17.1 Content is infrastructure

Content is infrastructure.

Why would I say such a thing? For three reasons.

First, I wish to point out that content is absolutely critical. In the late 90s, webmasters frequently heard the phrase “content is king.” Today the notion is often rejected and replaced with something along the lines of Content is Dead. Community is King Now . In the past I’ve said I could care less whether or not learning objects were dead or alive. However, to declare content dead in favor of the coolness of community misses the point that content is irrefutably a critical piece of educational infrastructure. Wikipedia says:

Infrastructure is generally structural elements that provide the framework supporting an entire structure…. The term “critical infrastructure” has been widely adopted to distinguish those infrastructure elements that, if significantly damaged or destroyed

If the content base from which we all teach and learn - the internet, textbooks, library books, journal articles, etc. - were ’significantly damaged or destroyed,’ is there any way to imagine that this would not ’cause serious disruption’ to all education, both formal and informal? It is almost incomprehensible where we would be without content - at best, we would be reduced entirely to purely oral methods of teaching and learning. It may seem childish to point out something so obvious, but content is a critical part of the infrastructure of education.

Second, I want to suggest that we must understand that content is infrastructure before we can see radical improvements in education. Before we can expect large scale educational experimentation and innovation to occur we must deploy a sufficient amount of content, on a sufficient number of topics, at a sufficient level of quality, available at sufficiently low cost. Take the roads (an example of civic infrastructure) as an example. When there are enough roads, going enough places, with enough capacity, and without tolls, we can expect to see significant experimentation and innovation on top of this infrastructure. In the case of roads, we can see people establishing a variety of transportation services (taxis, shuttles), delivery services (food, packages), support services (towing, tire repair), and other services. In the case of content, when there is a sufficient amount of open educational content on a sufficient number of topics at sufficient quality, we can also expect to see experimentation and innovation in localization services (translation, low-bandwidth delivery), accreditation services (degrees, certificates), and support services (tutors, study group locators).

Of course, it costs money to build roads just like it costs money to create content. However, it generally does not cost money to drive on a road, and this encourages people to experiment and innovate in creating services that rely on the roads. We should realize that content is infrastructure in order to more clearly understand that the eventual creation of a content infrastructure which is free to use will catalyze and support the types of experiments and innovations we hope to see in the educational realm.