Author: Elvis Bakaitis

Across higher education, “open” has gained traction as a buzzword, attached to many disparate and conceptual topics – Open Access, Open Educational Resources, Open Research, and more. Some have questioned the core ethos of the movement, and how the push towards openness can create new tensions around issues of sharing, privacy, research methods and more.

David Gaertner, a member of the First Nations Studies Department at the University of British Columbia, writes compellingly of the historical lineage of Western research methods into Indigenous communities, and the relationship to language used in promoting Open Access (OA) scholarship.  For Gaertner and others, “OA has very real consequences for Indigenous peoples, insofar as it contributes to neo-Enlightenment ideologies of entitlement to knowledge.” As someone positioned within the field as “a non-Indigenous scholar who works with Indigenous communities,” Gaertner describes himself as familiar with the importance of recognizing community boundaries, and the flexibility/responsiveness required to do so.

Using the hashtags – #openforwho  #openforwhat – Gaertner asks us to question our own presumptions of access, and whether closure, in some cases, may actually serve as a “a path to openness.” For example, the concept of preserving the intention/spirit/context of an item by not allowing its public viewing, but intentionally restricting access to associated communities or groups.

In a response piece on her own blog, OER educator Christina Hendricks writes of the tensions between privacy and closure – and how the latter is arguably “more about respecting the appropriate boundaries of spaces, conversations, and knowledges given the context of what those are.” Considering these questions is critical to the developing path of OA, OER, and other developments under the wider umbrella of public scholarship.

Much of the buzz around Open Educational Resources (OER) has been driven by the very legitimate goal of lowering educational costs – particularly, the increasing price of textbooks from traditional publishers. Financial considerations are a defining aspect of the student educational experience, and OER has helped to mediate these issues by offering a free, zero-cost option.

On the flip side, however, there are ways in which OER presents new challenges, especially for students with limited access to technology. Although the principles of OER theoretically extend to all forms of media (a printed course packet is equally “open” if it is openly-licensed and free of charge), OER are typically presented via online platforms or course sites. This does guarantee that any student has immediate, 24/7 access to the material from all devices (mobile phone, laptop, desktop computer, tablet).

At the same time, many students are primarily dependent on their mobile phones for internet access, and thereby restricted to viewing course materials on a tiny screen. In their 2014 study, “Commuter Students Using Technology,” co-authors Smale and Regalado found that for some CUNY undergraduates, the availability of campus computers/technology was “a critical factor in their daily college experience.” Many spoke of sharing computers with other family members, and relying upon their mobile phones for a way to compose written class assignments (as opposed to a more traditional word processing program on a laptop or desktop computer).

These considerations are something to keep in mind while building OER course sites: is the site responsive to viewing from mobile devices? Are there ways to improve site readability, with tweaks to its structure, attribution practices, and descriptive hyperlinks? At the same time, we might also open ourselves to larger questions of how and why educational materials are provided to students, and in what contexts the word “access” is used.

Open Educational Resources (OER) are increasingly being used across the country (and the world) as an alternative to high-priced textbooks from traditional publishers. In many ways, OER offer new ways to engage students, and modify the course content to their needs. However, because OER rely primarily on digital platforms, issues of student privacy must also be considered.

For example, many OER courses make it possible for students to post their reflections on a blog section of the site, or even collectively annotate a text online. But, what are the ethics of making student work publicly available for all to see? This concern is especially relevant when work being posted may reflect their learning process, and in the case of a blog post, writing that has not undergone an editing process or peer-review.

Another question about privacy and OER pertains to names and identity online. Robin DeRosa, OER educator, reflects about the issues that “working in public” create: “They may (will) face vicious harassment, racism, sexism, homophobia… depending on the kind of work they do or the kind of digital profiles they put forward.” DeRosa also acknowledges that the quality of their work may “come back to haunt [students] when they look for a job,” given the increasingly comprehensive screenings by HR firms. Writing for Forbes, Barbara Kurshan similarly speculates that the “elephant in the room” with EdTech is student privacy, spanning the use of advertising-driven technologies as well as the sale of individual data.

One alternative would be to offer students the option of using a pseudonym throughout the duration of the course, for their online or public-facing coursework. Another option is to take the opportunity to explore digital risks and safety concerns, as a part of the course itself. In an increasingly digital world, the potential of OER and other online teaching platforms is weighted by the same issues that affect and mediate online activity in other fields, and should be considered as a fundamental aspect of “teaching in the open,” or open pedagogy.