This document discusses 7 arguments in favor of open educational resources (OER). It argues that (1) education is fundamentally about sharing knowledge, which OER allows on an unprecedented scale; (2) publicly funded educational resources should be accessible to the public; (3) studies show OER do not negatively impact sales and may increase them; (4) OER can lower costs for students while maintaining quality; (5) OER allow for continuous improvement of content using analytics; (6) content is a critical educational infrastructure that OER can help improve; and (7) we have an ethical responsibility to maximize our positive impact through open sharing of educational resources.

1. Why OER? David Wiley Instructional Psychology & Technology Brigham Young University

2. Why OER? 1. Education is Sharing (the technical argument) 2. Buy One, Get One (the political argument) 3. The Paradox of Free (the financial argument, part 1)

3. Why OER? 4. The $5 Textbook (the financial argument, part 2) 5. Continuous Improvement (the quality argument) 6. Content is Infrastructure (the innovation argument)

4. Why OER? 7. Do the Right Thing (the moral argument)

5. 1. Education Is Sharing the technical argument

6. Teachers Share With Students Knowledge and skills Feedback and criticism Encouragement

7. Students Share With Teachers Questions Assignments Tests

8. If There Is No Sharing There is no education

9. Successful Educators Share most compeltely with the most students

10. Knowledge is Magical Can be given without being given away

11. Physical Expressions Are Not To give a book you must give it away

12. Expressions Are Different To give a book you must give it away

13. When Expressions Are Digital They also become magical

15. E.g., Online Book We can all read simultaneously

16. An Indescribable Advance The first time in human history

17. Both Knowledge and Expressions Can be given without giving away

18. Unprecedented Capacity We can share as never before

19. Unprecedented Capacity We can educate as never before

20. What Does “Share” Mean? Online it means copy and distribute

22. Copy by print on demand - $4.90

25. Educational Sharing Also means adapting or editing

26. Sense-making, Meaning-making Connecting to prior knowledge Relating to past experience (In an appropriate language)

27. Digital Makes Editing “Free” Editing a printed book or magazine is difficult and expensive

28. Free Copy, Distribute, Edit We can share as never before

29. Free Copy, Distribute, Edit We can educate as never before

30. Except We Can’t © forbids copying, distributing, and editing

31. © Cancels the Possibilities Of digital media and the internet

32. InternetEnables CopyrightForbids What to do?

34. Use copyright to enforce sharing

35. The 4Rs Reuse – copy verbatim Redistribute – share with others Revise – adapt and edit Remix – combine with others

37. Over 400 Million Items Using CC licenses at end of 2010

38. The “Open” in OER Free permission to do the 4Rs

39. InternetEnables OER Allows Sharing and educating at unprecedented scale

40. 2. Buy One, Get One the political argument

42. “Buy One, Get One” Pizza in Ohio

43. Who Pays for Research? Understanding relative contributions

44. Public Investment in Research $105,385 to $119,913 per article (U.S. NIH-funded research)

45. Publisher Investment in Research $2750 per article, including administrative and all other costs

46. Does This Make Sense? Publishers make 2% of the investment, then take © and charge you for access

47. Public (Who Paid) Has No Access I thought I bought a pizza?!?

48. If You Buy One, You Should Get One All taxpayer-funded educational resources should be OER

49. U. S. Department of Labor $2 Billion for curriculum for high-demand two year programs

50. 3. The Paradox of Free the financial argument

51. Do OER Hurt Sales? Won’t people stop paying for the course materials or books if they’re free?

52. Publications Hilton, J. & Wiley, D. (in press). Free E-Books and Print Sales. Journal of Electronic Publishing. Hilton, J. & Wiley, D. (in press). Open access textbooks and financial sustainability: A case study on flat world knowledge. International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning. Johansen, J. & Wiley, D. (2011). A sustainable model for opencourseware development. Educational Technology Research & Development. Hilton, J. & Wiley, D. (2010). A sustainable future for open textbooks? The Flat World Knowledge story. First Monday, 15(8). Hilton, J. & Wiley, D. (2010). Free: Why authors are giving books away on the Internet. Tech Trends, 54(2). Hilton, J., Wiley, D. (2010). The short-term influence of free digital versions of books on print sales. Journal of Electronic Publishing, 13(1) http://davidwiley.org/

53. Findings Over 2% of people who access open online courses become paying customers Downloads of free online books correlate strongly with sales of print books A for-profit business can be financially successful using CC licenses on its textbooks

54. 4. The $5 Textbook the financial argument, part 2

56. Postsecondary Students Pay $35 instead of $150 - $200 per book 115,000 students have saved $20M

58. High School Science Classes Teachers adapted CK12 books for print or digital use

59. http://opencontent.org/calculator

60. A Chemistry Book for $4.86 Lean, focused textbooks

61. 1200 Students in 2010-2011 3500 students in 2011-2012

62. Pedagogy and OER Highlighting, annotating, taking notes

63. Impact on Learning? Data coming in two weeks!

64. 5. Continuous Improvement the quality argument

66. Each and EveryClick and View Recorded and stored for analysis and quality improvement

67. Analytics Almost every industry (1) gathers and (2) uses data more effectively than we do

68. If Only We Could Get Data! We could do analyses (aka research) too

71. What Kind of Data? Assessment data Non-assessment behavioral data

72. Assessment Data Difficulty estimatesDiscrimination estimatesPer-standard expertise estimatesAnd “grades,” of course

73. Behavioral Data When they logged in, read, and worked How long they logged in, read, and worked Pathway informationSocial network analysis

74. What If You Could Know Which students need the most help? Specifically what those students need help on? The least effective parts of you curriculum? Which parts of your tests are malfunctioning?

75. Teaching as Science Possible with data, tools, and commitment

76. Learning Analytics Can tell us who and what needs help

77. It’s Useless Knowing what needs fixed, when you don’t have permission to fix it

78. Openness Gives us permission to make changes and improvements

79. It’s Useless Having permission to fix things, when you don’t know where to start

80. Openness + Analytics Tells you what to fix and allows you to fix it! Enables Continuous Quality Improvement

82. TheLoop Curriculum Redesign Data Describing Curriculum Performance Data Supporting Strategic Tutoring Curriculum Use Student Performance Data

83. 6. Content is Infrastructure the innovation argument

84. What is Infrastructure? Electric grid, telecom, roads, airports, water, sewer, etc.

85. What is Infrastructure? “The physical components of interrelated systems providing commodities and services essential to enable, sustain, or enhance” societies or enterprises.

86. To Speed Innovation Increase quality and decrease cost of infrastructure

87. Content is Critical An important part of every educational institution’s infrastructure

88. To Speed Education Innovation Increase quality and decrease cost of content infrastructure

90. University of the People

92. OER University

93. Mozilla Badge Lab

94. Mozilla Badge Lab

95. 7. Do the Right Thing the moral argument

97. Consider Our Responsibility What kind of ethical or moral responsibility do we have? Who are you accountable to?

98. Our Potential Is Limitless The good we can do is constrained only by our creativity and commitment

99. Why OER? To be helpful

100. Thank You david.wiley@byu.edu @opencontent http://davidwiley.org/