25.1 The role of university faculty in the oer world  (Page 3/6)

When leading a relatively small but very informing OER initiative ( (External Link) ) I came to the view, in the New Zealand context at least, that it is a very difficult proposition in a micro-economic sense but enormously positive at a macro-economic level.

If there were a demand at a macro-economic level that university faculty members give up their intellectual property and place their creations into the open space, then which parts? The protection of some intellectual property rights spawns some great commercial success - e.g. the Google story at Stanford foe example, many universities operate incubator environments and would argue that commercial drivers demand protection of IP or the research would have no purpose. But what about educational materials defined purely as that used for teaching purposes - with this definition then I am of the view that at a macro-economic level education worldwide will be advanced tremendously is ALL teaching materials were open.

Surely restricting the dissemination of instructional materials is counter to the role of faculty to produce knowledge? A university’s funding tends to be via government, endowments, grants and tuition so an OER framework for educational materials would not fundamentally alter the university model. Like open source service companies, educational publishing houses could evolve to providing value added services but not restrict re-use and recontextualisation. Some business models would collapse but others emerge. And if educational publishing houses were to suffer lost profits, does that simply reflect a changed value chain?

While the Creative Commons framework provides a simple way to select Attribution or not, I think it becomes inherently difficult with derivative works depending on the extent of derivation. It becomes almost self-governing due to the perceptions of quality that Joel describes. As an example I will attribute when it adds strength or validation to the writing or when it is straight copy - but if it is a truly derivative work does the original author really want attribution in all cases - their words can easily be placed out of context and thereby offer different meaning - Joel’s point about reputation. The CC attribution clause often has something along the lines of “but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work.” I would also add that an OER that does not allow derivative works is not an OER, it’s closed but with zero cost presumably. Doesn’t the academic referencing framework, endnotes etc. adequately deal with attribution already without OERs having to define a new regime?

In my view, Non-commercial licensing should have its meaning clarified, and I see parallels here with say a GNU GPL vs BSD open source licensing decision. There remain very good commercial possibilities with GNU GPL licensed software but adding some further code, shrink-wrapping it and selling that software as my own is not one of them. Similarly, with OERs, a “non-commercial” license (need a new name for it) should allow for payment to be made for creating derivative works, added value services (e.g. publishing costs etc.) but not the ability to close off your derivative. To do otherwise, or to keep the status quo, is to restrict the OERs from promulgating ot from faculty - it just gets shared within the domain of the education system and this is an economic/knowledge loss to society. At the moment it is too confusing. Does non-commercial mean I can’t take an OER and convert it to a corporate training resource? If so, hence the economic loss and why should the education sector be able to restrict that? Does non-commercial mean I can’t charge course fees for instruction,&also give the resources freely? Many would say, no, you can charge course fees. An obvious loop-hope for commercial gain. Does non-commercial mean my company (www.flexible.co.nz) can’t charge a client to alter an OER so its customised and useful to another faculty? If so, you see the rediculous constraints the current non-commercial licensing delivers. This area needs re-work asap as it is holding back the growth of OERs for the good of everyone. A GNU-GPL like license is the best way forward to protect against corporate scavenging while protecting the freedoms of the original intent of an OER.