Is the Open University making the right content open in OpenLearn?

Amended 9/2/2008, 10/2/2008, 4/3/2008

Donald Clark takes a fairly well-aimed swipe at the quality of the content being made freely available under the Open University's MIT OpenCourseWare-inspired OpenLearn initiative.

Several readers of Fortnightly Mailing will know the current ins and outs at the OU, but when I wrote about Open Learn in 2006, the OU planned to put about 5% of its materials into OpenLearn (as compared with MIT's decision to make the whole lot open); and poking about in the materials that have been made available you get the impression that the OU has been cautious about what to make open, allowing its laudable experiment to take place with only its more mundane content.

A further problem is that the implementation makes the material unpleasant to use on screen, especially if you are scan-reading it rather than using it, as it was designed, for learning. For example the course I looked at was broken down into very small chunks, and the latency between pages, with a typical "broadband" connection, was far too long for convenience.

The impression you get is that there was internal pressure from those saying "but we depend on people to pay for our courses, we cannot risk putting some of the 'top sellers' into Open Learn".

I think that if the OU does not use OpenLearn to showcase its best stuff, the OpenLearn initiative risks being judged as some rather pedestrian content sitting in a (possibly) innovative environment. That would be  a major missed opportunity.

Links, with commentary on this issue:

• 9/2/2008: Martin Weller - In defence of openlearn - "I was involved in the initial phase of openlearn, and why (sic) I can understand Seb saying this, it isn't actually the case. We were quite keen to explore the business implications and not make it just a 'taster' site. I think the choices have been driven more by which academics have come forward with courses, what are available, what can be converted, etc."
• 10/2/2008: Tony Hirst - The problem with OpenLearn - "As to the delivery of OpenLearn content via Moodle, I do think this represented something of a lack of vision. The idea of making OpenLearn content in a learning environment, rather than just releasing it via lists of materials in an opencourseware micro-site, was something of a novel initiative at the time, I think, Connexions aside, maybe? (which doesn't say much for the rest of the OER community's efforts in this area... ;-) But as far as innovating in the delivery of online course material, I'd agree that OpenLearn/Moodle was as boring as hell. And not particularly well executed (the navigation is lousy; the search is poor; the aesthetic is pretty mundane, the usability is questionable, and so on (my browser shortcut to a Moodle test server I used to run was 'muddle';-) ........ The take home points for me about OpenLearn is that it makes available authentic distance educational material, some of it designed for online delivery, in an open format and under an open license."
• 12/2/2008: Laura Dewis - OpenLearn isn't e-learning - a long piece by OpenLearn's Communications Manager - "Donald’s posting reveals the the common misconception that the Open University is an online university and we can just switch a button to make our materials open to the world. It’s something we are moving closer toward with our VLE for registered students but we aren’t there yet. We won’t be until the day elearning and access to the internet have developed enough for it to be the major mode of delivery for our courses."
• 21/2/2008: Andy Lane - a Guest Contribution in Fortnightly Mailing;
• 3/3/2008: Will Woods - OpenLearn Discuss - a reflection by someone who played a key role in the original specification of OpenLearn - "I strongly believe though that there is an opportunity that has not yet been realised to make something more substantial and to get people to contribute back and make it a true repository (as opposed to a depository) for course chunks (not necessarily the OU’s). To make it a ‘repository’ we need to allow people to build designs using the learning chunks and resubmit them easily back."

Comments

[René Meijer]

Perhaps this is not such a bad thing. There seems to be this arms race going on in conferences about who uses the most advanced and exciting materials and technologies. We rarely recognize though that almost none of those ever make it into common practice. Perhaps now that the OU has opened up we can stop posturing for a bit, and actually sort out the mess.

[AJ Cann]

I've been following all the "Content is no longer king" arguments over the past few months. Seems to me that content is still pretty darn important! I taught an interesting session this past Thursday (reported here http://tinyurl.com/24dn2v). Short summary: the students didn't give a damn about the technologies we were raving about - they wanted content. Any OER initiative is only as good as its content. Draw your own conclusions about OpenLean, UNow and marketing plans...

[Peter Keyse]

If you don't mind I'll add my response to this lively open discussion here too -

From an OpenLearner's perspective:

I use OpenLean almost every day and I love it. As an online learner I love it for what it has taught me and as an online teacher I love it for what it has allowed me to do with its content.

In my view OpenLearn is the best working model of OCW with added learner community building tools yet available. The key to getting the best from OpenLearn is to engage with its content, researchers and developers and work with the learner networking features such as the profiles, blogs, forums and communication tools. Do so and OpenLearn will respond. Questions get answered, developers seek to resolve issues and participant OpenLearners feel they are not alone when seeking to learn collaboratively online.

As an online teacher currently building a community of online learners of English drawn from over 70 countries the downloadable Moodle modules have proven a godsend. Within weeks of finally finding affordable Moodle hosting facilities Native English Online has been able to augment its chat, audio and video conferencing web toolset with free to use and generously provided content from a trusted brand. We now have something substantial to discuss to replace the 'Hi & Bye chit chat' more usual in the lively online world of language learner exchange. For example - one group I worked with over a period of several weeks included a woman from Gaza City, a Moodler from Kazakhstan, two enthusiastic learners from Slovakia and two people from the UK. As a collaborative exercise in using OpenLearn's tools and material it was instructive and rewarding but the greater reward was that 6 people from quite different backgrounds and cultures made the effort, found common ground and took the opportunity to test their opinions and learn from others.

My fear is that as the philanthropic funding dries up the project may falter especially as, in my experience, 99.5+% of online learners are content to take and give back nothing in exchange. For example I have an contact in India who constantly complains that although his ESL support costs him nothing he wants more – he wants a certificate.

I've worked and taught with computers for over 30 years and spent much of that time in the City of London as a systems analyst programmer on major global banking projects. To me, at least, OpenLearn will be seen as good value for money once its users stop taking it for granted and start to appreciate its potential. If there is better expertise in e-learning than the OU is offering it must be time for it to step forward and offer leadership. We, the learners, will prove to be delighted disciples.