The Opportunity Is Open

The Opportunity is Open

Tom CaswellOpen Education Policy Associate

WA State Board for Community & Technical Colleges

Integrated Teaching & Learning Gateway Symposium

NC Community College SystemJune 18, 2012

Dreaming Girls Head By: Elfleda http://www.flickr.com/photos/carolinespics/153137487

CC BY-NC-ND

“In the view of many college and university presidents, the three main factors in higher education—cost, quality, and access—exist in what we call an iron triangle. These factors are linked in an unbreakable reciprocal relationship, such that any change in one will inevitably impact the others.”

- Public Agenda research on opinions of

higher education presidents

Source: The Iron Triangle: College Presidents Talk About Costs, Access, and Quality, Public Agenda, October 2008.

Iron Triangle

Quality vs. Cost vs. Access The “Iron Triangle” suggests institutions

are

constrained in their ability to adapt.

Cost

Quality

Access

Iron Triangle

Internet + Digital Content = Lower Cost

Greater Access Greater Quality

Right?

Global Trends

Who’s the audience?How do students drive this?How do faculty guide them?“It’s going to be done by the masses, not the masters.”

Slide by Myk Garn

“Nearly one-third of the world’s population (29.3%) is under 15. Today there are 158 million people enrolled in tertiary education1. Projections suggest that that participation will peak at 263 million2 in 2025. Accommodating the additional 105 million students would require more than four major universities (30,000 students) to open every week for the next fifteen years.

1 ISCED levels 5 & 6 UNESCO Institute of Statistics figures2 British Council and IDP Australia projections

By: COL http://www.col.org/SiteCollectionDocuments/JohnDaniel_2008_3x5.jpg

How do we currently attempt to harness digital networked

technologies?

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By: UNESCO: http://www.moveoneinc.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/UNESCO.jpg

Open Educational Resources (OER):

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 repurposing by others.

OER Definition

For one 250 page book:

• Copy by hand - $1,000• Copy by print on demand - $4.90• Copy by computer - $0.00084

CC BY: David Wiley, BYU

Cost of “Copy”

Cost of “Distribute”

CC BY: David Wiley, BYU

For one 250 page book:

• Distribute by mail - $5.20 (2000+ copies print-on-demand)

• Distribute by internet - $0.00072

CC BY: David Wiley, BYU

Copy and Distribute are “Free”

This changes everything…

vs.

Rivalrous vs. Non-Rivalrous Resources

By: MIT OCW: http://conferences.ocwconsortium.org/2011/cambridge/images/logo-ocwc-decade.jpg

Higher Ed

SBCTC Example:English Composition I

50,000+ enrollments / year x $175 textbook = $8.7+ Million every year

Affordability

http://techplan.sbctc.edu

“We will cultivate the culture and practice of using and contributing to open educational resources.”

All digital software, educational resources and knowledge produced through competitive grants, offered through and/or managed by the SBCTC, will carry a Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY).

State Board “Open” Policy

A collection of openly licensed (CC BY) educational materials for 81 high-enrollment

college courses

Project Goals:1. Lower textbook costs for students2. Improve course completion rates3. Provide new resources for faculty

Please visit: http://opencourselibrary.org

Credit: Timothy Valentine & Leo Reynolds  CC-BY-NC-SA

Open Course Library

The first 42 courses were released October 31, 2011

Over 80 media mentions worldwide

Over 35,000 visits from 125 countries to

http://opencourselibrary.org

Open Course Library

Initial Impact

In the first year, students will save

$1.1 million in textbook costs

That’s more than we spent to develop the courses… in year 1.

Open Course Library

Saylor.org Reuses Open Course Library Materials

Open Course Library

Open Course Library

Open Course Library

Driving Open Course Library Course Adoptions

• Regional conferences and workshops• New faculty trainings • Marking OCL courses in class schedules

Building open sharing into existing teaching workflows and technologies

• Lecture capture• Next LMS will have “open sharing” feature

Next Steps: Open Course Library

Educate More CitizensRaise educational attainment to create prosperity, opportunity

• Policy Goal: Increase the total number of degrees and certificates…

• By 2018, raise mid-level degrees and certificates to 36,200 annually, an increase of 9,400 degrees annually.

WA Education Master Plan

How does OER help teach more students and teach them better?

1. Non-rivalrous, scalable, searchable2. Allows students to preview and

review• Paves the way for lifelong learning

3. Can be customized, translated, improved

• Data feedback loops are useless without the ability to change the content

More? Better? Faster?

NEW HE Models are En Route

• What if all publicly funded educational content was open access? 

• What kind of efficiencies could higher education yield?

• Simple idea: public access to publicly funded educational materials.

What if…

• Efficient use of public funds to increase student success and access to quality educational materials.

• Everything else (including all existing business models) is secondary.

Only ONE Thing Matters:

Conclusion:

We can break the “Iron Triangle” IF we:

1. Ask “what is best for students?”2. Openly license and share our

educational and scientific resources3. Explore more affordable, scalable

models for higher education using digital, networked, open technologies

Tom CaswellOpen Education Policy AssociateWA State Board for Community & Technical CollegesEmail: [email protected] Blog: http://tomcaswell.com

Please visit:http://whyopenedmatters.org http://creativecommons.org

Slides available at: http://slideshare.net/tom4cam