Mediaboss Marketing

Shutterstock/Kevin George

When talking about educational technology, what does the idea of openness mean? The word open appears in bothopen-access publishingand MOOCs (massively open online courses), but does it represent the same things? Does it stand for the same values, or help the same set of people?

A small essay by Amherst College professorJohn Drabinski, published today, examinesthe word in the context of a higher education institution confronted with contemporary technological choices.

In 2013, Drabinski writes, the Amherst faculty had to decide on three big questions:

All of these questions turn on the concept of openness. Two concerned open-access publishing," one "massively open online courses." The Amherst faculty chose to create a digital repository and make Amherst College Press open-access," but not to capitulate to MOOC manufacturers.

Drabinskis post has a long explanation of why, in addition to a great inside look at what it feels like to be wooed by a MOOC instructor. (The companies continually assured Amherst of its specialness.)Ultimately,the faculty decided the first two were beneficial to the fellowship of scholars, and the latter was not. MOOCs could put scholars out of work; an open-access repository could make more knowledge available to good researchers who were not affiliated with an institution or university library.

This is the developing, conscientious line among academics: Pro-openness on open-access; anti-openness on MOOCs. (Just last week, aprofessor at Princeton, Mitchell Duneier,stopped teaching his popular MOOCout of concerns that it would undermine public higher education.)

So when is openness good? Dickinsons little explication is, I think, useful:

It occurred to me then, after we discussed this in pairs and groups and as a whole faculty, as it occurred to most, that openness is nothing like an absolute value. In fact, it is a value that is made good by what it enhances in self and offers to others. When we publish, openness is a value because it enhances our visibility and offers ideas to others without classist and cultural conditions. If you think that is worth doing, you support (in this case) the repository and the press.

He continues, and its worth reading.But this is an elegant, short rebuttal to the always-positivebuzzword senses of open, and a nice framework for thinking and handling the wholerhetoric of openness.Openness is nothing like an absolute value. Well said.

Read this article:
What Does 'Open' Mean? One Academic Weighs In