Agility

While Agility was originally based in software and application development, it is beginning to find its way out in many different directions including higher education. One of the primary examples has been SUNY Delhi who in applying agility to its IT practices can document $425,000 in cost savings to 30 projects that used an agile methodology--the CIO who designed the system is an ESC graduate student. (Educause 2010). In an Educause statement on agility, they note: “Universities need tools to be able to respond quickly to emerging needs and challenges. In this environment, agile may be precisely the kind of approach that is needed to unlock the solutions that will lead to progress—faster, with more flexibility, with improved collaboration, and at less cost.   One can also argue that the agile ethos is well matched for a world in which change is a constant and the pace of change seems to be accelerating. Agile's principles and processes may well be suited for this era of higher education, in which institutions are being asked to do more, faster, with less.” (2010)

The agile ethos, as the name applies, also places a great value on speed—an ideal which higher education seems averse to.  There is a belief that slow equals quality.[1]

In a similar vein, Anderson, Augustine, Avery, Cockburn, Cohn, DeCarlo, Fitzgerald, Highsmith, Jepsen, Lindstrom, Little, McDonald, Pixton, Smith, and Wysocki (2005) published a text called “The Declaration of Independence” in which they as project leaders claim that agility provided many benefits which could also benefit higher education, and their applications reach to post-secondary as well. They claim that agility leads to a constant stream of value; when too much emphasis is placed on the planning stage, value is lost at that front end. Second, agility delivers reliable results because the customers, in higher education's case, students and other stake-holders, are engaged in frequent interactions. If a new degree program spends two years being planned and approved, delaying the offering, students have no opportunity to have feedback; nor do faculty have the opportunity to better their courses or continue in their own lifelong learning through interaction with their students. Third, those who subscribe to agility expect uncertainty and are prepared to make the necessary changes. As the half-life of knowledge continues to accelerate downward and the world in which our students live continues to change, all programs and courses of study need to be able to evolve. Likewise, we as an institution also exist in a budgetary, regulatory, and economic environment in constant flux. As a result, an institution must be agile not only for itself but to benefit its students. Fourth, Anderson, et al., note: “We unleash creativity and innovation by recognizing that individuals are the ultimate source of value, and creating an environment where they can make a difference.” An agile graduate school supports its faculty in their endeavors and allows them the flexibility to better meet the needs of their students and to develop their own academic careers. Fifth, performance is boosted through group accountability; an agile organization quickly establishes teams and think tanks to complete tasks and to conceive new ones. It shuns committees as committees are designed to maintain a status quo (Clougherty 2007); in a rapidly changing world, status quo and change are no longer binary antitheses; the reply to such a statement need be “which status quo?” Finally, they argue that agility improves effectiveness and reliability. because each action can be adapted to meet specific needs and requires specific strategies and practices; more effective work can be done than an environment that assumes all should be followed equally.

In an environment which is open and agile work environment, all individuals have not only the right it participate, but the responsibility to. Julie Greenwald, Chairwoman and Chief Operating Officer of the Atlantic Records Group noted in an interview with the New York Times: “ I constantly talk about how we have to be vulnerable, and that it's not fair for some people in meetings to just sit or stand along he wall and not participate. If you're not going to participate, then that means you're just sponging off the rest of us” (Bryant 2011).

As an open university is decentralized into what John Kao calls a “decentralized cyber-nervous system” (node theory?) it depends on each node being active and participatory. Like the synapses of the brain, the strength of the brain/network comes not from the connections, but from their use. Thus, active participation of all is required.

This activity, however, must also generate results.  Dave Rodenbaugh (2010) summarizes Daniel Pink’s 2009 TED presentation when he notes that the “results-oriented work environment (ROWE)…focuses on three important ideas, which developers already love and embrace: autonomy, mastery, and purpose.” (apply Wergin)  In defining mastery, Rodenbaugh defines it as where the individual “wants to get better at what they do.”

---

[1] Of course, Sun Tzu, in The Art of War (II.5) notes that “cleverness has never been associated with long delays.” (2003).

Crowd Accelerated Innovation (CAI)

One of the great advantages of open resources and public learning spaces is that it not only serves as an end point, but it also serves as a starting point.  The learning not only builds, but it builds quickly at a pace which accelerates over time.  This fits into a model of Crowd Accelerated Innovation.  Chris Anderson (2011), TED coordinator, introduced the concept of Crowd Accelerated Innovation (innovation which is sped up by community sharing), and notes how the use of internet video leads to an instantaneous sharing of best practice, ranging from dance companies to TED presentations. All innovation, according to Anderson, is the result of ideas being spawned from the ideas of others; he notes: “Crowd Accelerated Innovation isn't new. In one sense, it's the only kind of innovation there's ever been. What is new is that the Internet—and specifically online video—has cranked it up to a spectacular degree” (115).  Anderson argues that there are three factors which effect Crowd Accelerated Innovation: Crowd, Light, and Desire. These same factors, as Anderson defines them, all fit within the model of Active Learning, and they are homologous with the practices of an Open University.

A crowd, according to Anderson is simply a community; in the instance of an Open University, the learners—faculty, students, alumni, partners—form this community. In a broader sense, it is what Wenger, McDermott and Snyder (2002) define as a community of practice: “groups of people who share a concern, a set of problems, or a passion about a topic, and who deepen their knowledge and expertise in this area by interacting on an ongoing basis.[1]”  In short, what every class and learning community should be. 

Light is the visibility of the learning product where innovation can occur. In an Open University (similar to the references of Open Science), the public sharing of knowledge contributes to innovation and the advancement of the knowledge base within public discourse. The use of Open Educational Resources (as most Internet video is) and repositories (where a crowd can contribute) are major factors in light, and this same light, conversely, benefits the Open University as people know to turn to that University as a source of knowledge and innovation. The desire is that of recognition, as with any form of open learning or open source work, an individual seeks the opportunity to put their name forward to the innovation. This is true of any university and its community. The difference with an Open University is that it achieves these goals by being open rather than closed. The key to success of an Open University is participation, and participation is the key to success in an Open University.  The great model of openness has always been the development of Linux—the ultimate model not only of CAI, but of openness, agility, and all of the best practices which an open university seeks to emphasize.  The development of crowds also contributes to the institutions growth and evolution.  As Howard Gardner notes in 5 Minds of the Future (2008), the “wisdom of crowds” becomes a great source of creativity.

The desire is quite simply the motivation for entering a learning environment in the first place.

Crowd sourcing does, undoubtedly threaten the nature of traditional higher education.  As Cathy Davidson (2011) notes: “the fundamental principle of crowd sourcing is that difference and diversity—not expertise and uniformity—solve problems.”  In short, as she notes later in her work: “…the crowd is smarter than any individual.” 

---

[1] For an extended and brilliant discussion and definition of this concept, please see Wenger, McDermott and Snyder, pp.4-5.  While I would certainly hope you would read the entire book, if for some reason you cannot, these two pages are a MUST.

Lifelong Learning

An open university is committed to lifelong learning in every way possible.  While nearly every institution proclaims a commitment to life-long learning, few have developed strategies.  As most institutions focus on providing degrees, the only opportunity for life-long learning is another degree, or in some instances, continuing education courses.  The issues which interfere, however, are governance structures which establish long processes for approval meaning that the most up to date proposal is dated by the time of approval, and as the half-life of knowledge is estimated to be 18 months in some instances (Siemens 2004); therefore, some programs are obsolete before approval.  Harold Williams (2002), president emeritus of the J. Paul Getty Trust, notes not only the dangers of faculty culture and its manifestation in governance, as an obstacle to change and development.  He further notes that he public university needs to “redefine its mission to include opportunities for lifelong learning through non-degree offerings as integral to its programs.”  There are ways in which many campuses try to connect with alumni, but these are few and far between and dealt with more as fund-raising events than lifelong learning.  Some offer continuing education, but not all courses offered through such are relevant to meet needs and some are specious—good continuing education programs built on academic substance are rare.  Some colleges offer incubators, but those are offered usually to increase funds only and not framed as lifelong learning, as either a continuing point or as an entry point.  Finally, the fixation on the academic course, and its termination at the end of a semester, becomes the antithesis of lifelong learning.  The very higher educational structures which claim a commitment to lifelong learning do not allow students to repeat course to update their knowledge; the fact that the student would have to repeat the payment as well, along with the belief that taking the course once is sufficient as the course does not update, all cause an end point.  A more effective strategy in technologically based learning, would be to allow the student to remain inside the course permanently.  That would allow the learner to become a lifelong learner in participating in new threads of discourse, gain updates as the course evolves, and current learners benefit from those who have previously taken the course and are now applying it (hence their reason for revisiting the course).  As opposed to increasing faculty workload, it would actually decrease faculty workload as the continuing participants would not require assessment and would provide facilitator support.  Another effective means of lifelong learning is George Siemens’ conception of the MOOC. 

Diversity

Thorp and Goldstein note: “Addressing complex problems requires diverse points of view, a deep level of practical implementation and openness to fundamental change.”  Open resources contribute to diversity in that they are created in smaller pieces than entire courses and may be compiled in multiple ways allowing an individual to create their own understanding, interpretation, and mediation of ideas.  The creation of diverse ideas is critical, Irish language poet Nuala ni Dhomnaill in the New York Times Book Review argued that linguistic diversity (and its resulting diversity of thought) is as important as bio-diversity (1995).   Similarly, T. S. Eliot argued that the very way in which pieces of knowledge are placed together create entirely different educations.  As he notes in his essay “The Perfect Critic”: “ the true generalization is not something superposed upon an accumulation of perceptions; the perceptions do not, in a really appreciative mind, accumulate as a mass, but form themselves as structure” (Eliot 1920).  

Diversity must be by culture, as culture defines the background an individual learner brings with them that they can apply to the intellectual material.  Diversity must also be by intellectual ideals, philosophies, ideologies, social class, aesthetic taste; in short, the diversity must make the university what it claims to be—a place where ideas can come together freely.  If a university is to teach civil and thoughtful discourse, it must model it.

The organizational architecture of an open university finds ways :to leverage the disparate knowledge assets of people who see the world quite differently and use tools and methods foreign to those we’re familiar with” (Chesbrough).  It is in this way that intellectual diversity is achieved.

Interdisciplinary

An open university is very careful to avoid what Ortega (1930) calls “The Barbarism of ‘Specialisation.’”  While a learner does need depth of learning in their specific discipline, they also need a wide breadth of knowledge, and an open university with its abilities to deliver in multiple modes and variability of faculty in alternative structures, can best deliver such.  Interdisciplinary study does not simply refer to offering general education courses. Interdisciplinary requires modeling interdisciplinary thinking at an institutional level.  It features courses team taught across disciplines as well as programs of study that cross lines and siloes.  This is not only an academic advantage, but in this millennium, a requirement. As John Kao (2007) notes in Innovation Nation, the world today faces “Wicked Problems.”  These are problems which require the thinking and approach of multiple disciplines.  An issue like world population is social, political, scientific, agricultural; in short, virtually every discipline has a place in confronting the challenge.  A student locked into one discipline may not be able to understand the relationships of complex solutions, or be able to participate in their development.  Multiple thinkers cited over the course of this work, ranging from Thorp and Goldstein, Kao and James Duderstadt (2002), all agree that the higher educational institution of this millenium must be interdisciplinary.

Werner Hirsch sees interdisciplinarity as being a key to higher education assuming its appropriate place in the world; however, they will have to take the appropriate actions and make the appropriate cultural modifications to make that happen.  He writes: “Universities will have to perfect new mechanisms, at times even to adjust their structures to become effective participants and even more pivotal key players.  Particularly they must provide incentives to facilitate and nourish creative collaboration in teaching and provide opportunities for cross-fertilization.  At the same time, they must create an understanding among their students of the merits and efficacy of an interdisciplinary education” (Hirsch 2002).  The State University of New York already has this mechanism in the form of Empire State College.  The college facilitates and nourishes creative collaboration in teaching.  The School for Graduate Studies, in its program development has focused specifically on cross fertilization by developing in regions of overlap to build on faculty strength, and then hiring into those cross-fertilized areas allowing a further step in development and evolution to build on those strengths and then to gradually expand and continue into new areas and follow new paths.

The interdisciplinarity which Hirsch addresses ties back to Kao’s ideas on wicked problems and innovation noted at the start of this section; Hirsch writes: “as challenges facing society become increasingly complex, multidimensional, and multi-faceted, education must stimulate horizontal, thematic thinking and exploration.  Emphasis on interdisciplinary curricula and research is thus in order.”  

EdX

Find the largest, most vicious Great White Shark that exists-you can even tell him that I said bad things about his family.  Regardless, I will gladly defend myself against this attack with nothing but my bare hands,…. as long as the encounter happens in a parking lot across the street from the beach. Ridiculous?  Very much so.  The ability of participants in any action should be determined not by their abilities in their indigenous environment, but in the environment of the encounter.

For the past week, my mail box has been filled with messages of concern which include forwarded articles about EdX—the new venture by Harvard and MIT to provide free online courses.  My comments here, however, are about environment , not about specie.  Sharks are beautiful creatures who dominate their indigenous environment.  Harvard and MIT are “beautiful” institutions who dominate their indigenous environment.  They do premier work (at a premier price); however, research institutions are vital to our world and make it possible for the remainder of higher education to be able to perform their missions.  However, the world also needs open institutions, and serving as a dean in an open institution, I welcome this venture and any institutions willing to support the effort to universally provide education.  To those of us working in the openness movement, EdX is not a threat but a resource.

I admire, respect, and appreciate what EdX is trying to do [except rhyming with TedX which feels cheesy].  This venture by two premiere institutions is a validation of the academic legitimacy of open education.  Those who for generations, or so it seems, now base their argument only on the fact that these institutions do not give credit or degrees for the work.   However, it reflects a greater irony—those institutions and individuals who most oppose open education usually cite the model of the research institution as the measure of all legitimacy.  Thus, the sad part is that the opposition by many to open education reflects a lack of confidence in themselves to validate and move into new untried circles of activity and new modalities.  Higher education is, as all of the literature now attests, is in deep trouble—deeper than any of us care to admit—the mold of the 18^th century institution does not work in the 21^st century.  The mold does not need to be modified or patched or shimmed, it needs to be broken, and we need to start from scratch.

Why then are “the masters of the mold” moving into this area?  Despite what some may argue, it does not make sense for these institutions to try to keep others out.  They really do not need to worry about someone competing with someone on their own level.  (They have no worries as it is inconceivable to think of the resources it would take not only to be able to compete with those two institutions but to remain competitive.)  It is more reasonable to assume that their motivation emerges from seeing the problems in the mold as it currently functions, and this action represents their way of contributing to improving higher education.  Harvard’s own Clayton Christensen, in his concept of disruption theory shows that it is the old stalwarts who dominate an industry.  However, these old stalwarts seem to be trying to do so.  Doing so is possible, as the history of IBM will attest to, when an organization is innovative, open and agile—in short, these actions represent the best of what a research institution does.

For those who are within open education and worry about the effect that this will have, you need not worry.  This is where environment comes in.  Other schools cannot compete with those stalwarts as stalwarts, but in the realm of openness, both for the environment as well as the nature of the business (open education and traditional education are as different as water and air), all things are equal and their dominance in the traditional sphere is no longer at play.

If we look at openness and its values, the emergence of EdX benefits on many fronts.  Just as the open movement is trying to unbundle higher ed, separating content from credit moves in that direction.  As open moves in new directions of certification such as badging, the idea of a certificate from these entities supports it.  If we accept that open is about collaboration rather than competition, then all collaborators should be welcome.  It is hard to write about openness (for me anyway) without invoking Sun Microsystem’s  “it’s not the computer; it’s the network.”  Open education is about the network of shared resources and EdX makes a great contribution to that network.  EdX is not a reason to fear but a reason to celebrate.

Welcome EdX, the entire open movement is bettered by your presence.  My only request is that you get a better name. 

   

Entrepreneurial

An entrepreneurial institution is a must.  If we look at the technology industry as a model where rapid shifts are happening, companies are at the top and gone in a matter of a few years.  The same thing is beginning in Higher Education where the rise of for profits willing to deliver in an open means that traditional institutions for the most part resisted, or where existing approval processes caused it to arrive late.  [see OPEN INNOVATION]  The major reason for this was explained by Sir John Daniel during the 2011 Boyer lecture when he noted that disruptive technologies rarely favor existing providers. An open university must be entrepreneurial in that it must remain one step ahead.  To do so, risk must be assumed [see OPEN LEADERSHIP]. 

An Open University must practice entrepreneurial science, which Thorp and Goldstein (2010) define as: “a high impact, problem-based approach to the world's biggest problems that produces measurable results in terms of public benefit.”  Most important about this definition is that it does not apply simply to research, but also includes developing needed programs to produce appropriately trained teachers or Health Care workers to meet emerging needs—especially new programs which can be developed quickly to meet the needs as they develop.

A great deal of this depends on the architecture of an organization.  As Chesbrough notes: “a valuable architecture not only reduces and resolves technical interdependencies, but also creates opportunities for others to contribute their expertise to the system being built.”  An open university must have an architecture which allows it to be entrepreneurial, as well as a leadership comprised of entrepreneurs.  The characteristics of an entrepreneur, according to Thorp and Goldstein, are:

• ·         Willing to live with risk and uncertainty as the world they live in is uncertain;
• ·         Not afraid to fail;
• ·         Willing to venture outside of their comfort zone;
• ·         Are lifelong learners;
• ·         Willing to “make it up as they go along;” and
• ·         Comfortable with ambiguity.

While the future of higher education in general faces the challenge of developing such a leadership, but while traditional higher education is designed to resist ambiguity and change, an open university is designed to embrace and build upon it.  The current Empire State College fits within this framework, in embracing the principles of entrepreneurship.

Innovation

John Kao (2007) notes that every organization which seeks to be innovative has to both define innovation as the organization conceives of it. Likewise, it must also determine where in the organization innovation is placed—there needs to be a specific point which the organization can point to when asked where innovation is.  Higher Education has not only sought the idea of tradition (even where such tradition is a recent phenomenon, tradition makes it an easy way to avoid the challenges of innovation) to protect itself from innovation, its siloed structure makes any innovation created in one part of the institution difficult to spread through the organization.  Undoubtedly, many campuses have developed practices such as teaching and learning centers to help spread practices such as good teaching, these relate to innovations relevant to individuals and not to the organization as a whole.  The advantage of a Graduate School being the center if innovation is that even in traditional institutions, the graduate school is the academic entity which extends across the college in involving faculty from many disciplines, departments, or even locations.

One of the ways in which Kao highlights the ability for an organization to support innovation is through the creation of “skunk works.”  The term itself goes back to a division at Lockheed Martin which was charged with innovation, and was able to do so and do so quickly due to its autonomy and not being required to follow standard processes.  They report in at a high level, but also are required to have a smaller operating division in that the skunk works makes itself more agile by selecting high talent individuals who are committed to their projects and performing the work necessary to get the job done (Lockheed Martin 2011).  In short, all efforts are made to keep the projects agile [see AGILITY]. 

At SUNY—Empire State College, the School for Graduate Studies is the place in the organization where innovation should be highlighted.  The reasons for this are many.  First, as the entity within the college that offers structured degrees, the School can develop curriculum which assures faculty opportunity which, along with the growth enrollments it brings and allows the hiring of a more diverse faculty.  In this way, innovation feeds innovation.  Second, given the fact that GRAD is removed and different from standard ESC practice allows experiments to be conducted outside the standard and traditional practices of the college.  Finally, as students entering the graduate programs tend to be much closer to one another academically than undergraduate programs (mostly because grad as a 9 hour transfer cap and we do not currently offer PLA), we have a base line against which to measure programmatic successes.  More importantly, as there is currently a national discussion going on about the Master's degree and its place in society (as seen in the national push for Professional Science Master's degrees).  Allowing the School for Graduate Studies to serve as the center for innovation for Empire State College allows the graduate school of an open university bring its flexibility to bear and take the lead in this conversation.

Open Source

Much of the thinking about openness emerged from the open source movement in software. Unfortunately, some higher education institutions are afraid of open source software because of support fears and increased personnel quality and hence cost. Fortunately, the practice of using open sources is becoming much more common. There are three advantages to an institution using open source. First is the opportunity to customize in a way that out of the box does not necessarily allow. To have the appropriate support, an IT department not only needs people with specific coding and scripting skills; these people need to be problem solvers—creative and agile. Those same skills can be applied to responding to developing needs to allow a campus to remain cutting edge in meeting learner needs instead of waiting for a software behemoth to release its next version. Second, the open source models the best of education in its sharing. A campus that supports Open Office, now provides the ability to meet a software that does not cost students an excessive amount of money to acquire. Finally, in the challenge of budgets in the present time, the fact that even with the additional personnel costs, open source remains a more viable option financially for campuses.

Open source models the true principles for all we have discussed here in terms of opennenss. If we look at the standard model of the developer and tester, we have a closed model, but in an open source environment where people can contribute as well as receive, we have a bi-directional equal model. The developer and the user are the same person. In open education, the learner and the instructor are the same person. This requires a shift in not only the individual who would traditionally be labeled as the student, but also the individual who would traditionally be labeled as the instructor. While some worry that having infinite contributors can actually lead to duplicity, the opposite is true. As Eric Raymond Stevens (2002) notes about open source: “In practice, the theoretical loss of efficiency due to duplication of work by debuggers almost never seems to be an issue in the Linux world. One effect of a 'release early and often' policy is to minimize such duplication by propagating fed-back fixes quickly.” Compare this to a research world where people hold their data and projects close to their vests. Not only is duplication possible (and if one considers the common nature of the public discourse, likely—how many graduate students have been heard to release blood curdling screams when a new edition of a research journal comes out usurping the argument of their dissertation). If the data were public and open, the development would not only be faster, but the discourse and disciplines in and of themselves would benefit. The fact that such practice does not occur is not a result of ego, it is ingrained in structures. That research is an absolute necessity for tenure, promotion, USNWR rankings, NSF (which would be so much better if they had listened to Vennavar Bush) funding. In other word, the intellectual development machine is hindering intellectual development. Don't throw your hands in the air...pay attention and speak up! The issue is the fear of what about bi-directional relations. What if a 14 year old able to parse data performs an analysis that would get someone tenure in a postsecondary institution? Do we give them tenure (no), or does it mean that the system in not functioning and needs to be reexamined (yes). If the primary driver is replicable by those outside, why would that be the end. Research is a piece of a larger academic puzzle—we cannot reward for a single skill. Imagine if baseball gave awards for the fastest runner. Speed is a great skill in the game, but in and of itself, it is useless if someone does not have the good judgement of when to steal a base or cannot hit to get on base to be able to run. What about research devoid of contributing to the development of the world knowledge base as opposed to one's own ISI score.

Raymond Stevens notes that having more users actually results in better analysis in that you have more people looking at unix with varying interpretations and views—wouldn't it be great if the same were true of research data in higher education research. Wouldn't it also be great if we could do that in teaching as well. Having all learners become instructors would generate volumes, but the speed of development would allow the value of work to be filtered faster, and the quality work to be built upon even faster (see CROWD ACCELERATED INNOVATION).

As Open model does not destroy or mitigate the need for traditional models, whether we’re talking about software development, learning, or university structure—the open university does not make the traditional university redundant; rather it enhances it. Where openness differs, is that it is designed for rapid change and development. Eric Ray Stevens in Cathedral and Bazaard put the comparison best when comparing the cathedral (traditional) vs, bazaar (open) models for development; he argues that it: “resembles the relationship between Newtonian and Einsteinian physics—the older system is still valid at low energies, but if you push mass and velocity high enough you get surprises like nuclear explosion or Linux.”

Open Learning Environments

The Learning Environments must also be open in that it creates additional opportunities. The Open Learning Environment is not the result from an Open University; rather, the creation of open learning environments is becoming more common allowing traditional institutions to become more open and thus more competitive with open institutions. Increasingly, technologies are replacing traditional courses and calling into question the entire business model of higher education. All of this is reflected by Randy Bass, Executive Director of Georgetown University's Center for New Designs in Learning and Scholarship, who cites data from the National Survey of Student Engagement which notes that “much of what students rate as the most valuable part of their learning experience at college these days takes place outside the traditional classroom” (Young 2011).

The movement into openness in Higher Education is not simply an issue of classrooms; it is also a matter of the organizational structure of the organization. Frank Ostroff (1999) notes the danger of vertical organizations which Higher Ed institutions have in fact become. Often, the joining point of the individual colleges occurs at the level of the Provost. As is obvious, this is not simply the teaching aspect, but every functional level of the institution including research. Thorp and Goldstein (2010) advocate for the need for “open architecture,” arguing that in current higher educational research labs, it has led to a more interdisciplinary environment, and researchers have benefitted from the synergy of crossing disciplinary lines. They note that traditional disciplinary structures in higher education are not useful for attacking big problems due to their narrowness of focus [see INNOVATION and INTERDISCIPLINARY].

For an open university making extensive use of distance education (like SUNY—Empire State College), the means of delivery and design of online learning environment are critical. The traditional LMS (Learning Management Systems) and their associated course packs and externally provided content hyper-structure the course, forcing the students out of the environment, and failing to address long term needs and connections [see LIFELONG LEARNING]. David Wiley (2010) makes a clear parallel between LMSs and current online practices as they “take the approach of hiding educational materials behind passwords and regularly deleting all student contributed course content at the end of the term. If Facebook worked like Blackboard, every fifteen weeks it would delete all your friends, delete all your photographs, and unsubscribe you from all your groups. The conceal-restrict-withhold-delete strategy is not an effective way to build a thriving learning community.”

The nature of most LMSs implies that the value of the course is on the content materials with the social networking and assessment emerging from it—it is based on factual knowledge as opposed to skill sets or abilities[1]. The value of a course is not in the content—if it was, students would simply but the text at the beginning of the term and read it—it would be a much better bargain for them and they would still get content. Students pay tuition to interact with a faculty member. They want the best minds in the business to work with them. That is what the course needs to be built around.

MOOCs are a great example of an Open Learning Environment. A participant gets the best of all form a huge “crowd.” Those who want to pursue the assessment and engage in a deeper participation have the ability to—the open learning environment allows each individual to meet their own learning goals.

Open Learning Environments do not occur simply online, but can be developed in physical spaces as well. For that to happen, the classroom (which is itself a negotiable term) is the starting point of learning, not the only place. The walls of a classroom should exist only to keep out inclement weather, they should not be there to keep out other learning, and not just formalized learning. If a student is looking up what’s being discussed on Google that’s great—don’t take away their lap top to listen to you. If they have out their cell phone and texting, they could be fact checking. If they’re chatting with friends, don’t force them to put it away, make the class interesting enough for them to listen to you instead of chatting. We have all sat in committee and other meetings in Higher Education meeting, bored to tears, wondering why we are there, wishing we could be elsewhere. In those instances, it is not because the topic is irrelevant or insignificant, but the nature of discussion or the presentation is framed to exclude our learning and attention styles. If we experience that in our jobs, how do you think that student feels in the classroom. Give them something worth tweeting!

The classroom itself is an endangered idea. In her powerful work Now You See It, Cathy Davidson notes that if Ichabod Crane were to return today, with the exception of the computer in the corner, he would be perfectly at home in our contemporary classrooms (ok, personally, I think he’d have a hard time with the fashion, but that’s another less relevant issue). A classroom does not need to be a lecture hall or room set up with all chairs facing forward (allowing chairs to be arranged to discuss in groups doesn’t quite cut it either). Ask yourself what the focus of the student’s attention is meant to be in that room. Is the room designed so their attention is on a person; is a person the only thing a person can learn from? More importantly, nothing says that the classroom has to be in a campus building modeled on the structure of Bell Labs during World War II. There are many (if not most) coffee shops in the US that are better designed as learning environments than are our classrooms (just as most video games are better designed as learning environments than are our online courses). Students now come equipped with learning devices (the argument that students can’t learn from them comes from people who have yet to learn how to use them themselves[2]) which need to be exploited—we don’t get a donkey to pull a car.

So what does it mean to break down the walls? It is not simply about giving formal homework. Why not inspire students to leave the classroom and learn. Not learning under directions, but discovering what they need to learn and how to learn it. When we’re teaching composition courses, realize that most of the writing and communication that a student will do in their life time will not be based on an assigned topic with a specified mode, but the discovery of the what and the how is as important as the content itself. Creating a formalized assignment robs the student of the opportunity to develop skills in critical parts of what they should be learning as well as reduces their freedom to learn.

This is a call to guerilla teaching! Create learning activities that pervade student’s lives. Think about podcasts that students can listen to in the gym. Think about virtual office hours where students can reach you in your living room and model the ideal that the learning experience should transcend formalized learning time. There are many brilliant and extremely successful means to create learning opportunities. Walls do not frame my life; why should they frame my life as a learner.

---

[1] There is a danger in factual knowledge versus ability. The structural quantitative measure is easier to rationalize and saves us time form explaining; however, does it always measure the true learning outcomes. If we require someone to take a course in ethics, it is (hopefully) our intent that a student learns and applies the principles to their life to make them a more ethical individual. However, it is perfectly possible to be sub par on one’s ethics, never used or plan to use them, and still get a perfect test on an ethics course. We need to look at learning environments to assess beyond the content.

[2] I believe it was Edmund Wilson who said that “those who dislike the classics merely admit their lack of familiarity with the classics.” The parallel of rejecting computers for learning reminds one of Plato’s rejection of writing, or the wonderful scene at the beginning of Victor Hugo’s Hunchback of Notre Dame where it is explained that higher education is being destroyed by printed books.

Open Communication (and Open Governance)

Eric Anctil (2008), quotes the Kellogg Commission on the importance of open communication in the viability of the future of higher education institutions: “Strong institutional identification—reinforced by clear and decisive leadership, effective external relations, and a rich campus community—extends beyond the organization and positively affects larger communities of influence. Further, strong institutional identification extends the organization beyond being a near inscrutable entity governed by its own mysterious sense of self.” (Kellogg Commission on the Future of State and Land-Grant Institutions 1999 p.200). Critical to this openness is a larger two way dialogue with its community. This should reinforce the college’s Academic Plan which in turn should be the essence of what is communicated in the marketing plan (Anctil 2008).

Likewise, the Open University must also have a system of Open Governance—in other words the governance bodies and administration work together in a positive trustful relationship which is aimed towards meeting the goals of the institution and the needs of its learners. Each should work towards establishing systems which are designed to support and further efforts as opposed to approval systems. A body which has only approval function is simply an obstruction. Likewise a system which works inversely from faculty expertise is also destructive. Governance and administration share the responsibility of helping individual faculty to thrive. When systems are designed in opposition and to establish a culture of “checks and balances,” both governance and administration implement and negotiate structures and practices which create obstacles to ‘impede’ the opposition; however, in doing so, they also create obstacles for themselves.

As Ronald Ehrenberg (2000) notes, shared governance as we currently practice it not only slows down the development and evolution of the college (the antithesis of agility), but the delays end up costing the institution revenue. Unfortunately, at the end of the line, it is the students who end up paying in the form of higher tuition. Thus, our practice of shared governance actually hurts students when a system of open governance would actually result in a benefit to students. Imagine a program which requires multiple layers of approval. A faculty design committee works on its own. It then walks it through the process, each body getting larger in scope. Suddenly, it gets to one level where a substantive change needs to be made. As it is substantive, it must now return to the beginning of the process which results in missing the target for a given academic year. A delay which pushes the launching of the program off by a year takes away one year of revenues which the institution could use to relieve budgetary pressures to help keep tuition lower (say nothing of endangering a curriculum and faculty work in making it a year older). As most institutions also use enrollments to determine faculty lines, it actually has the effect of limiting the hiring of new faculty. In an open governance system, each level would contribute to better the program through its specific function (which could be run synchronously). Imagine the same program if there were a development committee which could help shape the curriculum at the starting point; a resource committee which helped to develop the business model for the programs; a staffing committee which could help forecast the needs; etc. Now imagine that these committees were collaborative and respected one another so that they could fit their work together through a design committee as opposed to a development team having to create the entirety and walk it through the process. Rather than a hierarchical cone of approval, where the input voice gets larger, invert the practice to a pyramid where multiple individuals have a voice at the outset with the process getting narrower as it moves forward.

One of the major ways that illustrates this is the processes used on many campuses for new programs. The ideal system would be a pyramid where, as the program moves through the system, the expertise becomes more focused and the group becomes smaller. The mundane and process issues should be handled early on establishing the framework within which the academic system can be developed. In most instances, however, the system is shaped like a cone wherein the idea moves up into areas with less and less knowledge of the academics and discipline, but with more voices and possible sources of objection. Since the system moves away from expertise, it becomes clear that it is strictly an approval, or sometimes territorial, process as opposed to a support process to help the faculty who are developing the program.

There is also a great (and wonderful) opportunity to be had in modifying the shape and nature of the university, and that is in the opportunity to reshape knowledge itself. That reshaping can occur both in the definition and recognition of disciplines as well as in the means of conveyance, method, etc. As Roland Barthes (1986) notes: “the institution directly determines the nature of human knowledge, imposing its mode of division and of classification, just as language, by its ‘obligatory rubrics’ (and not only its exclusions), compels us to think in a certain way.” While we may think there is a certain stability; it can also be assumed that those who held the trivium and quadrivium dear felt the same.

Open Education Week

And now for a break from the rants so far...

On Wednesday, March 7, SUNY--ESC celebrated with an event called O.P.E.N. (OPEN Projects Enriching New york). For this event, we had presenters and physical audiences in Empire State College centers in Manhattan, Saratoga, Syracuse and Buffalo, connected via teleconference. The sessions were streamed online with a Twitter backchannel.

Carla Casilli, the Open Badges Project Lead for the Mozilla Foundation delivered the keynote. Donna Mahar, ESC Teacher Education Faculty member, presented our Virtual Teaching Incubator; Amy McQuigge, Coordinator for Student and Academic Services of the School for Graduate Studies, presented on our Badging initiative as it relates to the Teaching Incubator; and the final presentation was on our Virtual Business Incubator, presented by Dr. Nick Boccolucci, Incubator Coordinator, and Dr. Joseph Angiello, Coordinator of the Community and Economic Development Program.

For those who were not able to attend, a recording is available at either:

http://media-origin.esc.edu/stream/2012/grad_3_7/index.html

or

http://media-origin.esc.edu/stream/2012/grad_3_7/flashdvd.swf

I had the opportunity to present the opening welcome, and in doing so, I came back to the beginning of this blog and began to read and realized how quickly the field of openness, and what we learn from one another moves at hyperbolic speeds.

Open University

Earlier in this essay I referenced Peter Abelard and now I must skirt along the edges of a philosophical argument between nominalism, conceptualism, and realism as they apply to an Open University. The question then is: does the term “open university” represent a singular specific idea? Or does it perhaps exist as a category describable by the sum characteristics of those institutions which identify themselves as such?

I would argue for the latter for a number of reasons. First, part of an Open University is the flexibility and agility to respond quickly to needs. Such an institution cannot be framed in a box—a truly out of the box institution is one free to move, not one which is simply in a different box. Second, just as I argued above for a diversity of intellectual ideas, there must also be a diversity of institutions and institutional cultures. A university should be the sum total of its community, their knowledge, and the ideas they develop. As there are open universities around the world, all serving the nation and culture in which they exist, there must, of course, be differences.

Universities were founded as scholars did not wish to be autonomous business units—and they were business units charging fees to learners. They retained their idea of being autonomous intellectual and academic units while the institution administered the finance, logistics, etc. The scholar was then free to focus specifically on their scholarship. In a networked world that is no longer true; there are multiple business models available for learning as a business—for profit universities represent only the tip of the ice-berg of what is possible. Just as Sun Microsystems once said that the value is not in the computer but in the network, the same is true of faculty today. The strength is in shared resources and their network. It is only by developing these value propositions that an institution can remain financially viable. The challenge in Higher Education has been to determine what business we are in, and how do we effectively perform in that area (Clougherty 2008).

When those early universities were first founded, as with today’s MBA programs that scholars in some disciplines turn their noses up at, the original idea of the humanities was as professional training—one needed to take minor orders to secure work as a clerk. In short, for a well-paying job, that degree was essential. Just as universities themselves have wandered away from Abelard's original definition and conception, we have lost sight of the professional need universities were ultimately designed to fulfill. In the United States the origin of the R-1 (a.k.a., “Land Grant” universities) comes from the Morrill Act which in itself focused on professional degrees. According to the specification of the act, each state should found “at least one college where the leading object shall be, without excluding other scientific and classical studies and including military tactics, to teach such branches of learning as are related to agriculture and the mechanic arts, in such manner as the legislatures of the States may respectively prescribe, in order to promote the liberal and practical education of the industrial classes in the several pursuits and professions in life” (7 U.S.C. § 304). Ironically, state universities were founded as institutions designed to teach in practical arts. They have, however, morphed into institutions committed to research. That is not bad, quite the contrary, the benefits are innumerable. It does, however, leave vacant the mission for which these institutions were first designed to fulfill. For that reason the graduate school of an Open University, in fulfilling professional needs as a teaching institution, not only fulfills the need, but frees up other institutions (and in a system like SUNY, the other institutions within the system) to fulfill that vital and critical research agenda. Terry Anderson (2010) said it best when he wrote: “Organizational structures should help us to surf ‘at the edge of chaos,’ not function to eliminate or constrain the creative potential of actors engaged at this juncture.” I am not meaning to imply that an open university does not perform research—quite the contrary; however, it involves different forms of research (such as action research) and methodologies (such as the authoring of case studies).

Likewise, moving beyond the graduate level research role into the graduate level teaching responsibilities, the open university differs from the traditional in the types of degrees it offers as well as the nature of its capstone projects. In terms of the nature of degrees, the graduate school of a traditional institution focuses on first graduate degrees for individuals looking to pursue strongly disciplinary careers at the entry point of a first career—as such it is responsible for providing many basic academic, life/maturity skills, etc. The graduate school of an open university, on the other hand focuses on second degrees—those that are achieved after one has entered into a career—this degree can be used either for advancement within the existing career, broadening of an existing career, or for career change. In each instance, the graduate school of an open university designs programs with this realization. That means that all programs assume that an individual comes equipped with basic skill sets as well as specific professional experience outside of a strictly academic environment which can be applied to an academic setting.

There are examples of each at SUNY--Empire State College. The MBA program is designed for individuals looking for professional advancement. One of the entry requirements/ recommendations, is that students arrive with 3-5 years of management experience (the reality, however, appears to be that the average student arrives with 8-10 years of experience). The students are expected to bring their experience and share it with their fellow students. The graduate experience becomes one where an individual’s experience becomes transformed by learning about what they have learned and learned how to take that experience and knowledge to the next level. In the field of degrees to broaden a career, our Policy programs often bring in students involved in specific areas of social issues who seek to expand their skill set into policy implementation. In this case, as opposed to managing a program, they can now take new policy—be it new requirements or legislation or grant criteria—and be able to apply that in their work environment. In that way, their comprehension has not taken them deeper into what they do, but has expanded what they can do within that field-in this instance for individuals who have be trained in other fields who need this realm of their professional career developed. Finally, our MAT program is designed for career changers who it is assumed have a given specialization (in this instance their content field) and as a cohort, they need to develop a secondary skill set—in this instance, teaching skills at a level sufficient to become certified teachers. Each of our new degrees and certificates falls into one of these areas.

In the capstone of a graduate degree from an open university, as the degrees are professionally focused, the research based thesis does not bring the appropriate experience, both as the research focus is outside the dimension of the professional degree. Second, the nature of such, as they are currently practiced, is based upon values of an open university discussed above (see OPEN EDUCATIONAL RESCOURCES, OPEN ASSETS, and OPEN SCIENCE). Likewise, in an open university, the assessment criteria and expectations must be clear to the student at entry—i.e, to borrow a phrase from Barbara Lovitts (2007), on capstone experiences, graduate schools, in approaching capstone experiences, need to “make the implicit explicit.”[1]

The capstone for graduate degrees in an open university can fuse with the commitment to Open Educational Resources as the capstone should meet the criteria of Open Educational Resources, Open Assets, and Open Science. While this is theoretical in that the author knows of no institution currently practicing such in a graduate education, the capstone experience could involve a three step process: to embody open science, the development and study notes (while research fits best here, it is being avoided to minimize confusion) could be posted in a blog or wiki; the professional experience would be posted as a case study for study by others and, therefore, an open educational resources; finally, the student could write a reflection of the experience of developing the project which could become an open asset. In short, the advancement of the graduate school as reflected in its repository of open materials would be enhanced by its student, and true to the practice of adult learning, learners become participants in a learning community and are able to learn from one another.

While some may believe that the distance nature of an open university somehow compromises it, when, in fact, it simply makes it more agile and able to evolve and change more quickly. As Porter, Blythe, Grabill, and Miles (2000) note, universities are “rhetorically constructed human designs (whose power is reinforced by buildings laws, traditions, and knowledge-making practices) and so are changeable.” An open university recognizes itself for what it is—a discourse community focused on learning—it does not hide its identity in the structure of buildings—which, as noted, are there to reinforce power as opposed to serving as part of the discourse, and the use of open learning, they alter the knowledge-making practices.

While a graduate school in an open university not only can be, but must be, selective, the current wall of in and out is both artificial and unethical. Because someone is not fully admitted to the degree and assessment process (or chooses not to be because they have other needs) does not mean that they should be fully shut out from a university and its benefits; as Wenger, McDermott, and Snyder (2002) note: “Rather than force participation, successful communities ‘build benches’ for those on the sidelines.” Everyone should have access to the content and knowledge generated by the university. In a not-so-modest proposal, I would argue that given the multiple functions of a university (content creation and delivery, communication and interaction, assessment, and certification), that individuals should be able to register and participate at the level of their needs.

Perhaps more importantly, the larger role which students are allowed, and the more they are treated as valuable resources, the more they will respond by becoming valuable resources. (This runs parallel to testers in a Linux environment who serve the dual role of tester and developer ((Eric Ray Stevens Cathedral and Bazaar)).)

---

[1] While Lovitts' book focuses specifically on dissertations, the same critique and actions must be applied to the traditional research based thesis.

Open Science

Before we get to the conclusions, the results, the statements, there is the data. Open science refers to the public sharing of data. This also requires a new approach to existing structures. As long as reward structures create advantages

OER, OA, and Open Science all fall into the larger category of Open Publication. Henry Chesbrough notes the advantage when he writes: “Open publication promotes the vigorous exchange of ideas and creates a powerful stimulus to apply the ideas before someone else applies them instead.” Applying this to an educational environment, open publication should increase the speed at which ideas develop in the public discourse as well as lead to application in the form of course development (see CROWD ACCELERATED INNOVATION). When new ideas develop and new disciplines and topics evolve, those institutions able to apply this work fastest will be at advantage.

This concept is similar to the same one which Vannevar Bush proposed for American science following World War II (as well as a new information architecture which inevitably manifested itself as hypertext). Once this hit the political process, however, science went from cooperative to competitive, and peer review went from being supportive and growth fostering to be controlling and evaluative. An open university fosters a sense of support and shared information to benefit all.

In Open Publication in general, the new possibilities are significant with current technologies, and it behooves open universities to model this practice. Hirsch (1982) notes that the new possibilities include not only across departments, but across campuses, geography and even sectors as data and information are shared readily between higher education and industry, government, etc. Perhaps the greatest example of this is Google co-founder Sergei Brinn’s research project focused on Parkinson’s disease (Goetz 2010). This project has made data available and increased the size of available subject pools to create possibilities for research and discovery previously unknown. Such a practice should be a norm rather than an exception. These are also all examples of crowd sourcing where individuals come together to solve a common problem or to fill a common need (with Linux being another clear example).

Open Educational Resources and Open Assets

The nature of information[1] has changed. Historically, it has been based on ownership; the evolving concepts of copyright and intellectual property and the like reflect this. However, it is no longer the information itself that is important but what you do with it. This ranges from the song writer who uses a sampling, to the mash up, to the use of freely available data[2]. Since the value is in the use, the protecting of information as a product and end point, as opposed to a process or foundation of thought, is a misdirection.[3] Therefore, openness is the key as it the multiple contributions of open learning can become publicly accessible.[4]

Thus, beyond Open Learning, the development and use of Open Educational Resources (OER) and Open Assets (OA) define the Open University. The movement toward OER has been motivated by a number of factors (with perhaps the largest issue being that of textbook prices and the increasing expense of higher education) culminating in the commitment expressed by the Obama administration and reflected in the recent Trade Adjustment Act. There are a number of approaches and strategies through which OER and OA can be developed. The core act of any college is to create open courseware as has occurred at many institutions with MIT often held up as the major and first such program. This availability of courseware is primarily faculty driven, as opposed to community developed materials. A successful OER repository should be a “two-way” library. Community members should be able to upload, as well as download, materials. On many campuses, the best study guides are authored by students and not by faculty. [see OPENNESS above] These materials can easily be evaluated by peer review. These repositories could/would then be publicly available.

This is one of the unique and important roles of a graduate school in an open university. In this transition, it is the role of the graduate school—its faculty as well as its students—to create freely available materials for graduate school preparation. The School for Graduate Studies at SUNY Empire State College has already begun, but still needs further development in the creation of, in its online orientation—we must remain focused on that charge and mission. Hal Plotkin (2011) noted in his keynote at the Connexions Conference that through individualized and contextualized learning, we must exceed traditional education by getting more people on the pathway. In particular, people need access to basic and remedial education. As a graduate school in an Open University our responsibility is not, and cannot be the universal acceptance of all applicants. Our responsibility, however, is to provide the opportunities for applicants who pursue a self-education preparation path the opportunity to make themselves ready for graduate school. In addition, those students who come with wonderful and unique insights and experiences who now must be rejected because of a lack of basic skills now have an alternative path to prepare to enter. By providing this pathway we fulfill our mission in creating opportunity and reify our strength by creating more diversity by creating new opportunities. Additionally, such materials benefit those students in an Open University at the undergraduate level who wish to pursue graduate study who will now be able to view the materials, see what the expectations are for entry, and work to develop their own undergraduate learning to better prepare themselves. While a great deal of focus in the Open Educational Resource movement has focused on materials which allow 'self-education' through the general education requirements through the community college level of study, the materials must also be created to assist the transition from the bachelors into post-graduate study. It has been historically assumed that the Bachelor's degree is sufficient preparation for post-graduate study. The variety of backgrounds brought to the table of post graduate success indicates that such measures are not always accurate.

A great deal of concern has been placed on associate and bachelor's degree completion. The U.S. Census Bureau's (2009) 2005-2009 data indicates that 10.1% of the over 25 population possesses a Master's degree or higher. The advancing economy, however, shows the importance of graduate education and its demand. The Council for Graduate Studies noted that: “In the last year alone, enrollment at graduate schools nationally increased 4.7 percent, with applications to grad schools rising even more quickly, at 8.3 percent” (Barker 2010). As this demand increases, a greater number of students require preparation for graduate school—both the skill sets as well as practices for success. The Graduate School of an Open University should be publicly creating and making available these resources for any and all students—not simply for students of that university. An open university has a greater mission that serves a population beyond itself.

This does not, however, mean that the Open University ignores its own students or their needs and opportunities. Rather, the OER serve as a demonstration of the intellectual resources of the open university's faculty, students, alumni and partners' work as it is all available, open, and visible. It is also a public statement to those who would potentially like to join and/or participate in those associations. In short, the OER is perhaps an effective marketing tool, in that the Open University can demonstrate what it truly has to offer.

The repository creates a metaphorical signifier of what the university is about—this is a near miraculous feat in that it overcomes the great marketing challenge with institutions of Higher Education face. As Eric Anctil (2008) notes: “Much of what is 'for sale' in higher education are the intangibles such as learning and lived experiences. It is impossible to show a prospective student what a college education is, so colleges and universities often show the evidence of what a college education experience will look like” (6). Advertising today focuses on photos of students enjoying life, photos of expectations such as lectures, etc. Anything referring to the quality of education must be made as a marketing claim. In the days of web marketing, this is counter-productive. Jakob Nielsen (2007), notes that when one uses “marketese” (which he defines as “promotional writing style with boastful subjective claims”) rather than objective language, usability scores fall 27%. Thus as traditional institutions are placed in a peculiar position: they can make claims of the best education, and decrease the reaction by 27%, or they can state objective facts such as the number of volumes in the library, faculty to student ratio, which give no real clear basis for students to assess the type of education which they will receive. This dilemma is what has lead to the popularity of U.S. News and World Report ratings; it creates the illusion of an endorsement by an outside entity. With such an endorsement, the campus is not involved in marketese claims. It also serves as an endorsement from an entity commonly available to the larger market—as opposed to accrediting agencies which to the student shopping for a first degree have no meaning. For a campus which puts forth a repository, there is a clear demonstration of faculty work, student work, available learning resources, in short, the academic soul of the campus. The college has nothing to hide. [see MARKETING below]

Open Assets are similar; however, they extend beyond courseware and include faculty work and publications. Increasing numbers of faculty are beginning to publish using social media. The trends are indeed changing—not only in the way that scholars use social media for research, but are increasingly turning to social media and new forms of publication to put their work forward (Howard 2011; Parry 2011). Organizations such as IEEE are placing peer review on the front end of the creation of OER and OA to allow these into the process of tenure and promotion. Some scholars have even begun publishing their own journals for minimal cost. The price of academic journals, like their textbook counter-parts, are forcing the issue and becoming the strongest argument for OA, especially as increasing budget cuts make journals more difficult for campuses to afford.

Success here also depends on the use of common platforms and standards. The materials must not only be available, but it must be available in a framework which is freely available, such as XML. The content itself also should be made available under a Creative Commons license. In this way content can be remixed and can be restructured to meet the needs of learners as well as teachers. The materials should also be available in forms such as pdf and EPUB and others so they are also not hardware dependent. This would also allow collaboration. A model of such is that of Connexions (Connexions 2011). The old models of Intellectual Property are not relevant, nor are they helpful in an environment designed for the learner.

Through open resources, assets and science, the open university contributes and participate sin what Clay Shirky (2008) calls the Global Talent Pool. An open conversation and resources increase the value wherein public sharing increases the quality and the sustainability of the project with Linux being a primary example. [add Cathedral and the Bazaar notes—see Nook]

On the converse side, an open university inherits five major responsibilities in regard to open content. First, it has to overcome old paradigms—it needs not only to accept open resources toward tenure and promotion but encourage it. One strategy to do this would be to institute a set of front end peer review for faculty assets. Second, it inherits the responsibility of enduring quality. In this role faculty become editors and reviewers as much as authors. The difference between this and current models is that it is done in service to the university and learners as opposed to the private interest a prestigious journal which prices itself out of reach of some libraries and restricts access so that libraries cannot open their resources to all learners. Third there is the responsibility of managing content—this includes establishing systems for peer review and rating as well as tagging (and in many instances establishing the appropriate rubrics for tagging). Fourth, there is the interacting with the content in bringing it into the learning environment, and finally for areas of need, there is the building of content in areas of need.

---

[1] In this text, I am defining information as all humanly created objects whose function is representational as opposed to objective. In keeping with Peirce, this depends upon the interpretant.

[2] It amazes me that groups like the RIAA insist on fighting every re-use of their work. If Dante were alive and still held “copyright” could you imagine him suing T.S.Eliot and preventing publication of The Wasteland? I believe that the world and our culture are better places for Eliot’s work. In the same way, I wonder what cultural contributions the world is missing a greed and profit overrule cultural development.

[3] At some point, I have to restate the fact that I am not using a common bibliographic format, or even a consisten one for three reasons. First, it illustrates the absurdity of a system which values the product of the edition over the thoughts of the author (see the dates of Heraclitus). Second, I refuse to participate in a system which seeks to validate traditional ownership models—I am certainly willing to give credit to authors, they deserve it, but I will not concede to present structures. Finally, I don’t feel like it, and since this is my text, I get to choose. Welcome to the world of open!

[4] Made you look! I know there are some who are complaining that my foot notes are rants instead of academic citations. See the previous footnote. Let me emphasize: so what?