Modes and models of production
of OERs: The missing link to wider
adoption
Dominik Lukes@TechCzech - Researchity.net
Attribution-ShareAlike
Questions /
comments
@TechCzech
When did you last
use an OER?
When did you last
produce an OER?
Why, how, who
for?
Most produced
OERs?
Photos? Sounds? Short videos?
Easy to produce, modify, reuse!
Typical end-user
question about
OER?
Is it really free?
Is it any good?
How much work will it take
to use?
Typical OER
answer…
It is openly licensed.
It is as good as it is.
Community/Contribution…
Materials that are high
quality, reliable, respectable,
easy to reuse, free/cheap,
…
…openly licensed!
How are OERs
produced?
The lone hero model of OER production
Individual (well-meaning)
creator makes their
materials available…
…on an individual website,
institutional website, shared
repository.
Quality is guaranteed by
crowd curation in the style of
Amazon.
OERs are hard to…
Find
Modify
Integrate
Build on
Trust
Crowd is NOT enough!
Crowd is NOT what it seems!
Questions /
comments
@TechCzech
Better models of
creation, curation?
1. Wikipedia model
2. Code sprint model
3. Fan-fiction model
Wikipedia myth: Ant accretion
Wikipedia reality: Focused editorial
communities
Similarly to academic
journals, OERs need
editorial communities
identifying needs, gaps and
providing work.
Code sprint model
Code sprints > Book sprints
From idea to book in 7 days!
4-10 people get together for
a week, outline work, do
focused writing, edit each
others work, publish results.
There are at least 2 Open Source tools
Other inspiration from Open Source software development:
Versioning/Releases
Branches
Maintainers
Patches
Issue queues
How does Twighlight Fanfiction become
a popular book?
Alpha/Beta readers
Reviewers
Theorists
The Fanfiction ecosystem
produces edited novel-
length works, properly
categorised, reviewed, with
interaction between
reader/writer.
You don’t need publishers
to produce high quality work
meeting the needs of the
audience!
Questions /
comments
@TechCzech
What can you do
about it?
Require online e-pub books
Fund Wikipedia editathons
Fund topic book sprint series
Fund editorial groups
Accept OER editorial work
toward degrees (more than
Wikipedia editing in a
course)
Start Open publishing
houses with Open
production workflows
Form OER production and
maintaining collectives
Accept OER engagement as
CPD
Redefine success of OERs
by actual usability by
teachers and students not
by license and availability.
Quality is relative to use / value, not to
looking like old-style published works
Lone hero by JD Hancock CC BY
https://www.flickr.com/photos/jdhancock/4713569968
Crowd by Guilhem Vellut CC BY
https://www.flickr.com/photos/o_0/9493106932
https://www.flickr.com/photos/o_0/9493108712
Ant hill by Martin LaBar CC BY NC
https://www.flickr.com/photos/32454422@N00/18070583
77
Wikipedians by Sage Ross CC BY SA
https://www.flickr.com/photos/34166194@N00/21938435
59
Book sprint CC BY-SA 2.0
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_sprint#/media/File:Adam
_Hyde_and_Alan_Toner_at_Collaborative_Futures_Book
_Sprint,_January_2010.jpg
Thank you
@TechCzech