Transcript From Open Source to Open Educational Resources

December 19-21, 2006
ESCWA/ICTDAR - Cairo
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• “In a world without walls or fences who needs
windows and gates?”
• Large groups of people are inherently smarter
than an elite few
• A new 'production structure' that is somehow
unique or special to a 'knowledge economy' and
will transcend or replace production structures of
the industrial era.
• ‘From the Cathedral to the Bazaar’ (E.Raymond)
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• Part of the larger movement that :
• Put the net back on track towards its original goal of sharing
information and knowledge around the world.
• Promotes free and unrestricted access to Knowledge, where
Knowledge is a social product and as such becomes an international
social property.
• Provides open access to the primary teaching materials for
courses taught at educational institutions,
– enabling :
• educators to draw on the materials for teaching purposes,
• students and self-learners to use the materials for the
development of their own personal knowledge.
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• Key components of the architecture include:
– Course planning application
– Content management application (CMA)
– Content repository
– Content delivery application (CDA)
– Content import and export functionality
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• Publishes course materials created by faculty (and
sometimes other colleagues or students) to support teaching
and learning
• Is IP-cleared, meaning that
– the opencourseware publisher has the rights to make the materials
available under open terms
– and that nothing in the materials infringes the copyrights of others
• Offers the materials free of charge for non-commercial use
• Is universally accessible via the Web
• COST: For the 1st 2-Year Phase, 12
MUSD$ !!!
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•
OCW is insufficient by itself:
– No interaction
– No Certificate (Important in Arab World)
• Interaction is needed.
• Summative evaluation is needed
• OCW is NOT a DISTANCE LEARNING OPERATION
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OPEN EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES
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• The open provision of educational resources enabled
by ICT, for:
• Consultation
• Use
• Adaptation by a community of users
• Noncommercial Profit purposes.
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• The resources are intended for college and
university faculties to adapt in accordance with their
curricular and pedagogical requirements;
• Included technologies support open, meaningful
access and use of the material.
• A set of open courses that are the product of
contributions from many faculty throughout the
world,
• Built on open standards and software architectures
that will allow the courses to be easily transformed
as technologies change
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• The coexistence of
– many different approaches to address the same
course material,
– coming from different professors, universities or
regions,
an effective mean to guarantee both a high level of
university education, as well as a better mutual
understanding and mutual cultural enrichment. 10
• A set of open courses that are the product of
contributions from many faculty throughout the
world,
• Built on open standards and software architectures
that will allow the courses to be easily transformed
as technologies change,
• Following the “Bazaar” Approach.
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LEARNER
LEARNING MANAGEMENT
COURSE
STANDARDS
LEARNING CONTENT
MANAGEMENT
SYSTEMS
Developers are
the Source of
the Value Chain
DEVELOPERS
CATALOG
COMPONENTS
Components, Assemblies,
Objects Material,
Resources, Courses,
Curricula Tools, Kits,
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Books, Periodicals, etc.
Educational Process
Research
Store and
Archive
Create
Educational
Process
Administrate
Communicate
and
Collaborate
Publish
and
Distribute
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•The price tag for proprietary software is enormous in purchasing power
terms.
•The price of a typical, basic proprietary toolset required for any ICT
infrastructure, Windows XP together with Office XP, is US$560 in the
U.S.
•This is over 17 months of GDP/capita in Sudan and over 13 months
of GDP/capita in Yemen.
•This is the equivalent of charging a single–user licence fee in the U.S. of
US$50,000 and US$38,217 respectively, which is clearly unaffordable.
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Country
PCs (‘000s)
GDP/cap
Piracy
WinXP Cost
Effective $
GDP months
Algeria
1773
220
n.a.
11140
3.79
Bahrain
12189
92
77%
1621
0.55
Djibouti
894
7
n.a.
22107
7.52
Egypt, Arab Rep.
1511
1010
58%
13075
4.45
Israel
17024
1564
40%
1160
0.39
Jordan
1755
165
67%
11257
3.83
Kuwait
16048
270
76%
1231
0.42
Lebanon
3811
247
79%
5184
1.76
Malaysia
3699
3000
70%
5341
1.82
Mauritania
366
28
n.a.
53959
18.35
Morocco
1173
400
61%
16840
5.73
Source: World Bank World Development Indicators Database, 2001; Piracy data from Business Software
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Alliance: GDP/capita in US$, Windows + Office XP cost in effective US$ equivalent cost calculation = $560
(U.S. GDP per capita/Country GDP per capita).
Country
GDP/cap
PCs (‘000s)
Piracy
WinXP Cost
Effective $
GDP months
Saudi Arabia
8711
1343
52%
2268
0.77
Sudan
395
115
n.a.
49990
17.00
Syrian Arab Republic
1175
270
n.a.
16815
5.72
Tunisia
2066
229
n.a.
9560
3.25
United States
35277
178326
25%
560
0.19
West Bank and Gaza
1286
n.a.
n.a.
15366
5.23
Yemen, Rep.
514
35
n.a.
38434
13.07
Source: World Bank World Development Indicators Database, 2001; Piracy data from
Business Software Alliance: GDP/capita in US$, Windows + Office XP cost in effective
US$ equivalent cost calculation = $560 * (U.S. GDP per capita/Country GDP per17capita).
Country
GDP/cap
PCs
(‘000s)
Piracy
WinXP Cost
Effective $
GDP months
Regional Aggregates
European Union
20863
116997
n.a.
947
0.32
EU Accession countries
4840
8286
n.a.
4082
1.39
EU applicant countries
2023
3592
n.a.
9766
3.32
The Caribbean
4560
308
n.a.
4332
1.47
Latin America
4335
18703
n.a.
4557
1.55
Africa
652
7636
n.a.
30297
10.31
Middle East
2679
9708
n.a.
7375
2.51
Asia
2128
102229
n.a.
9282
3.16
Oceania
13946
11886
n.a.
1417
0.4818
Source: World Bank World Development Indicators Database, 2001;
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Adapting the material to local cultural,
curricular, and pedagogical conditions
• Translating it into Arabic used by local students
and faculties
• Adapting to Student Profile
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Access/equity concerns:
Access to education
for people with varying
financial resources and
needs
Quality concerns:
Appropriate quality
standards to be met
Social/economic concerns:
Use of resources to
support realization of a
well-educated Arab
community
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Shift Towards Knowledge Society
Main Pillar
Service Sector
Training Gaps in:
Management, eBusiness, eLearning, HRD, etc.
Added-Value Instructional Design Chain:
Requirements (3D):
Design, Development, Delivery
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• HOW DO WE ?
– Equip ourselves with human and technological capabilities to
contribute to open course ware development in a global
competitive context?
– Develop the skills of adaptation of open courseware to suit the
local requirements?
– Build-in elements of culture sensitivity in open courseware?
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• HOW DO WE ?
– Address the question of language especially in the
multi lingual contexts when courseware is largely
available in English? (We have to spend a lot of energy
and resources having three languages: Arabic, English,
French)?
– Open courseware looks more like an input activity.
How do we integrate the processes and outcomes of
open courseware?
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Q: WHY?
A: To Overcome Barriers of Open Course Adoption
• Lack of awareness on
 long term risks created by current vendor-driven
proprietary model
 business models for open source
• Lack of impetus
• Lack of Technical Access (BB)
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Q: WHY?
A: To Overcome Barriers of Open Course Adoption
• Lack of capacity
 Poor Content
 Low production quality
• Lack of Resources
 Skilled Human Resources
 Non-Readiness to use Resources
 Financial Resources
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FIRST PRIORITY:
Creating a Globally Viable Infrastructure
If open resources are to be made broadly available, some
technology fundamentals must be in place:
 Connectivity, including access to the material in locations
with limited bandwidth;
 Software that works on a variety of platforms, using agreed
standards;
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S/W – Systems - Infrastructure - Training
 Software that permits easy modification of content as
the resource is adapted for local use (e.g. in the case of
MIT OCW initiative, MIT response to institutions willing to
translate courseware was to maintain the traditional
academic freedom of its faculty, relying, with regard to
political and cultural issues, on the users of OCW to make
necessary local adaptations) ;
 Systems that support multiple languages;
An infrastructure made workable through the existence of
technically skilled people.
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S/W – Systems - Infrastructure – Training
 Training – developing and maintaining local technical
competence -- is a key requirement. Skilled or trainable developer
pool. If the country does not have a skilled or trainable developer pool,
then it is not feasible to participate in the OSS development activities. It
is of course still viable to execute other aspects of the OSS strategy.
Intellectual property (IP) law framework and enforcement. A common
symptom in developing countries is the lack of IP laws and/or the failure
to enforce IP laws.
Low cost (Free), widely available Internet access. A critical factor for
open source participation is the ability to become part of the Internet.
Since open source only works over the Internet, policies that favor the
use and spread of the Internet are essential to building a healthy open
source community (e.g. legal case of VoIP in most developing countries
is a barrier, as being contrary to the state owned telecommunications
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company).
S/W – Systems - Infrastructure – Training
Educational infrastructure. Even for base adoption of
OSS products, the IT education infrastructure must be widely
disseminated. A network of training/educational institutions that
teach basic computing skills is essential to promulgate the
dissemination of OSS products and solutions.
Freedom of information. Access to the Internet brings with
it free access to information, a requirement to open source to
succeed.
Language Skilled Developers. Even beyond traditional
development, because of the geographically and temporally
distributed nature of OSS development, good communication
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skills are a critical tool of the successful OSS developer.
Mainly UNESCO
• USEE Programme
• TEAM FrameWork
• Open Source Platform Adoption (e.g. MOODLE )
• UNESCO/EU-MED INCO Initiative: AVICENNES Project
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• We need a clear policy and clear message for open
educational resources.
• The future is for open
collaborative educational
resources.
• And Last but not Least:
• “Knowing is not enough, We must Apply!
• Willing is not enough, We must DO!”
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