Print

Print
Update:

(1) I worked with the report authors this weekend, and they have revised the report to include Hewlett's updated OER definition.

(2) We also discussed if they were willing to put an open license on the report. After much discussion about their need for notification upon use, the opted to stay with their existing terms:
I'd like to that Jeff Seaman and Elaine Allen for engaging these topics over the weekend.

Have a good week everyone,

Cable


On Fri, Nov 9, 2012 at 2:16 PM, Cable Green <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
Greetings Open Colleagues:

The Babson Survey Research Group has released a new report: Growing the Curriculum: Open Education Resources in U.S. Higher Education (download links below).

This sentence is of particular concern to me: "One concept very important to many in the OER field was rarely mentioned at all – licensing terms such as creative commons that permit free use or re-purposing by others."

I think I'll run a webinar series (as many as it takes) for Chief Academic Officers to help them better understand: (1) OER and (2) the difference between "free" and "open."
  1. Hewlett's OER Definition begins:  “OER are teaching, learning, and research resources that reside in the public domain or have been released under an intellectual property license that permits their free use and re-purposing by others.”
    • Notice the “and”. An OER cannot be freely available or openly licensed – it must be both freely available and openly licensed (or in the public domain) to be an OER.

  2. Open vs. Free: “Free” gives you “no-cost” or gratis access to a resource. “Open” provides both gratis and libre access to a resource. It is the open license that gives you the legal permissions to reuse, revise, remix, and redistribute the resource.
And... it is (again) disappointing to see a report, about OER, licensed "all rights reserved."  It would also be helpful if they used Hewlett's updated OER definition.  Perhaps we can convince them to put a CC license on the report and update the definition.
 
Those points aside, there is a significant amount of useful and hopeful information in the report and infographic.  For example, I like this clear list of OER challenges to be solved:
Thoughts?

Cable


Cable Green, PhD
Director of Global Learning
Creative Commons
http://creativecommons.org/education
http://twitter.com/cgreen

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Babson Survey Research Group <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Fri, Nov 9, 2012 at 1:26 PM
Subject: Open Education Resources report released - download link

Dear Educator,

Thank you for your interest in our report on Open Education Resources. The report, entitled Growing the Curriculum: Open Education Resources in U.S. Higher Education, is available as a free download.


We hope that you find our survey reports valuable.  You can download other Babson Survey Research Group reports at: http://www.onlinelearningsurvey.com/

We always welcome comments. Please use our suggestion form to let us now how we can improve the survey process or the content of the reports. You can also contact us at [log in to unmask]
 
Best Regards,


I. Elaine Allen, PhD
Jeff Seaman, PhD
Co-Directors, The Babson Survey Research Group




--


Cable Green, PhD
Director of Global Learning
Creative Commons
http://creativecommons.org/education
http://twitter.com/cgreen