BCcampus – Using Open Source Models for OnlineHigher Education Resources
eLearn 2005 presentation by Paul Stacey, BCcampus, Canada
Have put together a network on online communities, but won’t talk about that today
Online Program Development Fund
– has been providing $1.5 million fund for last 3 years to all the higher education entities in the province
– Paul’s role has been writing RFPs for this, have been 3 rounds
– has focused mainly on completion of online courses, but also support specifically the development of courses that lead to online programs
Have many more proposals submitted than are funded: have had 251 proposals seeking $16.5 million in funding
– nonprofits, community groups, first nation groups, etc have also applied
– have funded 64 proposals for $4.5 million
– 220 courses, 7 programs, 130 learning objects…. funded
Open source model: starts to get interesting here, diverges from common practices
– requirement for this grant: participants must use either Creative Commons or BC Commons and agree to share the materials
– big issue here is intellectual property and copyrights
– in past, the Providence ended up holding the IP license
– so in this case, it let the local institutional policies govern
– they had to agree to share the resource with CC or BC Commons
– allows for sharing and reuse
Allows sharing, reuse, modification and resuse of materials
http://www.creativecommons.ca/
BC Commons shares resources only among BC public post-secondary institutions:
Philosophy here is saying that taxpayer dollars are being used for the creation of these resources, so we would like to see that these are shared.
BC Commons specifies attribution to original creator
– if you allow modifications, new changes are identified
– key approach is allowing for modifications, because most if not all instructors want to modify resources
– this permits for continual improvement of course materials over time
Last part of best practice
– have funding
– have licensing
– implementation: now establishing web-based repository, letting people search by different criteria and find resources
Notion of federating these things becomes very doable with this model
Now using SOLAR: sharing online resources….
Have a brochure providing an explanation of the value proposition
UNESCO discussion forum about open courseware sharing
Benefits
– leverages public taxpayer dollars by allowing for free sharing and reuse, retains commercial potential outside of regional consortia
– eliminates weeks of time and effort in permission seeking to use existing digital materials in development cycle
– builds reputation of original authors through attribution while encouraging modification and continuous improvement (this could be very attractive by higher education faculty, used when contacting publishers, etc)
– optimizes learner experience by generating high quality online learning resources over time
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