Sept. 20, 2006

The Next Level of Open Source

In 2001, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology started placing materials for its courses online — and making them available for anyone to use, at no cost. OpenCourseWare, which currently contains materials for 1,400 courses, has been a huge success, and thousands of people use the MIT materials each day.

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On Tuesday, Yale University announced that it would be starting a version of an open access online tool for those seeking to gain from its courses. But the basis of the Yale effort will be video of actual courses — every lecture of the course, to be combined with selected class materials. The money behind the Yale effort is coming from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, which was an early backer of MIT’s project, and which sees the Yale project as a way to take the open course idea to the next level.

“We want to add another dimension to open courseware,” said Catherine Casserly, a program officer at Hewlett. She said that video components used at MIT and elsewhere have been very popular with people all over the world. “We’re trying to make that bridge” to the audience for high quality American education, she said. Casserly said that Yale’s initiative — starting with seven courses this year, with plans to grow quickly — was the first open courseware effort based on lecture videos. “We hope to see this spread to other universities,” she said.

Richard Baraniuk, founder of Connexions, said he viewed Yale’s announcement as “a very positive development.” While projects at Rice and MIT “have been opening up access to educational materials and syllabi, the Yale project is opening up access to even more of the student experience, namely the in-class lecture environment,” he said.

Yale officials said that they view that in-class environment as crucial and so wanted to build their open courseware model around it. “Education is built on direct interaction, and face to face is ideal,” said Diana E.E. Kleiner, a professor of the history of art and classics who is directing the project. “That’s how we intend to teach on our campus, but also recognize that this kind of participation is not always possible, and many around the world could benefit from greater access to this kind of information we provide.

“Universities and colleges are the best keepers of that kind of information in the world, but it can be locked in a kind of vault” because only so many people can attend a given institution, or enroll in a given course, she said.

Kleiner said that Yale officers were “very admiring” of the model built by MIT, and she praised MIT as well for sharing extensive information about how its program was designed. But she said that Yale believes that course lectures “are the core content,” and need to be central. “We’re following in MIT’s footprints, but really taking a new step,” she said.

Yale is taping three courses this semester — all broad introductory classes: Introduction to the Old Testament, Fundamentals of Physics, and Introduction to Political Philosophy. Professors will receive an honorarium for their role in the project and students in New Haven won’t notice anything different. The courses won’t be online until next year, and Kleiner said that one issue the university needs to figure out before then is how to deal with students who enroll next year and watch the courses online as they are offered again. The university doesn’t want these videos to replace the in-class experience, she said. One possibility, she noted from her own experience having her lectures videotaped, is that the faculty members may use the tapes to revise their lectures, so current students may always be getting fresher material and be unable to rely on the online archive.

Another issue Yale needs to explore, she said, was how to handle intellectual property issues when professors use materials in a lecture that they have the right to use in that setting, but for which issues may be raised by broader use.

As MIT has done, Yale intends to make clear that those using the courses can’t expect communication with the professors via e-mail or phone calls — since the faculty members still have their primary responsibilities to those at the university. But Kleiner said that people all over the world could have “a lot of flexibility” in how they used the material. An individual could watch the lectures and read the books on the available syllabus. A college in a developing nation could build its own course around the Yale online lectures — and as long as that institution makes clear the source of the material, Yale welcomes that use. “We’re putting this out there to see what happens. What others do with it will be up to them,” she said.

Yale anticipates moving fairly quickly to having several dozen courses online.

A number of experts who have tracked the spread of the open courseware idea said that the Yale development could be quite significant. Ira H. Fuchs, vice president for research in information technology for the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation — another key backer of open courseware efforts — said that what Yale announced made “perfect sense” as the next step in sharing universities’ content.

Others noted that there could be distinct advantages for many institutions to pursue this model. John Unsworth, dean of the Graduate School of Library and Information Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, said he thinks there has been “great benefit” from MIT making its materials available free. But he said of the video approach for lectures: “That’s the most interesting stuff.”

Beyond sharing knowledge, Unsworth noted, universities that put course materials or lectures online free benefit from “great PR and marketing,” especially if they are institutions that don’t enjoy the name recognition of MIT or Yale. Unsworth said he thought this approach might have particular appeal down the road for public universities. “It’s not always easy for the public to see directly what the tax dollars are producing,” he said. “This model could be an important form of outreach to the citizens of a state.”

— Scott Jaschik

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Comments

open source

If open sourcing becomes prevelant, what are the implications for traditional universities? If a student can obtain the entire course over the internet, what would the rational be to attend the class and pay the tuition? Would this lead to course development financed and therefore influenced by various corporate sponsors? In short, does this approach which seems so egalitarian and progressive, also have elements that might limit academic independence?

michael dusik, at 12:50 pm EDT on September 20, 2006

Assuming that open-sourcing become prevalent, there probably will be little long-term implications for major universities. People still want to attend – really attend – “big name” schools.

But, I see some positive thing: 1)_academics will be able to attempt to empirically justify claims that their schools are better than other schools by pointing to the content delivered; and 2) it will be easy to prove or rebut claims that a professor is a political hack. Also, a small sliver of people might be able to learn from these courses, but I suspect the number of actual people benefitting in the same way that students can will be quite low.

Currently, there are varying degrees of corporate sponsorship at universities. Does it make a difference? Perhaps. However, corporations generally want to use schools as a tool to teach current employees needed skills, not to indoctrinate outsiders.

Larry, at 2:20 pm EDT on September 20, 2006

Open teaching

Not to single one person out too much, Michael Dusik, I would think, speaks toward a broader concern when he asks “If open sourcing becomes prevelant, what are the implications for traditional universities?”

The answer is simple: Yale is Yale, just like MIT and Harvard and the rest. They are brands that will not diminish, even with the dissementation of their materials. Why? Because even if I gather all of the materials, watch all of the lectures, read the required readings, etc...I will still not get the Yale credit on my transcript. I will not have written the papers, and I will not have hung out with fellow Yalies (I think there is another term for them).

BUT, with dissemenation of materials, others will benefit greatly. I know I will. Access otherwise denied. I don’t see a downside.

Piss Poor Prof, at 2:40 pm EDT on September 20, 2006

Seems I read something recently in the CHE or IHE about the trend of students not going to lecture, they can always get transcripts on the course site. Why go to the pains of video when all you need is the trancript. But the real issue is what is a Course, it certainly isnt a video of a famous Ivy League prof. enlightening us on interesting subjects. There are commercial operations that already sell those products. Courses are about matching lectures, readings, activities, projects, discussions, and assessments to clear learning objectives. All facilitated by an instructor, online or in person.

Dan, at 3:55 pm EDT on September 20, 2006

Why Students Enroll

I think open source materials make great augments for any instructor at any school, and they do not deter from the worth of the institution. Most schools are not looking to make money from their curriculum development—they are selling programs, instruction and a degree. Learning materials, online and otherwise, might be good advertisements for a school, and they might be useful in a class, but I don’t see them as enrollment threats to other institutions. If anything, Yale might want to worry about appearing to be too commercially focused.

Students do not enroll in a particular program so they can buy a book or have access to a video. They enroll to earn a degree in a learning environment of their choice. I would think publishing companies would have more to “fear” in terms of revenue loss than colleges.

kgotthardt, at 8:35 am EDT on September 21, 2006

Open Video Content Impact on Institution

This is an interesting article, and a positive step forward for open courseware. I am very interested in is the commentary and want to address some of the issues several of you have raised.

Here at UC Berkeley, we already have a hugely successful example of open video content. If you haven’t seen it, visit http://webcast.berkeley.edu. We have been delivering over 20 freely available course webcasts each semester for many years. We consider providing this open content as part of our mission as a public university. I can’t tell you how many inspiring emails we have gotten from people around the world thanking us for this service, citing the many ways in which this information has helped them in their jobs and their life interests (More info: http://tinyurl.com/jh5jr).

In addition to video, last year we took advantage of our existing webcast infrastructure and began to offer podcasting (more info: http://tinyurl.com/zsogy) as well. If done well, and leveraging existing resources this can be done very cost effectively. We also launched our Apple iTunesU (itunes.berkeley.edu) site in April 2006 (More info: http://tinyurl.com/zg9zq).

In terms the issue of diluting the learning experience, our webcasts are only meant to enhance the face-to-face course. Most of our students recognize that you don’t get the “UC Berkeley Experience” by sitting in front of your computer. That said, with webcast.berkeley, you certainly get a nice window in. In fact, MIT OCW found that many students who choose to attend MIT cite that OCW contributed to their positive image of the school.

We have done some research into how our campus learners are using the webcast at Berkeley, and it is primarily as a study tool. Partnering with web 2.0 companies and developing tools to help them scaffold their learning and engage around this content is the next frontier.

It is also important to be looking for sustainable models to carry this work forward beyond grant funding and looking toward long-term preservation.

Mara Hancock, Associate Director, ETS at UC Berkeley, at 4:10 pm EDT on September 21, 2006

OpenCourseWare

I think it is wonderful to see the push towards OpenCourse on the part of so many great institutions of higher learning.

The OpenCourseWare Consortium should, one hopes, turn into a world online university and also make grammar school, middle school, and high school classes available online. A complete free education should be available online to anyone with access to the Internet.

Michael Flessas, at 7:45 pm EDT on September 21, 2006

Costs

This is a very interesting and generous endeavor that Yale is undertaking, and, like the OpenCourseWare initiative at MIT, it is potentially a great public service for people all over the world.

I have to ask, however, how Yale plans to pay for the staff, equipment, production, and hosting costs once this project scales to dozens of courses every year. Video and website production are very expensive and time-consuming. Is the Hewlett Foundation going to pledge the millions of dollars required to grow this initiative?

Ian Lamont, Harvard Extension School, at 5:35 am EDT on September 22, 2006

Open Source Classes

I have a very simple and direct take on Open Source classes—any professor who allows him or herself to be videotaped for such a purpose is, to use language from the labor movement, a SCAB.

Rob, at 10:05 am EDT on September 22, 2006

Open Source?

OK. So a few well-paid profs at Yale and Berkeley make us think of a global revolution in accessible learning. But the real story here is about academic institutions—nonprofit or profit—amassing and copyrighting original lectures and educational materials and an alarming clip.

If you can popularize the open source philosophy then archive as many course products as possible, you eliminate the need for costly faculty and classrooms. Imagine the savings. Follow that money.

Somebody please notice how many well-educated Americans are minimally employed as adjuncts in academia? Please notice how for-profit and distance learning contracts are demanding complete rights to professors’ lecture and instructional materials?

Do understand how much colleges will save by cutting payroll, abolishing collective bargaining, and by reducing/eliminating the size of their physical plant. Do we all need MBAs to figure this out?

This may LOOK like a democratic principle at work, but remember how a few decades ago, today’s low-paid adjunct positions started out as reasonably well-paid “visiting lecturer” stints at places like Yale. The objective for academia is less about “open source” and more about “cheap source” and “free source.”

Rebecca, at 11:45 am EDT on September 25, 2006

Six years in the trenches teachng with video OCW

My point: The “next level of open source” has potential, but significant faculty and resource challenges remain.

Some background: I currently teach two video lecture-based, upper-division toxicology courses that are fully digital and approach OCW in most regards. Principles of Environmental Toxicology, started in 1999, is live-streamed from an on-campus student ed tech enhanced classroom. From the beginning, we have treated students that digitally access the course as “full-equals” for quality and we have put considerable effort into human-factors. The live stream can only be accessed by registered students and this was originally a bandwidth concern. However, 10 minutes after delivery the lecture is posted on the publicly available course Web site at http://www.agls.uidaho.edu/etoxweb/ The course typically has an equal number of on-campus and off-campus enrolled students and has grown to one of the largest upper division/grad courses at the University of Idaho. The off-campus enrollments have come from about 15 different states and 5 foreign counties. I know of about 5-10 universities or organizations that have used the course or elements of the course for their own application.

I have developed this course and supporting digital resources using my own content, contributions from colleagues, copyright-free resources, or copyright-released resources. I have tucked enrolled student activities (access to copyrighted material, homework, quizzes, student discussions behind a controlled access WebCT enrolled student portal), because of FERPA and fair use limitations of copyrighted material. I try to do the best job I can managing copyrighted material, and have tried to enhance accessibility to the course and courseware without violating copyright. The lecture course including all notes/slides and lecture audio/video is publicly available. In the design of this course, I have taken a “human factors” approach to colors, font size, and even my “talking head” that appears in the lecture videos. In 1999/2000 dollars, the course took about $5K of internal grant support, mostly in the form of some specialized html coding from our ed tech support folks. The course site is on a FrontPage backbone because this makes editing and updating quite easy. The course and lectures are updated each year, and the new live lectures are reposted as the course progresses throughout the semester. This summer, I took 5 weeks of development time and $600 to create a new course, Food Toxicology http://www.agls.uidaho.edu/foodtox/ This course is an experiment in off-line, course “extranetting” (I have hijacked this term for my own use). I pre-taped all of the lectures and make the video lectures available by streaming media and download to iPods and other portable media players (...anxiously awaiting the larger screen vPods). We are still experimenting with the handheld delivery of the lecture videos and some of the human factors and pedagogy approaches involved.

I have tried to use the “lessons learned” from my own personal experiences with digital delivery to enhance learning and accessibility for my students. Here are some of my lessons learned:

1) Over the years, most of my on-campus students have migrated away from attending lectures in the classroom when given a digital option. What started out as simultaneous video delivery for distance students is now digital delivery for most students with about 10% of the class still coming to lecture in the classroom. I am not a social scientist but these kids have changed from when I first started using digital delivery in 1993. The “thumb tribe” and “London taxi driver” studies in the social cognitive literature suggest these kids may be evolving new ways of thinking and learning. In my experience, most students like the digital approach and I would suggest that learner types that do not like digital delivery often self-select out of taking these courses. When I get a course review from a student that says “even though it was video lectures over my computer, I felt like I was in classroom,” I know we are on the right track to our mutual academic goals, and that the human-factors “touch” is there.

2) I liken digital delivery to being able to take a course in the ancient library of Alexandria, where the world’s accumulated knowledge is close at hand. During any of my presentations, a student is only a few keystrokes away from a pause in a lecture video and deeper access of the subject from the web. We are still learning how best to be digital peripatetics and determining the relative strengths and weakness of alternative approaches is a part of this grand experiment. For me, OCW, mine or that of other faculty, is no different than another knowledge resource on the library shelf. In my model, formally enrolled students get credentials, personal assessment, and personal interaction from an expert in the field – the true product of an engaging university education.

3) The cost basis for sustainable digital courseware does not have to be exorbitant. While I am impressed at the quality of the experiments going on at MIT and Yale, most higher ed institutions and faculty do not have access to that level of resource or support (...and never will). There are alternative approaches that do not require significant faculty or institutional overhead. I counted up about $30,000 in extra “revenue” to my university from distance students enrolling in my digital courses. There are non-tangibles as well, such as the value of having a traditional twenty-something on-campus student co-enrolled in a class with a mid-career professional from some exotic location.

4) Norms for faculty reward, regard, and risk in developing digital courseware are still developing. Bypassing the constant teaching vs. research debate occurring at research universities (I am a 60% research appointment, Assoc Prof in water quality research), I will suggest that currently, the reward and regard for digital endeavors remains low, while the risk is high. I find that my main driver is student feedback (typically positive) and the joy of experimenting to enhance student learning. Online enrolled student comments like: “I am a graduate student with degrees from three major US universities and this is the best course I have ever taken…” give me great satisfaction and suggest we can help students achieve their academic goals while increasing accessibility.

5) I observe from my students that well-designed courseware may allow a “denser” and more satisfying learning experience. I use the word “denser” because that is the way one of my students described the course. I have chosen to cover two textbooks in a 3cr course with a significant level of outside/online reading as well. One of my student evaluations remarked: “it was the hardest course I have ever taken, and the best course I have ever taken.” This observation may have some significance in determining the value of digital efforts in the academic mission.

6) I am not convinced by arguments that digital delivery or OCW means the end of the professorate or a risk to faculty jobs. I am sure the same arguments were made when every new educational technology appeared (correspondence courses, radio, TV, satellite downlinks…). If anything, by increasing access, we are increasing the market for higher education and higher ed is all about faculty and their personal interaction with students. Bits and bytes will never be a replacement for the student-teacher interaction. Satisfying our academic mission “in silico” (a term used to describe experiments performed on computers) is a new challenge and a new opportunity. Faculty will have to learn to use digital media as an increasingly important form of teaching — our students…the thumb tribe — are already very comfortable with digital socialization as an adjunct to their lives; faculty need to learn how to express themselves in this new world and connect to their students. Don’t get me wrong… a vibrant group of students in passionate discussion around a coffeehouse table is still my ideal classroom, but scribbling out a complex formula on a dinner napkin has its disadvantages.

Having tracked some of the developing offerings in video “next level OCW", I am disappointed by the quality. I think that anyone thinking about taking on an OCW course development or institutional level deployment may want to first do a critical evaluation of student-point-of-view human factors and faculty training needs. Just sticking a video camera in the back of a lecture hall may be a misstep to this “next level OCW.”

The potential outcomes of well-developed OCW are significant and worth the risks involved in this grand experiment.

Thank you for the opportunity to comment.

Greg Moller, Faculty Level Observations at University of Idaho, at 8:20 pm EDT on September 26, 2006

Doing what Yale is doing now

For the last two years, we have been adding vidoes to an already multi-dimensional course in Numerical Methods. I tried to get funding for this from NSF and will try again next year.

The course has everything that is presented as submodules. It has textbook notes, simulations in multiple computer languages, homework problems, power point presentations and real world problems from multiple majors.

Go give it a look and compare it to any of the OCW courses. It takes a village to do this.http://numericalmethods.eng.usf.edu

Autar Kaw, at 11:40 pm EDT on September 30, 2006

Will Open Source Decrease Value of Higher Ed

I do not have an answer, not am I biased toward one way or the other. However, I wonder if open source education will decrease the value of higher education. In my classroom — online and on campus- I deliver much more than just content; I engage my students in dailogue, debate, critical thinking etc. (as I’m sure most professors do). With simple open source (even video), this aspect of education is lost. Yet, I fear people will think that content is all that education is with the promotion of open source.

I’m curious others thoughts on this.

Evan Wood, Associate Dean at Taylor University, at 3:55 pm EDT on October 28, 2006

But ... what else?

From a technical point of view, to upload such a kind of “content” in the Net is undoubtly useful to make information circulate along it.

But my question is ... is it knowledge? Does it allow us to learn without anything else? Should we accept that we can pass our grades just reading the notes of our professors?

So ... it would mean we could get a degree just going to the library and being closed there for some months ...

I don’t really believe it ... I think it is about institutional marketing to get an image in the Net.

Albert Sangra, at 7:15 am EST on November 18, 2006

I think that by making video lectures of different science subjects available to the genereal public free of charge is the biggest servioe to science that any teacher can possibly make. Have we reached the last frontiers of science, absolutely not, and by making access to science freely available to a wider public, where, people like myself, who cannot afford higher education, can still participate in learning and hopefully contributing to science, makes it worthwhile. Thankyou to all individuals/professors/organizations for the effort.

Taff, at 6:20 pm EST on December 10, 2006

Should not be too exteme

It is a good thing to provide opencourse, but do not think too extreme. In other words, why offter FOR COMPLETELY FREE. My rationale is that when people from remote countries like China and India are able to access this course, that means they have the ability to afford computers, internet connection. Why not charge $2 or something so minimal? They can afford it, trust me. Also at least there is something in return. They do benefit from these and yes I also believe that being a full time student at MIT or Yale makes a big difference. This opencourse cannot substitute that.

Kirthi Raman, at 1:50 pm EST on January 2, 2007

i have been doing my own research on open source lectures and I am appalled at the quality of the webcasted lectures at my own institution. As someone said—just sticking a camera at the back of a lecture hall doesnt work. That said, at least Berkeley, MIT, Yale, are trying.

I liken online lecturing and video delivery of material to where we were at the early years of television. The transition from stage to screen is a difficult one, and broadway is still thriving 60 years later, tho hollywood is a much bigger industry. THe same will happen in academia. Those universities that aggressively encourage the new media will survive, those that don’t, won’t.

Here is how i see it all shaking out:

1) Faculty lectures will all be online and the effort that a faculty gives to ‘lecturing’ will be reoriented toward ‘discussion’. Much more like the Cambridge and Oxford models, which seem to have survived the test of time.

2) Video Lecture halls with good lighting, mikes, and www hookups via live meeting or other will be the norm.

3) This will happen within 5 years.

I am heading a project for online delivery of continuing eduction in geophysics and am trying to gather information about this field, so if anyone wants to contact me via email it is rector@ce.berkeley.edu.

james rector, professor at uc-berkeley, at 1:15 pm EST on January 23, 2007

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