1st+Debate+on+OER+versus+Project+based+Course+publications

MM: I believe that we should have a limited set of courses that are maintained by peer-review in terms of updates. Each one could have a different "flavour" and each can be taken and customised by course designers either as a complete course with minor additions, or as a mish-mash from the set. These course could corresond to today's texts or a full course in Blackboard and would probably include videos, diagrams, activities etc. Assessment may need to be unique to each unique course offering (to offset plagarism etc).

SZ: So would these limited set of courses be maintained by one University or body? Would they be released as OERs? Who decides on the limitations i.e. what is allowed in or out?

SZ: If I understand correctly, one of the limitations of the production of new learning materials by leveraging from OERs reflects this quote:

"The main resistance to the flow of OER is rather to be found in their dispersedness and the need for adaptation to a new local context. Both in the field of their production and usage OER have to counterbalance this 'disadvantage' in relation to existing and successful open networks, because as long as the effort for finding suitable resources is expected to be higher than the expected effort to create them oneself, the network will not gain critical mass and the potential of OER for global learning is not used optimally. Neither institutional backing nor strong community attitudes will gain sustainable success otherwise. (Remmele 2006?)"

MM Well I would imagine that anybody could start a resources/book project (SZ Then why should the set of courses be limited as in your first statement?) The project teams would ideally allow multiple contributors and contributors to come and go. I was thinking along the lines of large open source projects. Reportedly, these projects, due to the international membership of contributors tend to be more globalised and less localised in their construction from the outset, perhaps reducing the need to re-localise later (Feller and Fitzgerald 2002, pg 87). The presence of large well-developed projects with a complete set of materials for those who want it overcomes the "dispersedness" issue above. The fact that there can be sets of competing projects in similar or overlapping areas allows for multiple world views and competing ideas and ideologies.

(SZ: I think, IIUC, that ideally OER development should take place exactly as you describe your project-based development above. )

MM To clarify the "limited" set of resources, there would be no "official" limit, but I think in practice there would end up being a relative small set of well-known, repected and highly utilized projects. New ones may come along periodically and old ones may drop off in popularity. Lets take web-browers as an example, there are probably hundreds of browsers available (or have been over time) but in practice only a few have gained popularity.

(SZ: Yes, I agree that only some would take off/become popular. Still disagree with your first sentence that we *should have* this; because that would imply some selection and culling; I am happy to acknowledge that in practice only some would really take off. The small, minority, niche browsers and OERs all need to exist to maintain the multiple world views, catering to multiple needs, etc.)

What does IIUC mean? (SZ: If I Understand Correctly)

References (Remmele 2006?) []

Feller, J & Fitzgerald, B. Understanding Open Source Software Development. Addison-Wesley.