Before this week’s course readings and activities, I vaguely knew that open learning was both free and online, but I had no idea of its potential in education. Open educational resources (OER) are oftentimes initially used by instructors as a way to minimize costs, however, it can also be leveraged to improve pedagogy as well. Edits, and other changes can be added to OER due to it having open licensing. These resources can include any type of teaching material ranging from textbooks to the entire course.
I strongly feel that open access textbooks are a great resource for students as it alleviates both academic and financial concerns for students and allows for education to be more readily available to everyone. Another resource and component of education that strongly resonates with me are open access research articles. Students should also be able to access journals most relevant to their research/studies and not be limited by the selection of journals that their campuses are able to provide. From just these examples it becomes evident that open learning differs from online (distributed) learning in accessibility and cost. Distributed learning is not accessible for all students as this type of learning is tied to an institution that requires a certain set of standards before granting admission that can’t be met by every student wishing for an education. There are no such requirements for students wishing to continue their education through open learning. Despite these key differences, both open and distributed learning are still uniquely similar in providing students flexibility. Both types of learning styles lack face-to-face interaction that traditional classrooms encompass as they are both delivered online.
With this mode of delivery, students don’t have to travel far to participate in a classroom environment, they are free to interact with course material at a distance the utility of this was well demonstrated with the shift to remote learning this past year. Moreover, depending on if an online class is synchronous or asynchronous, they both also allow for students to learn at their own pace as lectures were recorded via Zoom. There is clearly a lot of potential and value in open learning as it breaks geographical and financial barriers in education. This would, hopefully, influence an instructor when considering OER or OEP as their course material will be more accessible to a wider range of students with little to no cost. I wonder what types of changes we will see in the delivery of education as open learning becomes more mainstream moving forward.
References:
Jordan, K. & Weller, M. (2017). Openness and Education: A beginners’ guide. Global OER Graduate Network.
Hi Gurbir,
Nice post! I never think about the financial part of open learning resources. After reading your post, I believe OER is pretty good for students and instructors to save the cost. Also, I agreed with you the idea of open learning breaks the geographical and financial barriers in education.
However, I am wondering that the choice of OER is important. Because some resources of open learning are not having a direct relationship with the course.
Hello Gurbir, thanks for sharing your thoughts this week. I agree wholeheartedly on the points you made about open access textbooks. The high prices we so often see for educational resources of textbooks, journals, and other information seems almost extortinate at times or at least needlessly expensive. Increasing accessibility to education always seems to be a win-win for everyone. Open and distributed modes of education do help break barriers for education, be they accessibility or other barriers. I too wonder what kind of evolution open learning may have for us in the future, perhaps with more open courses such as MOOCs or another to be named format.
Cheers,
Allen
Hi Gurbir,
Thanks for the post. What you are saying is connecting really well with the Topic 3 readings (upcoming week). Open access journals are so important to ensure that the general public can engage with cutting edge research. Academic publishing is a model that needs to be disrupter.
In your explanation, you suggest that open practices apply to online learning. Can open practices be used with in-person learning too? What benefit would that provide beyond cost-saving?
Ryan