Putting the “Public”

Back in Public Higher

Education

Robin DeRosa

@actualhamChair, Interdisciplinary Studies

Plymouth State University

CCBYSAND tim_d https://flic.kr/p/eJFr8

What is “Public” Education?

At one NH state university, only 9% of revenues come from the state

So really,

what does it mean to be a public college?

Here is the beginning of my answer to that question.

New Flows Emerge In Private Colleges

corporate driven competencies

alternative: can the public pay itself for what it needs?

CCBYNCSA Matt Shiffler https://flic.kr/p/o3zqtS

Public Colleges Turn to Private

Enterprise

will these partnerships save public universities?

(Editorial Guess: No.)

CCBYNCSA Chris https://flic.kr/p/2jJZ2

Bottom Line

I am not a dean.

I am not an economist.

…so what can I contribute to the effort to revision and strengthen public

higher ed?

CCBYNC Bernard Horowitz https://flic.kr/p/frKz

##grateful

I am a teacher and a scholar.

• I teach courses and work with students.

• I do research and serve my profession.

What does it mean to

do this publicly?

OOpen Education

• Open Educational Resources (OER)

• Open Pedagogy

• Open Access to research

• Student textbooks cost about $1,200 per year.

• That’s equal to 12% of tuition at my university.

• Students worry more about paying for books than they worry about paying for college.

• Textbook costs have risen 812% since 1978.

Image: CCBY Georgie Pauwels https://flic.kr/p/igHaNo

Effects of Textbook Prices

• 60% of students report not purchasing a required textbook because of cost, and 23% regularly go without books due to cost

• 50% of students report taking fewer courses due to textbook costs

• 14% have dropped a course and 10% have withdrawn from a course due to textbook costs

2012 Survey of 22,000 students, Florida Virtual Campus, comprised of the

12 universities and 28 colleges in the Florida state system.

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The Open Anthology of Earlier American Literature

Justin

EasilyAnnoyedBlog

“When you’re blogging, you’re not just writing for your teacher. If you have

an open blog online, you’re writing for an

audience. It really got me started in terms of my

own writing.”

The ePort: portfolio/portal

• Student-owned (motivation & accountability)

• Student-designed (personalization & creativity)

• Student-built (media literacy)

• Tied to learner, not to courses (lifelong learning)

Alexander Boudreau: Creative Arts Promotion

Tim Walsh:

Sport Perfomance

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CCSA Brian https://flic.kr/p/kKJWY

Open Pedagogy

• Community and collaboration over content.

• Connects the university with the wider public.

• Treats education as a learner-developed process.

CONTENT as Dynamic

“The amount of knowledge in the world has doubled in the past 10 years and is [now] doubling every 18 months…To combat the shrinking half-life of knowledge, organizations have been forced to develop new methods of deploying instruction.”

~Cathy Gonzalez

www.learningsolutionsmag.com/articles/1692/decrease-in-knowledge-shelf-life-makes-performance-support-mandatoryCCBY Kevin Dooley flic.kr/p/5ttM97

No Gates

No Hoops

No End

CCBY Marcin Wichery https://flic.kr/p/95nwnt

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OER Open Pedagogy Open Access

Now what does this

mean for us as SCHOLARS?

CC BY Cable Green: http://www.slideshare.net/cgreen

What Will the Digital Age Enable?

Technology allows for efficient worldwide dissemination of research and scholarship. But closed distribution models can get in the way. Open access helps to fulfill the promise of the digital age.

~Jennifer Jenkins, Duke University

Drawing: CC BY SA http://fav.me/d54zn82

We Can Do It!

“We can be confident that OA journals are economically sustainable because the true costs of peer review, manuscript preparation, and OA dissemination are considerably lower than the prices we currently pay for subscription-based journals. There's more than enough money already committed to the journal-support system. Moreover, as OA spreads, libraries will realize large savings from the conversion, cancellation, or demise of non-OA journals.”

~Peter Suber

CC BY 3.0 US: http://legacy.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/overview.htm

Think about how we can:

• increase access to public higher education (OER)

• engage learners with the world beyond the classroom

(OpenPed)• Maximize our impact as a

scholars (OA)

This is the case forpublic education.

This work is licensed under aCreative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

To get started, follow:

@actualham#oer, #digped, #oa,

#USNHshare