Statement from co-founder...
"In a nutshell, we publish free and low-cost print and electronic textbooks, all of which are professionally edited, peer-reviewed, and typeset, under a Creative Commons BY-SA-NC license. My colleague Andrew Bender succinctly calls us the "Red Hat of textbooks." Like Red Hat, we flourish by freely distributing our core content and charging reasonable fees for value-added versions of our books. Most people respond favorably and tell us that what we are doing is exciting and necessary. Even if they do not understand OER or the publishing business, everyone reacts the same way to the 'Textbook Problem'."
I wonder about some of the recent MOOCs this way, for example. Sure, anyone can sign up so they're "open" in that sense. But the materials themselves often aren't openly licensed.
The adjective "open" ostensibly makes educational resources more easily accessible. But "open" can mean a lot of things: resources that are free; research that is publicly available on the Web and indexed by search engines; courses that offer open enrollment; materials that are openly licensed; content and code that can be copied and modified and redistributed. "Open" can mean "transparent." Open versus proprietary. Open versus closed.
Publishers have begun to investigate whether so-called MOOC's, or massive open online courses, can help them reach new readers and sell more books.
But online courses do have recommended-reading lists, and enrollments in the tens of thousands. If even a small percentage of those online students buy books, the sales could add up to a nice boost for a textbook.
Colleges aren't the only enterprises interested in the possibilities of free, online courses. Publishers have begun to investigate whether so-called MOOC's, or massive open online courses, can help them reach new readers and sell more books.
Here's a perspective on the Finnish education system from someone who also has a view towards open and free software in education. Suggests we all take a cue from agile software development to improve our own educational culture/system.
On the theme of moving from access to practice...and ways to measure degree of implementation ...
Article by Ulf-Daniel Ehlers in the Journal of Open, Flexible and Distance Learning... "examines the findings of the recent OPAL report Beyond OER: Shifting Focus from Resources to Practices. In doing so, it defines current understanding of open educational resources and open educational practices, and highlights the shift from open content to open practice. The article includes a framework for supporting open educational practices. The conclusions emphasise that open access is a necessary but not sufficient condition for the opening of education, and foreshadows ongoing moves toward changes in educational architectures that promote increased uptake of open educational resources and wider application of open education."
MOOCs going corporate to save workplace learning? Predictions/perspective from Bloomberg/Businessweek:
"Less appreciated is how the MOOCs could also change employee skill development and lifelong learning at work. "It will be transformational," says Josh Bersin, chief executive officer of his eponymous consulting firm."
"I wouldn't be surprised if we see 10 companies or so in a year, offering MOOC -like courses to corporations," says Bersin."