Open Content and the Workplace

This month's Learning Circuits Big Q is about open content and the workplace:

How do we leverage open content in workplace learning?

Tony Karrer gives a couple examples of open content stores for adult education, such as the OER Commons and the Open Courseware Consortium. The Big Q is a search for answers as to why open content appears not to be on the uptake as much as the sheer access to the material would seem to attract eyes and downloads. If I may tie this question to my current masters studies for a moment, these open education consortiums seem to fit the mold of what Merriam & Brockett (2007) call an "educational response" to limited educational access (p. 204-208). The educational response is defined as efforts to spread education outside the university setting and into community colleges and other less formal organizations. But the problem isn't always getting the material out there; the problem can center around each person's self-reflecting "What's in this for me?"

Let me describe what I mean.

I cannot speak much as to why these may or may not be used, as I have not had exposure to the use of this content within my particular workplace. However, if I had to offer my perspective as to what may be behind the moderate traffic, I might say that the workplace is a very specific thing, even from company to company. No two corporations are alike. As such, I think many companies would want their WLP pros to look these over and shop for the bits and pieces that are most useful to build out an internal curriculum or course specially tailored to specific gaps. The other problem is that the people within each company are going to want some sort of impactful credit to add to their resume (this being the diverse skills and knowledge-driven world of work we now live in). While I think it's possible to put these courses to good use, our internal customers, being self-directed learners who best know how to put together their own individual improvement plan, are going to want a return in the form of either college credit or a certification.

Also, I think it would be an important step if a company sought to use these courses, and partner with the university or college in question to recognize its employees for having completed the study. But then, what's in this for the university if it is granting credits for free to outside companies? I think here is where the current and common private industry-public U partnering takes over.

Another thing that occurred to me after looking at some of the offerings of these efforts is that I am immediately reminded that there are competing media. I am not sure what affect the iTunes store may or may not be having on OER/OCC or similar efforts because iTunes is primarily a commercial retail interface. But, for example, looking at OCC's course materials, I access class materials uploaded by UC Berkeley. Many of the classes are lecture recordings. Where the a-ha! for me comes in is with the iTune store. I can access many very good, class-like podcasts through iTunes. For example, if you're a history buff, I strongly recommend The History of Rome, 12 Byzantine Rulers, or American History Before 1870 podcasts. In fact, the American History podcast *is* a class re-purposed as a podcast. So, I see a lot of competition between outlets.

Feel free to post your thoughts.

Reference

Merriam, S. B. & Brockett, R. G. (2007). The profession and practice of adult education: An introduction. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Why Wikis? An example...

Tony Karrer has an instructive posting about wikis. He writes about how often wikis are ill-considered as an elearning tool, primarily due to fears surrounding the insertion of errant or low-quality information by individuals who have little or no expertise. In fact, The Wired Campus has an opinion piece that makes very salient points about new learning technologies such as wikis, and the as-yet unquantified impact on academic leadership. Tony is correct to point out the crowdsourcing nature of wikis. I would also emphasize the power to correct that which is incorrect, a central feature of the wiki system. Some may argue that a post-counterpost struggle may ensue, with wiki modifiers possibly being at odds with wiki admins, and either party insisting they have the correct information. But Tony is again correct to point out that just as the information can be corrected, so too can the perspective and the information others have.

A while back I wasn't so sure of the wiki idea myself. But while at a friends house we were discussing Wikipedia on his big screen TV (computers displaying in 50 inches...greatness), and he demonstrated for me the correction system. He found an historical article, and made a change that made a particular statement incorrect. Within probably 30 seconds after posting and see the new statement in official form, it had been corrected back to the original form. This quality control is certainly susceptible to biases and malfeasance, but I have since become a big fan of Wikipedia, particularly as a means of locating sources for Masters papers I am writing. My university is dutifully wary of Wikipedia as a scholarly resource - which it of course is not - but at the very least I can link to some sources I had not yet found, or branch into related subjects, another power of the wiki format.

My most recent contracting project had me creating a wiki for the program team, partly as a means of communication regarding the program's aims and projects, and getting the word out to the wider workforce. This wiki was fast becoming a good resource on the company's intranet for locating material on the company's history, various industry topics, departments, and other types of knowledge. It would be hard to say that the wiki was becoming a tool for storing business intelligence, as much of the internal information was sensitive and likely unacceptable for company-wide posting. But as an intranet tool the wiki appeared to be serving its purpose well, and the ease of entering the wiki and making editions to information empowered all members of a project team (for example) to enter new information when it became relevant.

I'm still getting to know the wiki, but I do find the participatory element of wikis to be a good thing for engaging others in learning. As such, whether the wiki succeeds of fails as a central information resource on the internet, it seems likely to succeed as a key learning tool.