Workshop Barcelona: Open policy

Editor's Notes

• #4: According to the World Food Program there are 925 million undernourished people in the world today. That means one in seven people do not get enough food.What if we had a food machine that could feed everyone?Marginal cost of feeding everyone was close to $0Doing so doesn’t hurt farmersnet result =everyone in the world has enough to eatQuestion is: should we turn on the food machine? Let’s take a vote (raise your hand)Obvious, yes?I believe we have a “learning machine”, it is within our power to turn it on… but it needs public open policies to provide ongoing, sustainable funding and to effect necessary cultural change.
• #5: My Education Dream is simple: Everyone in the world can attain all the education they desire. It will require we share the educational resources we produce and that we spend our limited public resources wisely.
• #6: And the world needs this dream to come true … and quickly… if we are to meet the global demand for higher / tertiary education.Sir John Daniel, President & DEO of the Commonwealth of Learning notes:What do you think the odds are the world will buildfour major universities (30,000 students) to open every week for the next fifteen years?
• #7: This isn’t just my dream. Many have this Dream In 2006, Cathy Casserly and Mike Smith (@ Hewlett Foundation) wrote: “At the heart of the movement towards Open Educational Resources is the simple and powerful idea that the world’s knowledge is a public good and that technology in general and the Worldwide Web in particular provide an opportunity for everyone to share, use, and reuse it.”------------------(Smith, M.S. and Casserly, C.M. 2006. The promise of Open Educational Resources. Change, Vol. 38, No. 5, pp. 8-17)
• #8: The next year, there was a meeting in Cape Town, South Africa.TheCape Town Declaration begins:We are on the cusp of a global revolution in teaching and learning. Educators worldwide are developing a vast pool of educational resources on the Internet, open and free for all to use. These educators are creating a world where each and every person on earth can access and contribute to the sum of all human knowledge.
• #9: And we are collectively grateful there continue to be outstanding leaders at the helm of Hewlett’s OER initiatives.
• #10: The Open Society Foundation has been an ardent supporter of both Open Access and OER.
• #12: The Gates Foundation has made significant investments in Open Education and is requiring open licensing on many of its grants.They believe every life has equal value… and an education is a core part of helping everyone achieve their potential.
• #13: UNESCO:whose participants in 2002 expressed “their wish to develop together a universal educational resource available for the whole of humanity”2012 Global OER Conference: 195 member nations voted unanimously to systematically support for Open Educational Resources.
• #15: OECD’s OER project that asks why OER is happening, who isinvolved and what the most important implications are of this global movement.
• #16: The Saylor Foundation believes that everyone, everywhere should have access to a college education. Their site serves as a zero-cost alternative to those who lack the resources to attend traditional institutions.
• #17: The Open Courseware Consortium envisions a world in which the desire to learn is fully met by the opportunity to do so anywhere in the world.
• #18: Creative Commons works to make it easy for creators to share … to realize the full potential of the internet – universal access to research, education, full participation in culture – to drive a new era of development, growth, and productivity.CC Licenses make it easy and legal to share… and, as we all know, the core part of any OER definition is the educational resource is eitherOpen licenseIn the public domainSo anyone can: reuse, revise, remix and redistribute.
• #19: Open license is key.Free as in free beer and free as in freedom
• #20: Our Open Access colleagues:SPARCRight to ResearchAnd all of the Universities, Libraries and Faculty who share their creative works…seek to return scholarly publishing to its original purpose: to spread knowledge and allow that knowledge to be built upon.
• #21: We’ll come back to this idea.
• #22: And the list goes on and on … the OPEN community is large, it is passionate, and it is strong.And we share that common dream: where everyone, everywhere is able to access affordable, educationally and culturally appropriate opportunities to gain whatever knowledge or training they desire.
• #23: We have to help policy leaders understand the affordances of digital things… and how digital courses, textbooks, data, research, science… can be non-rivalrous resources IF educational resources are openly licensed.
• #24: But we have a Policy ProblemMost policy makers don’t understand 21st century technical and legal tools and how they collectively enable “the learning machine”. Understanding the opportunity afforded by wielding these tools is key to even understanding that the dream is possible. Without this understanding, policy makers can only make decisions within existing frameworks, within existing business models.Tools:Internetaffordances of digital things: storage, distribution, copieshardware costs downbandwidth speed up mobility upOpen content licensing is 10+ years oldMass willingness to share Taken together these tools collectively enable affordable, high quality, continuously improving, openly licensed educational resources.Case in point: http://utahopentextbooks.org/2011/08/26/the-5-textbook/ : $5.35 textbook (including shipping) – ask David Wiley and CK-12David Wiley’s recent open K-12 textbook study in Utah found– NSD: Simply substituting open textbooks for proprietary textbooks does not impact learning outcomes.http://utahopentextbooks.org/2011/10/12/efficacy-data-are-inMoreover, we are already moving from a print based to a digital based environment. In the digital environment, the technology enables a range of reuses that were not possible in the print based world. Thus, it becomes the copyright license terms of use, and technological protection measures, that hobble the teacher, student, and school district from making the fullest use of the materials. Why should school districts pay for digital materials accompanied by such restrictive terms of use and technological formats?
• #27: Clearly, the Internet has empowered us to copy and share with an efficiency never before known or imagined. However, long before the Internet was invented, copyright law began regulating the very activities the Internet makes essentially free (copying and distributing).Consequently, the Internet was born at a severe disadvantage, as preexisting laws discouraged people from realizing the full potential of the network.
• #33: So what? Why focus on Open Policy? Why am I talking about it?1st the Policy = Publicly funded resources are openly licensed resources.While there are many open licenses, publicly funded educational resources should use an open license that allows the public to revise, reuse, remix and redistribute those materials.For the purposes of the open policies that contribute to the Commons, I define policy broadly as legislation, regulation, and/or funder mandates. If we are going to unleash the power of billions of dollars of publicly funded education, research and science projects, we need broad adoption of open policies.Why focus on Publicly funded educational resources = LOTS of $$$Brazil: approximately 5% of GDP ($2.1T dollars) on educationEuropean Union – 5% of GDP ($16.2T) on EducationArgentina spends 6% of GDP ($307B) on EducationUnited States spends just over 5% of GDP ($14.1T)Malaysia has been spending between 20 and 25% of its annual budget on education [ a third of it in HE], for the last two decades.================These might be useful - though they're both very dated: http://www.oclc.org/reports/escan/economic/educationlibraryspending.htmhttp://www.nationmaster.com/graph/edu_edu_spe-education-spending-of-gdpThis gives you a thorough break down of Australia's GDP expenditure on education between 2003 and 2008: http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/Lookup/0E0701553637F843CA25773700169C99?opendocument
• #34: Global GDP comes in at just about $58.3T – World Bank Data (2009)If countries spend roughly 5% of GPD on education = $58.3T x 5% = US $2.9T / year If we can move to a simple open public policy, hundreds of billions of dollars of educational resources will be available under an open license and will be freely available to the public that paid for them.National / state / provincial governments and education systems all play a critical role in setting policies that drive education investments, and have an interest in ensuring that public funding in education make a meaningful, cost-effective contribution to socio-economic development.Given this role, these policy-making entities are ideally positioned to encourage or mandate recipients of public funding to produce educational resources under an open license.
• #35: This is why Open Policies are important. If we get this simple idea right, OER sustainability will cease to be an issue because:(a) there will be plenty of public funding to build and maintain all of the teaching, learning and research resources the world needs, and, (b) “open” becomes the default and “closed” becomes the exception. … and the bar for receiving an exception should be high.Wrong frame (today) – how do we sustain that [pilot] project?Right frame – how do we maximize the investments we’re already making (& have already made – sunk costs) on learning resources we need for our students… for our university … our state … our nation?OER becomes the default output of normal work -- so no new money required. It’s part of normal business. Sustaining OER = sustaining the academy.This was our sustainability plan in WA State – we are only going to be selfish and build / maintain what we would have done anyway for WA students. We’re also going to put a CC BY license on everything we build because (a) we believe education is about sharing and (b) good things happen to us when we share: updates, new partners, grant opportunities, translations…The point is that there is a choice between spending X dollars on the old model. Or spending X dollars in a different way. The vision should show how, if you kept X constant, the state would get a much bigger bang for its buck even though it would be enabling free riding from other state that might want to realign their budgets to X – Y. We need to acknowledge and confront this issue head on.There will still need to be ongoing investments … but if we collectively need quality, affordable learning resources that are iteratively improved based on data from assessments … shouldn’t we:(a) demand that we get access to what we, the taxpayers, paid for so we’re not starting from scratch and;(b) share what we build as we have a collective goal of educating more people to higher levels? Are we educators or not?
• #36: The Policy is simple to say, explain and convince impartial policy actors of its obviousness.Policy = Publicly funded resources are openly licensed resources. Implementation?All publicly funded creative works are either placed into the public domain or are openly licensed with a license that allows: revise, reuse, remix, redistribute.Important: such a policy is about sharing what is built with public funds. It says nothing about requiring use. Slogans:Buy one get one (Wiley)You should get what you pay for.Public Access to Publicly Funded Resources======================Good news. Manyhave already called for Open Policies Open Access communityCape Town Declarationthe recent… Washington Declaration on Intellectual Property and the Public Interest
• #43: What’s Possible with Open Policies? It’s real simple – HUGE amounts of publicly funded educational and scientific resources could be made available under an open license or placed directly into the public domain.European Commission report says that OECD countries spent $638 billion on basic and applied R&D in 2001.   US spends $60 Billion / year on grants We need Open Access policies on all publicly funded research and dataAction: US Congress adopts Federal Research Public Access Act This would require that 11 U.S. government agencies with annual extramural research expenditures over $100 million make manuscripts of journal articles stemming from research funded by that agency publicly available via the Internet six months after it has been published in a peer-reviewed journal.=============EU Commission:Bottom of page 5: http://ec.europa.eu/research/science-society/pdf/scientific-publication-study_en.pdf
• #45: What about something small – local? Do open policies make sense on a smaller scale?Even one open textbook for a top 100 course makes sense.But WA should (a) ask if anyone else has already done this and openly licensed it (e.g., CK12), (b) alert other states / countries that it is going to make this investment and share.
• #52: Challenge: Existing Structures are Difficult to Change  Most educational content business models built on gatekeeping and locking up resources (to make them rivalrous) are challenged by these trends that allow digital resources to be non-rivalrous. Existing business models are starting to fight, and they have money and lobbyists.  
• #53: The US House Appropriations Committee released a draft fiscal year 2012 funding bill. Included in this bill is the following provision, which would appear to strip the ability of the DOL to support any further OER investments:Really? No one is allowed to build anything with public funds, with our tax dollars, “…unless the Secretary of Labor certifies, after a comprehensive market-based analysis, that such courses, modules, learning materials, or projects are not otherwise available for purchase or licensing in the marketplace or under development…"?Really?If the American people want to get maximum benefit from their precious public investments, the US Congress would rewrite the budget language to:"SEC. 124. None of the funds made available by this Act for the Department of Labor may be used to purchase proprietary, non-openly licensed new courses, modules, learning materials, or projects in carrying out education or career job training grant programs unless the Secretary of Labor certifies, after a comprehensive Open Educational Resources analysis, that such courses, modules, learning materials, or projects are not otherwise available under an open license that allows free reuse for students who require them to participate in such education or career job training grant programs."Let’s get to the crux of the issue. This is not about duplicating publisher works - this is about we, the tax payers, getting free and legal access to what we paid for... and our students, tax paying citizens, having access to high quality, affordable, openly licensed learning materials.The Department of Labor (DOL) has put forth a simple, rational public policy: Taxpayer-funded educational resources should be open educational resources. Information that is designed, developed and distributed through the generosity of public tax dollars should be accessible to the public that paid for it. If the publishers wish to debate, it will be on this point.What publishers and industry trade associations would do well to recognize is the CC BY license does not restrict commercialization of the open content produced by the DOL grantees. To be clear, the commercial publishers can take ALL of the content created in this DOL grant, modify it, make it better, add value, and sell it. The consumer (states, colleges, students) will then have a choice: (a) use the free openly licensed version(s) or (b) purchase the commercial for-a-fee version. If the commercial content / services are worth paying for, people will pay. If not, they won’t. Releasing information created with public funds should be a public right – not viewed as a disadvantage to commercial interests.How can you tell me I can’t have access to what I paid for – that’s crazy.
• #55: The legislation would allow copyright holders and the Justice Department to seek court orders against websites associated with copyright infringement.If that court order is granted, the entire website would be taken down.
• #56: Good news – due to the overwhelming communication to the US Congress andThe Blackout Screens on major internet web sitesThe votes on SOPA and PIPA have been indefinitely delayed.
• #57: Essentially, the bill seeks to prohibit federal agencies from conditioning their grants to require that articles reporting on publicly funded research be made accessible to the public online. Translation and Comments:"If public tax money is used to fund research, that research becomes "private research" once a publisher "adds value" to it by managing the peer review.”Comment: Researchers do the peer review for the publisher for free, just as researchers give their papers to the publisher for free, together with the exclusive right to sell subscriptions to it, on-paper and online, seeking and receiving no fee or royalty in return.
• #58: Essentially, the bill seeks to prohibit federal agencies from conditioning their grants to require that articles reporting on publicly funded research be made accessible to the public online. Translation and Comments:"If public tax money is used to fund research, that research becomes "private research" once a publisher "adds value" to it by managing the peer review.”Comment: Researchers do the peer review for the publisher for free, just as researchers give their papers to the publisher for free, together with the exclusive right to sell subscriptions to it, on-paper and online, seeking and receiving no fee or royalty in return.
• #62: If we are to fight this nonsense, Open Policy strategy must follow NEW RULES.   Disruptive Innovation Lessons (Clayton Christensen): Never attack existing business models head-on – incumbents typically win because you are playing by their rules rather play by new rules that “the trends” afford – KEY point to remind policy makers – I’ve found this is NOT obvious to people.e.g., Open Course Library – we changed the rules - $30 cap – want to play? We will do this with or without you… would rather partner, but don’t oppose us – we have all the best arguments and the public is on our side.And as Professor EbenMoglen reminds us: when we openly license our work, and leverage the Internet as a free distribution channel, we put the creator / the author, and not the distributor, in control of human knowledge.We make things and we give them away. Here we made this, would you like it? Take some it's freehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tN00_v7gpbo&feature=youtu.be&t=6m45s----------------(1) Choose the most open license (e.g., public domain, CC BY) possible to (a) increase the degrees of freedom for downstream use, (b) increase interperability among licenses = more re-mix opportunities, and (c) reduce concern from existing for-profit businesses.
• #63: Most important, take Policy makers back to first principles…
• #64: End Game? Winning argument: Policy makers will want the highest ROI and impact of public investments.  Open Policy Goal?Open policies adopted by all nations, national agencies, states / provinces, systems of education, institutions, departments and individual creators.
• #65: Remember the food machine? We don’t have such a device. While we might have the global capacity to feed everyone, food is not digital and is a rivalrous good, and so a universal access solution is a greater challenge.Which is a shame because many people don’t have nearly enough food to eat.If we did have a food machine – we would turn it on tomorrow – no question about it. The moral imperative to do so would overwhelm any opposition.
• #66: We do have a Learning MachineWe simply need to turn it on.Moreover, because we understand the tools and the strategy; I contend we have a moral and ethical responsibility to act.We’re off to a good start.Adopting Open Policies is thenext step. Repeat after me: (call) “Public Access” (response) “to Publicly Funded Resources.” Buy One Get OneI should get what I paid for“if we share” “everyone in the world can learn”
• #68: A closing thought, in the 21st century…
• #70: Thank you.