{"id":392,"date":"2015-02-15T13:04:10","date_gmt":"2015-02-15T18:04:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/openstudio.pub\/teachinginadigitalagev3m\/chapter\/10-10-the-implications-of-open-for-course-and-program-design\/"},"modified":"2025-05-10T07:39:11","modified_gmt":"2025-05-10T11:39:11","slug":"10-10-the-implications-of-open-for-course-and-program-design","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/openstudio.pub\/teachinginadigitalagev3m\/chapter\/10-10-the-implications-of-open-for-course-and-program-design\/","title":{"raw":"12.5 The implications of \u2018open\u2019 for course and program design: towards a paradigm shift?","rendered":"12.5 The implications of \u2018open\u2019 for course and program design: towards a paradigm shift?"},"content":{"raw":" \n\n[caption id=\"attachment_391\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"755\"]\"10.10.1<\/a> 12.5.1 An open and free beach, Pie de la Cuesta, Mexico
Image: \u00a9 Tony Bates 2015 CC BY-NC[\/caption]\n\nAlthough in recent years MOOCs,\u00a0emerging technologies\u00a0and artificial intelligence have been receiving all the media attention,\u00a0I believe that\u00a0developments in open educational resources, open textbooks, open research and\u00a0open data will\u00a0be\u00a0far more important and far more revolutionary. Here are some reasons why.\n

12.5.1 Nearly all educational content will be free and open<\/h2>\nEventually most academic content will be easily accessible and freely available through the Internet - for anyone. This could well mean a shift in power from teachers and instructors to students.\u00a0Students will no longer be dependent on 'live' instructors as their primary source of content. Already some students are skipping lectures at their local institution because the teaching of the topic is better and clearer on OpenCourseWare, MOOCs or the Khan Academy.\u00a0If students can access the best lectures or learning materials for free from anywhere in the world, including the leading Ivy League universities, why would they want to get content from a middling lecturer at Midwest State University? What is the added value that this lecturer is providing for the students?\n\nThere are good answers to this question, but it means considering very carefully how content will be presented and shaped by a\u00a0teacher or\u00a0instructor that makes it uniquely different from what students can access elsewhere. For research professors this may include access to their latest, as yet unpublished, research; for other instructors, it may be their unique perspective on a particular topic, and for others, a unique mix of topics to provide an integrated, inter-disciplinary approach. What will not be acceptable to most students is repackaging of 'standard' content that can easily be found elsewhere on the Internet and at a higher quality.\n\nFurthermore, if we look at knowledge management as one of the key skills needed in a digital age, it may be better to enable students to find, analyze, evaluate and apply content than for instructors to do it for them. If most content is available elsewhere, what students will look for increasingly from their local institutions is support with their learning, rather than the delivery of content. This means directing them to appropriate sources of content, helping when students are struggling with concepts, and providing opportunities for students to apply their knowledge and to develop and practice skills. It means giving prompt and relevant feedback as and when students need it. Above all, it means creating a rich learning environment in which students can study (see Chapter 6<\/a>)<\/a>. It means moving teaching from information transmission to knowledge management, from selecting, structuring\u00a0and delivering content to learner support.\n\nThus for most students within their university or college (with the possible exception of the most advanced research universities) the quality of the learning support will eventually matter more than the quality of content delivery, which they can get from anywhere. This is a major challenge for instructors who see themselves primarily as content experts and deliverers.\n

12.5.2 Modularisation<\/h2>\n[caption id=\"attachment_391\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"455\"]\"Figure<\/a> Figure 12.5.2 Four-sided pyramid, by Sol LeWitt, 1999
Image: Cliff, Flickr<\/a>, \u00a9 CC Attribution 2.0[\/caption]\n\nThe creation of open educational resources, either as small learning objects but increasingly as short 'modules' of teaching, from anywhere between five minutes to one hour of material, and the increasing diversification of markets, is beginning to result in two of the key principles of OER being applied, re-use and re-mix. In other words, the same content, available in an openly accessible digital form, may be integrated into a range of different applications, and\/or combined with other OER to create a single teaching module, course or program, as in Scenario G<\/a>.\n\nBetween 2015 to 2018, the Ontario government, through its online course development fund, encouraged institutions to create OER. As a result, several universities brought together faculty within their own institution but working in different departments that teach the same area of content (for example, statistics) to develop 'core' OER that can be shared between departments. The logical next step would be for statistics faculty across the Ontario system to get together and develop an integrated set of OER modules on statistics that would cover substantial\u00a0parts of the statistics curriculum. Working together would have the following benefits:\n