Comments on: What is the most "successful" "formal" "OER" project?

By: echo "hey, it works" > /dev/null

echo "hey, it works" > /dev/null — Sun, 20 Mar 2011 04:54:03 +0000

[...] Leslie: What is the most “successful” “formal” “OER” project?No idea. I started with a quote from Scott Leslie and then said, "When I started my PhD, I wanted to …" what? Not do my PhD?Uvumi: low sound, [...]

By: Maria Droujkova

Maria Droujkova — Sun, 27 Jun 2010 00:19:06 +0000

WikiEducator
Art of Problem Solving
Scratch
Geogebra (and GeoGebra Institutes)
Science Blogs
Classroom 2.0 (and their child projects – Future of Education, LearnCentral, Student 2.0)

By: Muvaffak Gozaydin,Global ONLINEUniversities Consortium

Muvaffak Gozaydin,Global ONLINEUniversities Consortium — Sat, 22 May 2010 19:01:27 +0000

I think I have the most sucessful formal OER project in Turkey.
I promote , for time being , only academicearth.org courses in Turkey . Local universities assign a professor for the selected course. That professor acts as a facilitator for that course. he does exactlt the ONLINE Instructor does in USA.
At the end professor gives credit after the face to face final exam. After student gets online and offline courses enough he gets his degree.
I suggest that everybody in the world should do it.
I know that some colleges in Pennsylvania are sharing the online courses of Carnegie Mellon.
ONLINE should be credit oriented, degree oriented. That is the only motivation for students. Then online course is a part of a formal education, a part of a formal degree program.
I say online courses are for millions. If a course is taken by millions it becomes almost free anyhow.

By: Scott

Scott — Sat, 22 May 2010 17:48:38 +0000

Seth, I’m probably to blame for you thinking I am being “hard” on the formal OER projects and looking to criticize them, but that was not my goal. If you look at my question, I am really sincere in wanting to know how those formal ones that *are* considered successful *actually succeeded*. In the case of MIT’s OCW, the answer does seem to me to have something to do with massive budgets, PR, institutional backing and existing “brand.” None of these are to sit in judgement of it. But if those are accurate assessments, I’d also warrant that there isn’t a ton to learn from it as an example, as the conditions of its success are not present for most other “formal” projects.

Seth, I *work* on “formal” OER projects. I *want* them to succeed. I don’t particularly feel like mine are, nor many many others that I see. But if there are some that do (which was what my question was looking for) then I am interested in digging into what they’ve done that others like myself can learn from. It’s not about criticizing, and I apologize if, like so often, my tone came off like it was.

By: Seth

Seth — Sat, 22 May 2010 16:26:59 +0000

You’re right in that there is no “right” answer. Consider this – I’ve used MIT OCW just this semester for comparison purposes. I have people in my personal network that have used MIT OCW to brush up on topics prior to taking classes. And everyday I read about people on Twitter who enthusiastically discover MIT OCW for the first time. SEO and PR can only get a website so far – some of the many hits MIT OCW is receiving is from people who find real value in it.

You know I’m not on MIT payroll. I have no vested interest in promoting MIT OCW, except when I think it genuinely helps.

If we were to put two OERs in front of you, one from an institution and one pure DIY U, that were stripped of identifying information, I wonder if you would be so hard on the institutional OER. Sometimes this debate seems to be more political than about assisting learning.

By: Scott

Scott — Fri, 21 May 2010 03:48:36 +0000

Seth, thanks for both of these. Like I said, there is no “right” answer, and I appreciate the rationales you provide, though in my mind the example of MIT’s OCW is more a case of “important” than “successful” – the former without a doubt, the later possibly debatable. I like the example of wikieducator, and similar to the example of UMW Blogs, it seems to focus on leading by providing a space for people to learn openly, the “resources” being a result and not just an end in itself.

By: Seth

Seth — Fri, 21 May 2010 02:15:01 +0000

I’ll bite, but I’ll expand it to two projects.

1. MIT OCW. Whatever its faults, it helped openness get noticed in a way that no other project beforehand did (even if those previous projects were worthy of notice). You and others may call it a lack of imagination, but for many people MIT OCW expanded what they considered was possible. In the end, isn’t that what education is about?

A very wise person once told me that MIT OCW was the Marconi radio of open education. People respect the invention for what it did, but that doesn’t mean they didn’t innovate beyond it.

2. WikiEducator. If you dig into the history of WikiEducator and how it came about, it showed that the best response to frustration with a system is not vainglorious demagoguery, but careful creation of something that people find value in. Whether the wiki is your thing or not, WikiEducator shows that people can make their own difference (even within the much maligned “system”).

By: Most Successful Formal OER Project? «

Most Successful Formal OER Project? « — Fri, 21 May 2010 02:01:26 +0000

[...] 21, 2010 · Leave a Comment Scott Leslie has a new post asking what the most successful formal OER project might be? From the post: I’m [...]

By: Scott

Scott — Thu, 20 May 2010 20:21:53 +0000

Thanks Cindy and Alan. I feel like I’m hearing from the “converted” already; was really hoping to hear someone pipe up with one of the canonical examples of OER projects (MIT OCW, Connexions, etc) and convince me of its success and show me how they did it. *I’m* not necessarily convinced any of these *are* “successful” (the way I’d define it) but I’m looking to be proved wrong. I really do want to be convinced that it’s me that’s the problem, that if I just had the secret sauce, then the formal projects I work on would all jump into action.

By: Cindy Jennings

Cindy Jennings — Thu, 20 May 2010 17:45:35 +0000

Although you guys have mostly already said it, I’ll humbly offer why I suggested UMW blogs as ‘formal’ and ‘successful’; and most importantly ‘open’.
I’ll admit up front to being the later comer to this conversation (about openness and all). And, my ideas are not that well-formed as some of you who have been at it for a while. But, I have had occasion recently for a project to look more closely at the idea – and some of the resources – and I think the crux is NOT the resources, it is the CULTURE/SPIRIT/MINDSET/MOVEMENT or whatever you choose to call it…that is at the heart. It is the ‘why’ not the ‘what’ or the ‘how’ necessarily that makes ‘open’ important.

And, UMW IS doing that well…LIVING in the open (Yes, Alan, ‘open is as open does’…absolutely!)…Yes Scott, UMW is ‘formal’ because institutionally backed…and successful (imho) precisely because of the way they ‘live’ quietly and mostly without fanfare in the open. The focus (at least it seems to me) is on the community (the culture of openness) – theirs locally in the respective courses – and more broadly as they invite others to consider their approaches….made all the more powerful by the sharing of it. (A side note: I shared UMW blogs here a year or so ago and colleagues questioned me pointedly: “Do they know we are looking at their stuff? Do you have their permission?” Yep, there is still fear here.

My question is…where should an individual (or campus for that matter) start if new to the whole idea of freely sharing ideas….How do you help people see that everything does not have to be open….but we all learn more if we share stuff?

I am rambling and I’ll stop.
You guys interested in taking some of this to the #DIYU conversation going on in Twitter (I know, not the best place…but lots of similar ideas)…

Scott, thanks for asking.
cj