I was asked to read up and reflect on open access education. In the course of reflecting on it, I realized that “open access education” is in fact quite a strange thing for me to internalize as an educator within an institutional setting. I realized quite quickly that many of us are not as open to sharing our knowledge and giving others access to it other then what we would share within a controlled classroom to enrolled students. Openly sharing our course materials – resources which we may have painstakingly created on our own – isn’t a natural inclination. Even if we collaborated with a colleague on a course/module, the instinctive approach would be to separate out the parts so that we would “own” them.
The institution reminds us of this from the day we sign the contract. Throughout our time with the institution, we are reminded about intellectual property rights, and about who owns those rights if you are a member of the institution. For example, I learnt quite quickly that a course I created would be the property of the University which employed me. On top of that we are often dragged into extensive discussions on what we may (or may not) want to charge individuals who may want access to course materials but are not registered with the University.
Learning management systems (LMS), like our classrooms, are also designed to be closed. They are not opened to students or faculty from outside the institution to use.
Access to higher education is, in reality, closed. A major reason for this is because we have made education, and in particular higher education, a commodity. We seek to charge a price for knowledge, and in so doing we need to keep the systems closed. To an extent this only makes sense as we should be able to generate payment for those developing and producing the knowledge.
However, cutting access to higher education ensures that we can charge a higher price, more so when we create a brand and market exclusivity for certain brands of education, or we restrict access in its entirety. In this dynamic, education, and more so higher education, is not a public good, with equal access to all. Inequality in our access to, and the overall quality of education, has became a reality in the the modern world.
When online education first appeared on scene, it raised the possibility that education would finally become accessible to all. Instead of classroom access being controlled and subject to premium payments, individuals could gain access to resources, materials and knowledge through open, networked platforms. Tech companies promised a way to by-pass institutions and allow individuals to access an education from wherever they sat, literally. This was touted as the true revolution, where access to an education would be opened to all and promised the possibility of greater equality across communities.
What we know now is that this promise has been rather hollow. The technological revolution almost automatically meant that there would be a divide between those who had access to the technology and those who did not. There was also quickly a growing divide between those who ere familiar and comfortable with technology, and those who found technology overwhelming.
To add to this, as tech companies jumped into the education space, they too sought to commodify education through Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). The controlled classroom was opened to hundreds around the world but at a premium price. Tech companies like Coursera joined hands with universities to roll out courses that allowed for “students” all over the world to engage with a professor on various topics but with the aim of increasing revenue and making a profit. Some have argued that this in this post-modern age, education has been even more highly commodified.
In reflecting, it is quite clear to me that the proliferation and expansion of MOOCs has not harnessed the ideas of collaboration, and empowerment, that is so central to the idea of open access education. Open access does not mean we do away with intellectual property rights or that we do now ask for a recognition of the knowledge we produce. Recognition of this in the form of some payment is fair. But we can allow for many others to access what we produce open and to add to it. We can openly collaborate to produce knowledge together and this includes collaboration with those we seek to “teach.”
There are now many articles out there highly critical of tech companies and what they do for our access to education. Many are critical of these companies for charging exorbitant prices and for failing to allow for real “open access.” The question remains on what alternatives remain for “open access.”
Reference:
Douglas J. Cremer, Education as a Commodity: The Ideology of Online Education and Distance Learning
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