Openness and Higher Education
David Wiley, PhD
Instructional Psychology & Technology
Brigham Young University

“The World is Changed”
Galadriel, Lord of the Rings

Itʼs Actually Worse (or Better)
The World is Changing

Analog ⇒ Digital
Music, Phones, TV, Newspapers,
Movies, Journals, Communications,Intelligence, Defense

Tethered ⇒ Mobile
Phones, Internet Access,Employment

Isolated ⇒ Connected
People, Content, Systems

Generic ⇒ PersonalCars, Computers, Mobile Phones

Consuming ⇒ Creating
Radio / Podcasting,
Newspapers / Blogs,
Movies / VodcastingClosed ⇒ Open
Software (OSs, Applications),
Data (Weather, GIS),
Content (Blogs, Wikis)

Then vs Now
Analog ⇒ Digital
Tethered ⇒ Mobile
Isolated ⇒ Connected
Generic ⇒ Personal
Consuming ⇒ Creating
Closed ⇒ Open

Education vs Everyday
Analog ⇒ Digital
Tethered ⇒ Mobile
Isolated ⇒ Connected
Generic ⇒ Personal
Consuming ⇒ Creating
Closed ⇒ Open

But Wait! Weʼre Education!

The Monopoly is Falling Down
Even though we’re propped up by
the state, competition is comingfrom everywhere

Content is Changing
Wikipedia, OpenCourseWares, etc.

Research is Changing
Public Library of Science, Arxiv.org,
Google Scholar, etc.

Expertise is Changing
Listservs, Web Boards, ChatRooms, Email, Yahoo! Answers,etc.

Credentialing is Changing
Certifications can be worth morethan a university degree

Monopoly-Busting!
Content, research, expertise, andcredentialing are becoming
accessible to everyone

Without Historic Monopolies,
Where Next?
Education must innovate to stay relevantWhat About E-learning?
Quite innovative in 1995!

Characteristics of E-learning
Analog or Digital
Tethered or Mobile
Isolated or Connected
Generic or Personal
Consuming or Creating
Closed or OpenOpenness Is The Core Value
Openness underpins everything that ishappening online right now, andwill for the foreseeable futureOpenness As Foundation
Analog or Digital
Tethered or Mobile
Isolated or Connected
Generic or Personal
Consuming or Participating
Closed or OpenConnecting, Creating, andPersonalizing“Web 2.0” - Flickr, Del.icio.us,
YouTube, Digg, Google Maps,
MySpace, Wikipedia, &c.

Connecting
You can’t connect to something if
you don’t have access to itPersonalizing
You can’t adapt or localize
something if you don’t have therights to modify itCreating
You won’t be creative if there’s nooutlet for your workThree Subjects for the Verb “Opening”
Opening, connecting,personalizing, creatingStudents Can Open Education
Whether you know it or not!

YouTube(http://www.youtube.com/)“bored in math class”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_PhvAUtT7-k

“The most inglorious, revolting,boring, human-spirit killing entity
in existence may be math class,specifically Advanced Math II inthis case. Enjoy this example ofhell on Earth.”NoteMesh(http://www.notemesh.com/?a=home/)
MATH 120: PRECALCULUS

Yahoo! ANSWERS(http://answers.yahoo.com/)RateMyProfessors.com(http://www.ratemyprofessors.com/)
Top 50
http://www.ratemyprofessors.com/top50Profs.jsp?from=1&to=25&tab=highest_top50

Item
M (SD)
Item 13 Overall, how would you rate the instructor?
4.30 (.44)
Item 22 What is your overall rating of this course?
4.00 (.44)
Item 6 How concerned was the instructor for the quality of his or her teaching? 4.25 (.39)
Item 4 How clearly did the instructor present ideas and theories?
4.12 (.46)
4.23 (.40)
Item 2 How clearly were the objectives of the course presented?

Coladarci & Kornfield (2007)
426 instructors at the University of Maine

Correlation
0.68
0.62
0.65
0.65
0.64

twitter(http://twitter.com/)
What are you doing?

twitter in iPhone(http://twitter.com/)
What are you doing?

Faculty Can Open Education
After all, they are our courses!

I’M SORRY, I JUST DON’T KNOW
(http://shelleylyn.com/)

Teaching & Learning in MMOs 2
http://shelleylyn.com/2004/11/29/teaching-learning-in-mmos-2/

Institutions Can Open Education
A few already are...

“Open Educational Resources”
This talk is about promoting andimproving learning through openness

“Open Educational Resources”
This talk is about promoting andimproving learning through openness

Some Find Openness Scary
Because they don’t understand theeconomics

We Need To UnderstandA quality university library doesn’t hurtclasses, it supports improves them

Content Is Infrastructure
It’s the platform we build our innovations
on, but it’s not the innovation itself

Educational Environmentalism
Recycle, Reuse

Open Infrastructure Is Required
To catalyze rapid, real innovation

After Content Infrastructure Is
DeployedIt will not take long at all once we set
our minds to it (video, audio, etc.)

We Can Build Other Services
Learning support services,
alternative credentialing services, ?

Disaggregation of Core Services
Content and Information,
Instructional Support Services,
Assessment and CredentialingDisaggregation
Specializations like doctors have(pregnancy; ear, nose, throat;children;)Content and Information
OCWs, Public Library of Science,
Arxiv.org, Google Scholar, etc.

Instructional Support Services
Social networks, question / answer
services, location-based networks

Assessment and Credentialing
Western Governors University,
University of South Queensland,
Bologna Process, (USU OCW Pilot)

Will We Stay Relevant?
Being propped up by our monopoly,
where will the institutional will toinnovate come from?

“Speed of Education” Is Too Slow
The world is changing too quicklyWe Must Adapt Now
Distance education is decades
old, online education is over adecade old.

Characteristics of E-learning
Analog or Digital
Tethered or Mobile
Isolated or Connected
Generic or Personal
Consuming or Creating
Closed or Open

Thank You
david.wiley@usu.edu
http://cosl.usu.edu/