Knowledge is Personal, but Let’s Be Open

Sarah Nguyen

The open movement applies to many facets of information exchange: access, code, source, education, syllabi, scholarship, hardware, technologies, science, etc. It is common to clump these into one facet and believe all will be fulfilled. Unfortunately this is not true. Each facet requires its own definition and agreed upon standards, but they can all look forward to becoming a part of public open knowledge.

What did Open mean to me?

I first learned about open when I worked for a software company that built open access institutional repositories (i.e. tech company that makes websites and databases that host open access (OA) articles, journals, theses, dissertations, conference proceedings, etc.). We used and contributed to open source code to create a closed piece of software to sell to users who would then contribute openly accessible content. From the vendor’s point of view, implementation seemed easy and it was obvious why open access scholarship was important—everyone should have access to publicly funded research—but why wasn’t everyone openly publishing their research? I was blind to the significant human and emotional labor and institution-wide culture shift that is required to actually make an open access database acceptable to the centuries-old world of scholars and institutional knowledge. And that was just for the  open access movement: there are other layers of complexity involved with different forms of open advocacy.

What does Open means to me now?

As the Instructional Technologist for CUNY City Tech’s O.E.R. Fellowship program (2018-2019), I taught instructors and professors on how to develop their O.E.R. (e.g. website, syllabus, online activities, etc.) and guided them through best practices on web development, content ownership, and open access materials. I learned about Open Education Resources (O.E.R.) as a sort of cousin to OA resources, an additional means for open access materials to be used and made available, specifically for educators and students. O.E.R. uses similar licensing structures, crediting authorship, and permission to access, and  I also came to understand the struggle and determination it takes to gather “buy-in” from the core user base, educators and students.

Similar to OA, at its core, O.E.R. was inspired by the increasingly rising textbook costs, controlled by big corporate publishers. Adoption is no easy task, since O.E.R.adoption means deviating from the century-old embedded culture of textbooks and journals to be the canonical source for educational material. Many educators have been studying how to communicate and teach their discipline for years, and O.E.R. means convincing faculty to move away from  trusted resources that help explain difficult concepts and theories, around which they have crafted their pedagogical approach.

Other layers of friction with O.E.R. adoption include: the limited bandwidth to create and maintain the resource itself, and the fact that O.E.R.-related work is not included in the tenure and promotion process. All of these barriers to entry, for the goodness of public and open knowledge, towards a shared  knowledge commons.

If not now, when?

With rapid developments in technology, and monsoons of information created on the internet everyday, there needs to be a corresponding change in academic culture. Change in how institutions, educators, knowledge creators, and students perceive themselves, and act upon their purpose: sending and receiving information to each other.

For example, during a one-on-one session with a professor, in which we were reviewing the O.E.R. Site Checklist before final publication of the O.E.R., the importance of accessibility efforts came up. As mentioned in the Introduction to Accessibility module that O.E.R. fellows encounter during their fellowship, WEBAIM’s WAVE Web Accessibility Evaluation Tool is a neat resource that automatically scrolls through webpages to flag for areas that need to be improved for accessibility reasons (color contrast, alt tags, or header formatting). This is to ensure that people with diverse abilities are able to navigate, access, and use websites as expected.

As we discussed accessibility measures, the professor noted that (paraphrased) “it’s funny how back in the day we never had to worry about accessibility and education went along fine. But now, we have to accomodate everyone on these online course sites.” As someone who has poor eyesight and has family members with glaucoma, accessibility in formatting, font, and color contrast is important in order for us to be able to be a part of society—especially if the majority of society is interfacing with online digital materials every day. I would not be in the educated position that I am today without accessibility standards on the web, and made possible through digital tools.

O.E.R. is a bigger conversation than un-copyright-ing of the content itself. As Jean Amaral, Open Knowledge Librarian and Associate Professor at Borough of Manhattan Community College, told me: It is a shift in the overall culture of higher education, looking at the role of public institutions and how to ensure that systems of open pedagogy are put into place. It means  rethinking what happens in and out of the classroom, and knowing that each baby step is part of the larger effort, and worth the fight.

Open knowledge

Since then, I have been asking more questions about open knowledge systems and what that means to education, research, and how that benefits society as a whole. While this leaves open initiatives, such as the O.E.R. program, with more questions than answers, these could be guiding thoughts to introduce those joining the open movement to consider when supporting faculty in rebuilding their syllabi to include only O.E.R. This still encapsulates the various facets that can be made open (e.g. access, scholarship, code, etc.), but it also asks:

• What levels of open are possible in public vs. private institutions? In non-profits vs. government agencies? In community-based, all-volunteer run organizations?
• Even if we are able to have a zero textbook cost learning environment, is this inclusive to the diversity of learners?
• Existentially, does this actually open doors for educators’ and students’ futures in higher education or up the social-economic ladder? Keep in mind that the system’s tenure promotion process does not consider O.E.R. creation as a credible attribute.
• On the broader social-level, how does culture change work within systems, scholarship, and academia?
• Where does change happen at personal, systemic, organizational?

Both Associate Professor Amaral and Micah Vandergrift, Open Knowledge Librarian at North Carolina State University, have mentioned to me that they meditate on thinking about education differently. There is a focus on bringing education back as a lifelong endeavor for personal growth and individual self-actualization, which then produces new knowledge that becomes a part of society and culture. O.E.R. are one piece of that puzzle, towards producing new forms of knowledge for the larger society to eventually use.

Sarah Nguyen worked as an Instructional Technologist for City Tech’s O.E.R. Fellowship program (2018-2019).