Canada ’s Contribution to the Commons: Creating a Culture of Open Education

[McKiernan, Gerard [LIB]]

*** Spoiler Alert > Possible Duplicate Posting ***

Colleagues/

Thanks to Garrett Eastman, Director of Libraries, Becker College, for the HeadsUp !

/Gerry

Key Players and Recommendations

Administration

University and College Administrators can reduce costs and improve the quality of learning with Open  Education. They can promote Open Education by:

  *   Providing education sessions around  the benefits of Open Education institutional leaders;
  *   Adopting Open Source Learning  Management Systems;
  *   Incentivizing the creation of OER  and Open Access publications and provide IT support to allow easy sharing  and distribution;
  *   Exploring alternative business models for Open Education practices; and
  *   Establishing forums for national and  international discussions on open education to create and support platforms for the sharing, distribution and quality;
  *   Publishing research in Open Access  journals; and
  *   Working with professional associations to establish quality control mechanisms.

Faculty

Open Educational content empowers teaching faculty to reclaim ownership over learning materials and improve  their teaching methods through sharing,  collaboration, and critique. Faculty can contribute to Open Education by:

  *   Exploring open access alternative to commercial learning materials;
  *   Collaborating to create OER with other instructors;
  *   Publishing open access textbooks;
  *   Publishing research in Open Access journals; and
  *   Working with professional associations to establish quality control mechanisms.

Students

Students benefit from Open Education through reduced cost of learning materials, improved quality of education, and in some cases more interactive classroom experiences Students can promote Open Education alternatives through:

  *   Expressing concerns to teaching  faculty about the cost of commercial  materials and a preference for OER options when the quality is comparable;
  *   Encouraging the university administration to take the steps noted above;
  *   Advocating for more collaborative  learning and facilitative teaching practices.

Governments

Governments have an interest in the cost savings and improved  quality of learning that Open Education  initiatives can provide at all levels of public  education. Governments can encourage Open Education by:

  *   Exploring Open Access alternatives  to traditional K-12 learning materials (Provincial);
  *   Subsidizing the cost of Open Access textbook development where no  alternatives to commercial texts exist  (Provincial);
  *   Providing competitive funding for the creation of open-access textbooks  for higher education (Provincial and  Federal); and
  *   Making research grants issued by government agencies conditional upon  the open-access publication of research results (Provincial and Federal). control of OER.

Source and Full Text Available Via

[ http://digital-textbooks.blogspot.com/2012/10/canadas-contribution-to-commons.html ]

Regards,

Gerry McKiernan
Associate Professor
and
Science and Technology Librarian
Iowa State University
152 Parks Library
Ames IA 50011

http://digital-textbooks.blogspot.com/<http://digital-textbooks.blogspot.com/2012/10/canadas-contribution-to-commons.html>



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2012-10-19
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