to
both public and private industry
learn from others’ successes and failures– Netherlands, Vietnam, Brazil, USA + several States