Why open education, especially now?
"As varied as academic educators are, there are a few things that most of us share: a strong, intrinsic motivation to share knowledge and the desire help people to develop their critical thinking skills. This seems more important than ever in a time where misinformation, disinformation and manipulation appear to reign supreme. Neither you nor I can change the world by ourselves, but we can do some things. One thing you might consider is embracing open education, which allows us to share our teaching materials with the world. I did, and the experience has been really great."
Education without walls
"Colleagues looking for a starting point to design a new course, or just for some extra exercises for their students. Students that need a little extra help to refresh their prior knowledge because they need to take an advanced level course. Former students looking to revisit a course they took with you in the past to help them with some task at their current jobs. How cool would it be to help them all out, because they can just access your materials – no paywalls, no strings attached? Come join me, go open, and find out for yourself! I can tell you that it is really rewarding when you see the materials you put so much effort into developing make a difference for others."
The bigger picture
"And there’s a bigger picture to consider here. Maybe you care about contributing to an open society, wherein we settle our differences through rational debate instead of suppression and violence? It can only happen if knowledge is shared freely, we commit to developing our critical thinking, and are able to learn from our mistakes. Open education won’t magically achieve that, but it sure can help. Maybe you also care about open science, and recognize the urgent need to create more transparency in the way we academics collect, process, and interpret information? Open education is your chance generalize that from your research practices to your teaching practices. Maybe you care about inequality? Open education allows you to help people around the world, including from economically deprived and war-torn regions, to learn. Maybe you worry about budget cuts at your institution and trends that put pressure on the financing of higher education and research? Open education can help us to avoid pouring scarce resources into reinventing the wheel over and over again. But even more importantly, we are currently sending staggering amounts of tax money to for-profit publishers just to lock knowledge – produced with our publicly funded labor - behind paywalls. Open education is the ticket to break up those quasi-monopolies. Maybe you worry about how society at large and the people it votes for in particular are perceiving higher education, and what negative consequences that may have? Open education allows us to show us what is really going on behind our walls an demystify our institution. That might just be better than letting selective examples and imagination dominate public views."
Still in doubt? Let me try to address some concerns you may have:
“It takes time and won’t benefit me”
“'This is just going to take up my scarce and precious time, and it will not help my career.' Yes, it is, and not it probably won’t. But if you’re an academic, especially a tenured academic in a rich country, you are afforded a great deal of financial compensation, job security and autonomy. You can use that privilege to make choices. Of course, incentives matter, and in our current academic system they aren’t aligned with open education. But the system constraints, it doesn’t deterministically govern your every move. You have agency, don’t waste it waiting for the world to change. And maybe consider what’s more important to you: outcompeting your peers in the academic rat-race, or contributing to knowledge and understanding."
“Will I make myself redundant?”
“'If I share my material, I’m just making myself redundant because now they can get someone cheaper to do my job.' Possibly, yes. But any university that understands the first thing about creating good educational programs, knows that educational quality doesn’t primarily depend on materials but above all on the people teaching in those programs. If you are good teacher, sharing your materials isn’t going to make you replaceable unless you work for a terrible organization."
“What if there are mistakes?”
“'But what if I made a mistake in my materials and now everyone will find out?' We are fallible human beings, we all make mistakes. If others find out, that’s great, because now we can learn something and improve. Making mistakes is not a weakness, being open to recognizing them and learning from them is a strength."
Not everything needs to be open
“'My material is in no shape to be shared, and some of it is really sensitive so I’m worried about stuff being taken out of context.' That’s fine! Not everybody has to share, and not everything has to be shared. Just know that you have a choice and make a reasoned decision about it. And do be aware that your materials do not have to be perfect to be useful to others. Mine sure aren’t!"
