This document discusses open educational resources (OER) and open educational practices (OEP) from an educational philosophy perspective. It defines OER and notes that while OER themselves are not aligned with a specific philosophy, the OER movement implies certain values like freedom, inclusivity, and autonomy. Adopting OEP could have significant institutional implications by changing processes like publishing, curriculum design, and staff expectations. Viewing OER through the lens of "Bildung," the German concept of holistic self-cultivation, may help develop a distinctive educational philosophy for the OER movement.

1. OER as Educational Philosophy Rob Farrow18/10/11 The Open University's Institute of Educational Technology

2. Context OLnet / Evidence Hub The OER Turn (Thomas, 2011)http://infteam.jiscinvolve.org/wp/2011/09/16/the-oer-turn/ visible and invisible use (use often not recorded/illegal… Impact) the importance of licensing (nb. metrics) the role of the university (institutional reform/publicity) WSIS OER Debate

3. WSIS OER Debate 12th-24th Octoberhttp://www.wsis-community.org/pg/debates/group:14358/phase/400536/400538

4. Educational Philosophy Normative theory of education Pedagogy, curriculum & learning theory Implicit/explicit metaphysical, epistemological & axiological assumptions Succinctly: what education should be like / how education should be persued

5. Educational Philosophies Perrenialism (Plato, 1911) Behaviourism (Watson, 1913) Progressivism/Pragmatism (Dewey, 1916) Social Development Theory (Vygotsky, 1934) Essentialism (Bagley, 1934) Existentialism (Neill, 1960) Constructivism (Piaget, 1967)

6. Educational Philosophy Basic normative premises about what is good or right Basic factual premises about humanity and the world From 1. & 2., recommendations about the dispositions education should foster Further factual premises about such things as the psychology of learning and methods of teaching Further conclusions about such things as methods used Frankena, Raybeck & Burbules (2002)

7. Questions Does the use of OER imply a particular standpoint in educational philosophy? Which values are implied by the OER approach? What might follow from adopting a pro-OER model of education?

9. ci.olnet.org

10. 12 Key Challenges Who and how to create new appropriate Assessment/Evaluation models and practices for OER? What are the costs and benefits of using OER in teaching? What can be done to improve OER Sustainability? How can we improve the value and impact of OER Research? What Technologies & Infrastructure are needed/in place to help the OER movement? What Institutional Policies are needed/in place to promote OER?

11. 12 Key Challenges What are the best ways to Promote and Advocate educational methods which use OERs? How do we create the right culture of teaching and learning to improve OER Adoption? What evidence is there of Use (and Re-Use) of OER? What are the issues surrounding Copyright and Licensing, and how can they be overcome? How do we ensure OER is of high Quality? How can we improve Access to OER?

12. Advocacy Claims: • Unobstructed licenses expand student access to high-quality, up-to-date, engaging, and customized content more quickly, cost-effectively, and efficiently than today. • Unobstructed licenses unlock educational resources that are developed using taxpayer dollars so they can be shared, customized, and improved, yielding a far greater return on investment to the public. • Open educational resources with unobstructed licenses are the path forward to ensure every student has access to high-quality, engaging, personalized, and up-to-date content. • Ultimately, open educational resources with unobstructed licenses can help transform our schools by producing better equipped teachers, better prepared students, and better education outcomes

13. Context: Summary OER movement remains fragmented and not well documented Lack of clear evidence about the best use of OER Diverse contexts of application Uncertainty about the future There is no single approach to OER, and any philosophical description needs to account for this

14. OER - Definitions OER is a term that was first adopted at UNESCO’s 2002 Forum on the Impact of Open Courseware for Higher Education in Developing Countries

15. OER - Definitions “OER are teaching, learning, and research resources that reside in the public domain or have been released under an intellectual property license that permits their free use or re-purposing by others. Open educational resources include full courses, course materials, modules, textbooks, streaming videos, tests, software, and any other tools, materials, or techniques used to support access to knowledge.” (Atkins, Seely Brown & Hammond, 2007:4)

16. OER - Definitions “Open educational resource, (n). Any artifact that is either (1) licensed under an open copyright license or (2) in the public domain.” (Wiley, 2011b) (1) locates OER within the taxonomy of ‘things-that-can-be-copyrighted’ Ideas, concepts, methods, people, places, events can never be OER (2) suggests that publicity alone can be enough to make an educational resource open

18. Efficacy depends on use

19. These can nonetheless function as regulative ideals (Kant, 1929)

21. Ethics/Values OER makes education more affordable to ‘developing’ countries (Heller et al., 2007; IJsselmuidenet al., 2009) OER & Human Rights/Public Health (Geith & Vignare, 2008) Communities of Practice: sharing resources & expertise (Lee et al., 2008) Continuity with academic tradition (Joyce, 2006)

22. Bildung Roots in the Enlightenment (Self-)cultivation More comprehensive than ‘education’ Unifying selfhood and identity within broader society Less about acquiring specific skills/outcomes; more about developing a wide range of abilities Kritik: challenging the (political) status quo Markus Deimann (OLnet Fellow )

23. OER/Bildung: Tropes Freedom Inclusivity Autonomy Reflection Intersubjectivity Hermeneutics Critical Pedagogy

24. “The priority… is not to establish the case for free and open, but to find the right place for existing institutions and more importantly to help develop the right skills to help humanity progress.” McAndrew (2009)

25. Open Educational Practices? “Open Educational Practices (OEP) are defined as practices which support the production, use and reuse of high quality open educational resources (OER) through institutional policies, which promote innovative pedagogical models, and respect and empower learners as co-producers on their lifelong learning path. OEP address the whole OER governance community: policy makers, managers and administrators of organizations, educational professionals and learners.” ICDE It makes little sense to talk about OER rather than (or independently of) OEP – yet that is how the debate has typically been framed

26. “Open Educational Practices (OEP) are the set of activities and support around the creation, use and repurposing of Open Educational Resources. It also includes the contextual settings within which these practices occur.” Conole (2011)

27. Institutional Implications The copyright status of an educational resource remains abstract… but the adoption of OEPs implies changes throughout the entire educational system Publishing (authorship & review) Tenure Curriculum Design / IP Opening up educational institutions and making knowledge public Implications for expectations made of staff NB. Weller (2011) The Open University's Institute of Educational Technology

28. Institutional Implications “The philosophy of the COSL team is that all resources emitted by eduCommons should be covered by an educational” Creative Commons license... This philosophy suggests that two different digital course resource systems would emerge within a university: one built entirely of creative commons material, and another built within the IP environment of the institution’s digital library/repository allowing access to copyright material only to authenticated members of community.” (Atkins, Seely Brown & Hammond, 2007:12) The Open University's Institute of Educational Technology

29. Institutional Implications OER University #oeru free learning to all students worldwide using OER learning materials courses and programs based solely on OER and open textbooks pathways to gain credible qualifications from recognised education institutions pathways for OER learners to earn formal academic credit administrative: nota formal teaching institution and does not confer degrees or qualifications OAR (Open Assessment Resources) existing assessments neither reusable, revisable, remixable, or redistributable Wiley estimates that 1.5 billion OARs are needed The Open University's Institute of Educational Technology

30. Conclusions Discourse about OERs has reached a point of maturity and needs to be (at least) supplemented with explicit focus on OEPs Focus on OEPs weakens the link between OERs and learning objects OEPs are potentially much further-reaching and more radical than OERs While OERs themselves are not aligned with a specific educational philosophy, there are distinct values associated with the OER movement The Enlightenment concept of education as Bildung may help to flesh out a distinctive educational philosophy pertaining to OERs/OEPs The Open University's Institute of Educational Technology

31. References Atkins, Daniel E., John Seely Brown & Allen L. Hammond (2007). A Review of the Open Educational Resources (OER) Movement: Achievements, Challenges, and New Opportunities. Menlo Park, CA: The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. Bagley, William C. (1934) Education and Emergent Man: A Theory of Education With Particular Application to Public Education in the United States. New York: Nelson. Conole, G. (2011) Defining Open Educational Practices [online]. Available from http://e4innovation.com/?p=373. (Accessed 17th October 2011) Dewey, J. (1916) Democracy and Education: An introduction to the philosophy of education. New York: The Free Press Frankena, William K., Raybeck, Nathan & Burbules, Nicholas (2002). "Philosophy of Education". In Guthrie, James W. (ed). Encyclopedia of Education, 2nd edition. New York, NY: Macmilla Geith C. & Vignare K. (2008) Access to Education with Online Learning and Open Educational Resources: Can they Close the Gap? Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks. 0212:1, 105-126 Hansen , K. H. (2008). Rewriting Bildung for Postmodernity. Curriculum Inquiry 38.1 eller, R., Chongsuvivatwong, V., Hailegeorgios, S., Dada, J., Torun, P., Madhok, R., Sanders, J. (2007) Capacity-building for public health. Bulletin of the World Health Organisation, 85 (12) (Accessed 17th October 2011) Hylén, J. (2006). Open educational resources: Opportunities and challenges. OECD-CERI. Available from http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/1/49/35733548.doc (accessed Jan 2010) ICDE (undated). Definition of Open Educational Practices [online]. (Accessed 17th October 2011) IJsselmuiden, C., Nchinda, T., Duale, S., Tumwesigye, N., Serwadda, D. (2007) Mapping Africa's advanced public health education capacity: the AfriHealth project. Bulletin of the World Health Organisation, 85(12):14-922.

32. References Joyce, A. (2006) OECD study of OER; forum report. International Institute for Educational Planning. Available from http://www.schoolforge.net/IIEP_OECD_OER_forum_report.pdf Lee, M., Albright, S., O’Leary, L., GeronimoTerkla, D, Wilson, N. (2008) Expanding the reach of health sciences education and empowering others: the OpenCourseWare initiative at Tufts University. Medical teacher. Vol. 30, No. 2, Pages 159-163. OLnet. What are the Key Challenges facing Open Education?. OLnet Evidence Hub http://ci.olnet.org/CILite/global.php#challenge-list (Accessed 17th October 2011) Piaget, J. (1967). Logique et Connaissance scientifique, Encyclopédie de la Pléiade. Plato (1911) Phaedo. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Kant, I. (1929) [1781] Critique of Pure Reason. Translated by Norman Kemp Smith. London: Macmillan. Thomas, A. The OER Turn [online]. Available from http://infteam.jiscinvolve.org/wp/2011/09/16/the-oer-turn/ (Accessed 17th October 2011) Watson, J. B. (1913) ‘Psychology As the Behaviorist Views It’. Psychological Review 20, 1913, 158–177. Available from http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Watson/views.htm Weller, M. (2011). The Digital Scholar: How Technology is Transforming Scholarly Practice. Bloomsbury Academic. Wiley, D. (2011a) OER, Toothbrushes and Value [online]. Available from http://opencontent.org/blog/archives/2015. (Accessed 17th October 2011) Wiley, D. (2011b) On OER – Beyond Definitions [online]. Available from http://opencontent.org/blog/archives/1780. (Accessed 17th October 2011)

33. r.j.farrow@open.ac.ukInstitute of Educational TechnologyThe Open UniversityWalton HallMilton KeynesMK7 6AA www.open.ac.uk/iet