A talk given at the biennial Technology Institute in Leavenworth, WA.

1. How Open Educational Resources & Digital TechnologiesAre Changing Higher Education Tom Caswell Open Education Policy Associate WA State Board for Community & Technical Colleges 2011 Technology Institute September 20, 2011

2. Iron Triangle “In the view of many college and university presidents, the three main factors in higher education—cost, quality, and access—exist in what we call an iron triangle. These factors are linked in an unbreakable reciprocal relationship, such that any change in one will inevitably impact the others.” - Public Agenda research on opinions of higher education presidents Source: The Iron Triangle: College Presidents Talk About Costs, Access, and Quality, Public Agenda, October 2008.

3. Iron Triangle Quality vs. Cost vs. Access The “Iron Triangle” suggests institutions are constrained in their ability to adapt. Access Cost Quality

4. Affordances of Digital Content Vs. Rivalrous vs. Non-Rivalrous Resources

5. How do we currently attempt to harness digital networked technologies?

6. Global Trends Internet + Digital Content = Lower Cost Greater Access Greater Quality Right?

7. Global Trends Internet + Digital Content = Lower Cost Greater Access Greater Quality WRONG!

8. We have a problem

9. Current Academic Publishing Model Text Source: http://righttoresearch.org

10. Current Academic Publishing Model Source: http://righttoresearch.org

11. ©

13. Making the Case for “Open” Internet + Digital Content + Open License= Lower CostGreater AccessGreater Quality

14. Making the Case for “Open” Open Educational Resources (OER) US Dept. of Ed. Definition: 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 or repurposing by others.

15. Making the Case for “Open” Why is “Open” Important in Education? Efficiency: Build on existing investments Affordability: Students can’t afford textbooks Quality: We tend to do our best work when we know our peers can see it Self-interest: Increased faculty exposure, reputation, and opportunities

17. What is Creative Commons? A simple, standardizedway to grant copyright permissions to yourcreative work.

18. Share Alike Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivative Works Step 1: Choose License Conditions http://creativecommons.org/choose 18

19. Step 2: Receive License 19

20. Each CC license comes in 3 formats:

21. 400 million open resources so far

22. Higher Ed

23. Meanwhile, back at the textbook ranch…

24. Textbook Affordability

25. Textbook Affordability The high cost of textbooks has reduced Washington citizens’ access to higher education.Full-time students spend over $1,000 on textbooks every year. College Board Report: Trends in College Pricing (2007)

26. Student Advocacy WA CTC Student Voice Academy Top issue three years running: CUTTING TEXTBOOK COSTS

27. Textbook Affordability SBCTC Example: English Composition I 50,000+ enrollments / year x $100 textbook = $5+ Million every year

28. Textbook Affordability The current Higher Education textbook market is estimated at $8.2 billion, and is expected to reach over $9 billion by 2014. Total market size based on Eduventures Textbook Market Study and the National Association of College Stores, 2009.

29. The Old Economics (Rivalrous) Print, warehouse, and ship a new book for every student

30. The New Economics (Non-Rivalrous) Upload one copy, and everyone uses it simultaneously Making copies, storage, distribution of digital stuff = “Free”

31. http://techplan.sbctc.edu “We will cultivate the culture and practice of using and contributing to open educational resources.”

32. WA Legislation SSHB1025 Faculty consider the least costly practices in assigning course materials, such as adopting the least expensive edition available, adopting free, open textbooks when available, and working with college librarians to put together collections of free online web and library resources, when educational content is comparable as determined by the faculty…

33. WA Legislation SSHB1946 – two big ideas – share technology and share content. (v) Methods and open licensing options for effectively sharing digital content including but not limited to: Open courseware, open textbooks, open journals, and open learning objects…

34. State Board “Open” Policy All digital software, educational resources and knowledge produced through competitive grants, offered through and/or managed by the SBCTC, will carry a Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY).

35. Open Education Open Course Library Goals Design and share 81 high enrollment, gatekeeper courses Improve course completion rates Lower textbook costs for students (<$30) Provide new resources for faculty to use in their courses Fully engage our colleges in the global open educational resources discussion.

36. Open Course Library Phase 1: 42 courses Available October 31, 2011 at http://opencourselibrary.org Phase 2 : 39 courses Available Spring 2013

37. Open Course Library 81 courses built by our own faculty Define learning objectives Use existing, quality OER Fill in gaps with their own content

38. Open Course Library 81 courses = 411,133 enrollments / year Potential Impact: $41M+ in textbook costs / year If adopted by 25% of the sections in the system (faculty decision), savings to students will be $7.2M / year. Completions rates may also increase when all students can afford course materials

39. Next Steps: Open Course Library Driving Open Course Library Course Adoptions Regional conferences and workshops New faculty trainings Building open sharing into existing teaching workflows and technologies Lecture capture Next LMS will have “open sharing” feature

40. Next Steps: Open Learning Initiative What would happen to the quality of curriculum if digital content was shared and course (re)design was data driven? How can we use technologies and shared content to significantly increase completion rates?

41. Next Steps: Open Learning Initiative Carnegie Research Results: OLI students completed course in half the time with half the number of in-person meetings Accelerated learning study (Statistics): 33% more content, learning gain in standardized test 13% OLI vs 2% in traditional face-to-face class OLI Online vs. traditional: OLI 99% completion rate vs 41% completion rate traditional Lovett, M., Meyer, O., & Thille, C. (2008). The Open Learning Initiative: Measuring the effectiveness of the OLI statistics course in accelerating student learning. Journal of Interactive Media in Education.

42. Next Steps: Open Learning Initiative Piloting OLIin our colleges Train faculty in our CTCs to use OLI Faculty teach with OLI for 3 quarters Examine completion rates

43. WA Education Master Plan Educate More Citizens Raise educational attainment to create prosperity, opportunity Policy Goal: Increase the total number of degrees and certificates… By 2018, raise mid-level degrees and certificates to 36,200 annually, an increase of 9,400 degrees annually.

44. More? Better? Faster? How does OER help teach more students and teach them better? Non-rivalrous, scalable, searchable Allows students to preview and review Paves the way for lifelong learning Can be customized, translated, improved Data feedback loops are useless without the ability to change the content

45. NEW HE Models are En Route

46. What if… What if all publicly funded educational content was open access? What kind of efficiencies could higher education yield? Simple idea: public access to publicly funded educational materials.

47. OnlyONE Thing Matters: Efficient use of public funds to increase student success and access to quality educational materials. Everything else (including all existing business models) is secondary.

48. Conclusion: We can break the “Iron Triangle” IF we: Ask “what is best for students?” Openly license and share our educational and scientific resources Explore more affordable, scalable models for higher education using digital, networked, open technologies

49. Tom CaswellOpen Education Policy Associate, State Board for Community & Technical Colleges tcaswell@sbctc.edu http://opencourselibrary.org Slides at: http://slideshare.net/tom4cam