Quest 0.2 - Motivating Factors for the Establishment of Open Education

"Carefully review at least 20 pages describing motivations for the open education movement. Write a substantive post with references on the motivations of the movement."

Carmack, J. K. (2004). The Perpetual Education Fund: A Bright Ray of Hope. Ensign, (January), 37-43.
Hinckley, G. B. (2002). Reaching Down to Lift Another. Liahona, (January), 60-62, 67.
Wiley, D. A. (2006). Secretary of Education's Commission on the Future of Higher Education: Panel on Innovative Teaching and Learning Strategies.

I had wanted to start out this post with some explicit definitions of my terminology (thanks, Jeremy =D). While looking for a definition of the word education, I decided that this is actually a difficult concept to define precisely, given its broad scope and its relevance to almost everything that happens in our everyday lives. So for the sake of this discussion, when I say "education" just assume that I am referring primarily to institutions of higher learning.

I'm also going to commit another oversimplification and define the open education movement as making "education" available to everyone.

You don't need to be current on the considerable amount of debate that has taken place with respect to the open education movement to realize that providing "education" to "everyone" is an extremely ambitious goal facing some formidable obstacles. But instead of focusing on these obstacles and asking questions such as who will be handing over the cash to make this kind of thing happen, I would like to ask a more fundamental question -- Why is open education something that we should be desperately trying to achieve?

It turns out that open education has something sweet for everybody.

Institutions of higher education will benefit immensely from openly releasing their educational resources to the world. How? Institutions of higher education are in a market, and they want to remain competitive in that market. Openness can help these institutions avoid becoming "irrelevant." According to Wiley (2006) "higher education enjoyed monopoly positions with regard to curricular content, research activities, expertise, and credentialing. Each of these monopolies has been broken in the recent past, but higher education has yet to recognize and respond to these changes in the environment" (p. 2). In other words, many institutions of higher learning are still operating under the assumption of a monopoly on certain resources that, in fact, no longer exists. By moving toward this idea of openness, institutions of higher education can keep up with the times and remain competitive in the educational market.

The openness model holds many other benefits for these institutions as well. Again citing Wiley (2006), "The move toward openness ... exposes teaching to the quality increasing pressures of peer review. This openness also opens the materials to other kinds of review, creating an unprecedented level of transparency to all higher education stakeholders..." (p. 4). By opening its teaching and learning activities to the world, an institution encourages evolution and natural selection of best practices and best content, resulting in a higher quality education for its students. Students leaving an institution's doors better prepared to meet the challenges of industry will serve to strengthen the institutional brand -- something that should be of interest to everyone associated with that institution.

An in-class discussion (January 13, 2009) suggested other possible benefits for institutions directly affecting faculty and students (ripped directly from SaraJoy's blog):

• Better material used in courses


• Faster/cheaper course development


• Improved access to content (device-driven and adaptable)


• Explicit connections/access to background material (instead of just saying “you remember linear algebra…right?” the instructor can actually link back to the foundational material from a previous course. Students with such access may even perform better in advanced courses.)


• Increased efficiency in academic advisement (students can take on many of these functions themselves–more information up-front about a course will lead to lower drop rates, less time lost to resulting schedule inefficiencies and lower administrative costs.)


• Faculty modeling critical skills of collaboration and team work.

It seems defensible, then, to suggest that institutions of higher education could benefit from openness. But what about individuals? I'm speaking not only of the individuals attending these institutions, but the average person who might make use of their OERs.

This is a no-brainer. On an individual level, everyone with access to institutional OERs via the internet could potentially benefit from open education. At this moment, millions of people the world over are in dire poverty. Many of them were born into circumstances which, historically, have precluded the possibility of upward social mobility (Hinckley, 2002). However, the rapid expansion of internet infrastructure, (see, for example, O3B Networks) combined with the decreasing costs of internet-capable mobile technologies means that internet access will become increasingly available to even the most "economically undeveloped" countries of the world.

With access to open educational resources, including lecture notes, assignments, exams, and even complete online courses, people all over the world will be able to start taking their education into their own hands. OERs distributed over the internet will make higher education a possibility in all areas of the world, allowing many, who historically had no hope of overcoming difficult economic circumstances, to gain practical knowledge and skills that will allow them to break the chain of poverty (Carmack, 2004).

Also, that which is good for individuals would seem to be good for a nation as a whole. As individuals become better educated, gaining greater economic capability, the economic strength of the nation as a whole will increase. A more skilled workforce means greater human capital, which allows for an increase of business ventures. An expanding market typically results in an increase of jobs, which leads to a lower unemployment rate. As unemployment rates decrease and more and more people gain financial independence, dependence on government aid for those unable to sustain themselves will decrease.

In addition to the economic advantages obtained from a better educated populace, there is much to be gained in the political dimension of social life. A better educated citizenry is more likely to be politically informed. Informed people making informed decisions have a much better chance of choosing wise leaders for their country. (Alas, my cultural bias betrays me -- I'm assuming a republic/democracy here.) Even if the people themselves do not choose the leaders, a greater pool of educated citizens from which to draw is more likely to produce intelligent and capable leaders to help lead a nation to prosperity (Carmack, 2004).

There are many potential benefits from the development of open education. Of all these benefits, my personal motivation for establishing a model of open education rests in my desire to simply help others to enjoy life. The benefits that I most want to see materialize, then, are increased economic prosperity and governments that are strengthened by an educated citizenry. While I do not believe that open education will solve all of the world's problems (though it may get us closer than anything else we've tried before) I really do believe that there is so much conflict, poverty, disease, and sadness in the world that could be ameliorated by an increase in global access to educational resources.