Final Guild Post

The end has come and the class is over. Here I am doing my final blog post for this course. Given that I haven't had any comments, and the class is already over, perhaps I should question my own sanity for taking the time to write this last post. I guess it's just that voice in my head that makes me seek closure.


Here is the link to the personal finance course we built:

http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=pkEgScMtxs-CZCuPoe_3eaQ&inv=justinj@byu.edu&t=5055627048556804565&guest

It still has holes and needs more work, but we defined a way to go about building a resource pool for an OCW course and carried the ball most of the way. Even in its incomplete form, it should be useful to those who might use it to prepare to teach a Personal Finance course using open content.

This class was good for me. I learned a great deal. I gained a broad understanding of the past and future of the OCW movement, some great project and writing experience, an understanding of the copyright and legal issues around OCW, and more conviction that, while I don't believe OCW will replace traditional education, I do believe OCW will play an important role in advancing quality and accessibility.

I also picked up some good tools along the way. Learning to use the advanced features in Google and the code snipits from the Creative Commons site has already paid off many times and having a basic understanding of what OCW content is available has proven valuable on several occasions.

My classmates were great. Some of the most thoughtful and intelligent I've met. David Wiley is the finest instructor I've had at BYU.

On to other things now. Time to focus on finishing a dissertation. Thanks for the learning.

Justin

Guild Quest #4

Guild Quest #4 has been all about advancing our open Personal Finance course. There has been a great deal of discussion about whether the deliverable should be a complete course with assessments, instructions, and so forth.

While attending a meeting of the Open High School of Utah, I was able to talk with their curriculum developer. He made a rather convincing argument that he would prefer that we deliver a set of open resources aligned with Utah state curriculum standards. He said that instructors would want to individualize courses by implementing their own instructions, unique content, and assessments.

A resource pool aligned with state standards is certainly more efficient that a content complete course. Perhaps that should be the focus of the OCW community for some period of time. Creating resource pools, instead of complete courses, would build out the base of OCW content more quickly and could attract users more quickly, helping the OCW community reach the critical mass it will take to be sustainable long term.

Again, this blurs the line between OCW and OER. I've long felt that many "OCW" schools are actually publishing OER stuff. I guess it's an evolution and any progress toward "open" will benefit the masses.

Here's the link to our current list of resources. We are looking forward to presenting it tomorrow. Lot's of last minute changes tonight :)

http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=pkEgScMtxs-CZCuPoe_3eaQ&inv=justinj@byu.edu&t=5055627048556804565&guest

Guild Quest #3

For Quest #3 our project team went to work identifying open resources for the Personal Finance course we are working on. We developed a rubric to organize those resources and align them with Utah state curriculum standards. Most of our work for this week is in our Google spreadsheet. Here the link:

http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=pkEgScMtxs-CZCuPoe_3eaQ&inv=justinj@byu.edu&t=5055627048556804565&guest

My two most meaningful thoughts for the week were:

1- I'm really surprised at the number of openly published resources.
2 - I'm glad Dr. Wiley taught us how to use the advanced search features of Google to identify open content. What a valuable tool!

Guild Quest #2

For Guild Quest #2, we worked as a class (while David was traveling) on our project to build an open course. We worked under the assumption that the in-class guilds would be working on collecting resources and building an open course in fulfillment of guild quests 2-6.


The two class sessions for the week were working sessions. During the class sessions we defined the tasks we needed to complete, worked on approach, and chose which topics we would consider for our course.


During the first working session, we defined the steps we needed to take the build a course and narrowed our possible course topics down to U.S. History or Language Arts. Each guild member chose two standards from the Utah State K-12 published standards for each of the two courses (total of four standards for each person). We agreed that each member would spend 2-3 hours evaluating available open resources for their assigned standards. Our objective was to gather information in order to inform a decision about the feasibility of building a course on open content.


During the second in-class working session we discussed our findings. There were extensive resources available in both the Language Arts and History courses. Ultimately, we chose to divide into two guilds with guild 1 choosing to build a Language Arts course and Guild 2 choosing to build a Personal Finance course. Our selections were based on availability of resources, personal interest, and a perceived need in the OCW community.


Guild 1 – Language Arts
Jared
Aaron
Cary


Guild 2 – Personal Finance
John
Sara Joy
Justin


The next steps, and our next post, will be to collect resources, including examples of syllabi, as a means to develop learning objectives and a structure for the course.

Quest 1- Some Background on OpenCourseWare

For centuries, universities have been the center, the repositories, and in many cases, the laboratories for human knowledge, understanding, and advancement. However, a university education has long been reserved for the privileged few who could afford to attend. While higher education has certainly become more accessible over the past few centuries, the opportunity to attend a university is still beyond the reach of many in the developed world and most in the developing world.


In October of 2002 the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), one of the most prestigious universities in the world, effectively tore down the walls that have kept the masses from enjoying the knowledge and learning available to its students by launching the MIT OpenCourseware Initiative.


OpenCourseware (OCW) is based on the idea that human knowledge is the shared property of all members of society. Those who contribute to OpenCourseware projects, like MIT, grant free access to their course materials, to anyone, for any non-commercial purpose. OCW users enjoy the benefits of the “four Rs” of OpenCourseware as they are granted license to Reuse, Revise, Remix, and Redistribute OCW content. Since MIT’s launch of the OCW project in 2002, it has made 1,800 of its undergraduate and graduate-level courses available at ocw.mit.edu. The OCW movement has reach far beyond MIT as over 200 higher-education institutions from around the world have joined together to form the OCW Consortium, openly publishing over 6,000 courses in a number of languages. These institutions share a common commitment to increasing access to education, improving the quality of education, and empowering people, both in well-served and underserved groups, through the power of learning (OpenCourseWare Consortium, n.d.).

Process - CTL Walk-In Center

The Walk-In center at CTL completes approximately 40-50 projects for BYU faculty each month. Many of those projects would be valuable to both the on-campus and off-campus OER user communities.

Most of the steps necessary for a program of open publishing of CTL content are already in place. Faculty requesting new projects or services from the Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL) work with CTL personnel to design projects before resources are assigned and production work begins. During the design phase, serveral issues related to open publishing are addressed. For example:

• The scope, vision, and design of the content are defined
• Any copyrighted materials to be used in the project are identified
• Potential commercial viability is considered
• Contextualizing information about how the content will be used is defined

Faculty notification and permissions could be addressed by simply adding a step to the design process wherein faculty requesting new projects or services from the Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL) will be asked to sign the BYU OER Participation form. This form will:

• Describe the BYU OER project and the mission of CTL
• Acknowledge BYU ownership of IP produced by or in conjunction with CTL
• Explain the copyright license to be assigned by CTL
• Describe possible OER usage
• Provide for future OER publishing of CTL projects associated with faculty member
• Allow faculty to opt ou of attribution on the BYU OER web site

Faculty will be given the opportunity to opt out of the open publishing program. However such refusal will not alter BYU's ownership of CTL-produced IP.

When the CTL Walk-In Center completes a project, they conduct a final review process to ensure it meets the original design specifications. During the final review process, CTL personnel will review the project content to determine if it would be appropriate to openly publish. Content will be deemed openly publishable if:

1. It does not include copyrighted material
2. It has not been designated as commercial viability
3. The faculty member has signed BYU OER notice
   

OER content will be published by CTL personel using a central repository and will include both finish digital files, as well as source files where applicable.