Potential cost savings of OER – Part 1
Posted by karen on January 19, 2010 in Uncategorized
I’ve been thinking a lot about the potential cost savings of OER in K-12. I know that in these times of state financial crisis, a silver bullet like free textbooks is very appealing.
Personally, I think that the educational advantages of having resources that are licensed in a way that they can be legally remixed and adapted to differentiate instruction are much more important than the economics. Having said that, I understand that cost savings are likely to be an important driver in OER adoption.
Recently, Texas State Representative Scott Hochberg, who was a leader on the “open source textbook” legislation* there, was quoted as saying “We were due to spend about $225 million to replace the grades six through 12 literature books in the state. We can buy the content for under $20 million. Someplace between $20 million and $225 million, there’s a cost savings.”
This sure got a lot of people’s attention. But where did these numbers come from? We’d need Representative Hochberg to tell us for sure, but here are my thoughts. The $225 million appears to be drawn from the total maximum cost figures (what TEA will pay for these textbooks) in the Proclamation 2010. (The figure for just grade 6-12 literature books is more like $195 million; the figure goes up to $227 million when you add in things like ESOL and AP English books.)
In another article, Hochberg was reported to have asked a company for the cost to deliver digital files and was told it would cost $14 million. It is unclear whether this was for statewide rights, a work-for-hire type arrangement, or actual open licensed content. (I’m guessing the first.) Based on my own experience, development costs for one grade level of a major basal textbook series can run in the $2-3+ million per grade level range, which is roughly in line with Hochberg’s figures. That doesn’t include printing or distribution costs, which may be a part of the difference in figures.
So the question then is how much does printing cost? This has long been a subject of wiggling on the part of the publishing industry. When pushed on pricing of digital materials, they have long contended that the vast majority of curriculum costs are in development. I do think this is true, based on the relatively low cost of printing in the large volumes they run.
My very rough cost for printing and distribution of student and teacher editions is somewhere around $17 million. So…$14 million + $20 million (rounding up) is still quite a lot less than $225 million.
What’s left? Ancillaries (a big $ number and an interesting discussion). Sales expense (also a big number). Profits.
More on those and other potential areas of savings for OER in Part 2 of this post.
* It is worth noting that as the proposed rules on this currently read, these materials do not appear to be intended to be open-licensed, but rather state-funded and owned. While this is may not be relevant in terms of this cost discussion, it is very relevant to others who might or might not benefit from Texas’ initiative. Hopefully, this will be resolved in the final rules.
Looking for middle schools interested in sharing ideas
Posted by karen on January 14, 2010 in Uncategorized
I got interested in OER because of the need to be able to modify and “remix” materials in order to differentiate instruction….and also out of a disillusionment with how much money is spent on textbooks that often aren’t even used.
I am now working on a new project now to look at the feasibility of producing a core curriculum offering that is open-licensed. It could be distributed in a variety of formats, including print and electronic. Initially, we are looking at middle school math as a content area.
As a part of this, we are gathering ideas from teachers and administrators on what they’d like to see in a product like this. We want to talk with administrators and teachers to get their ideas to make sure that this new OER product meets their needs.
If you are interested, email me at Karen AT k12opened DOT com. (Note that participants need not use technology extensively or be familiar with OER.) Thank you.
The quality issue
Posted by karen on January 7, 2010 in Uncategorized
There is a lot of talk right now about concerns regarding quality and OER. Quality is obviously of foremost concern with regard to educational materials; however, I think that those who are castigating OER on the basis of quality concerns are confusing OER with mass collaboration.
Mass collaboration, of course, is a process by which a task is undertaken by a collective of many (who may be anonymous or not, who may have expertise or not, who may be accurate or not, etc.). This is the development process that has created Wikipedia and some other open resources. I am not going to debate the merits of mass collaboration here (but those who know me might know that I am generally a fan of mass collaboration).
It is mass collaboration that breeds, in many, grave concerns about quality.
However, OERs are not all created by a process of mass collaboration. In fact, many high quality OERs, FreeReading, NROC courses, CK12’s Flexbooks, and most OpenCourseWare resources among them, are not created through mass collaboration, but through a relatively conventional development process that involves a basis in research, writing by qualified experts, and vetting by panels of subject-area authorities.
In short, they are created through a process that does not differ much from that of traditional educational resources, such as printed textbooks.
Appropriately, many state initiatives advancing open textbooks for K-12, such as in Texas, require a quality review and adoption process similar to that of other textbooks. Again, I’ll refrain from debating the merits and fine points of state department of education adoption policies (as much as I’d like to…another time perhaps).
What I would request is this: If you are rejecting the value of open educational resources on the basis of quality, examine the development and quality assurance process involved to see how it measures up. The benefits of OERs to our teachers and students are too great to do otherwise.
Thinking about platforms for open learning
Posted by karen on December 4, 2009 in Uncategorized
This is a different kind of post for me… I’m really thinking out loud and looking for folks more knowledgeable than me to make suggestions.
I’m working on an OER project plan to develop open “textbooks” (collections of resources with a scope and sequence, not necessarily in a textbook format) for K-12 that can be remixed at a classroom or even student level to differentiate instruction. The focus is on flexibility, ease of use, and appropriateness for average K-12 teacher.
I want to put resources toward high quality content, not a platform. There are so many open platforms out there that there must be one (or more) that are appropriate for this. I suspect that there might be a need for two platforms: a CMS for the developers and an LMS for end users. Some key criteria would include:
- Support for various media types (text, audio, video)
- Support for interactive media (quizzes, writing response, assignment submission, etc.)
- Ability to export in multiple formats (print, electronic)
Here are systems I’ve looked at and thought about (some more than others): Moodle, MediaWiki, Connexions, FlexBooks, and Sakai.
As an end user tool, I like Moodle for a lot of reasons, including that it is very interactive and geared for remix. It also doesn’t hurt that a lot of schools already use and like it.
While Moodle seems like a good LMS for my purposes, it seems like we’d need a front-end development CMS to host content in. The idea would be that a teacher would choose a course (or smaller content modules) from the CMS and then export them to Moodle where the materials could be customized for individual classes or even groups of students.
Questions:
- Does this approach make sense?
- Do you know of anyone using a CMS to export content into Moodle?
- What other tools or approaches should I be thinking about?
Thanks in advance for any thoughts you care to share.
Openness, technology, state politics, and the challenges of poverty
Posted by karen on November 13, 2009 in Uncategorized
There was a fascinating article in the Texas Tribune this week about the recent legislation in Texas that, among other things, appears to allow textbook money to be directed toward technology, calls for “open source” textbooks to be authored, and gives the (appointed, not elected) commissioner a new voice in textbook adoptions there. It is a well-written and thought-provoking article — if you haven’t read it yet, I recommend it.
There are so many aspects of this article worth thinking critically and writing about that I’m thinking of devoting a whole series of blog posts to it. For now, though, I want to talk about this comment by Board Chairwoman Gail Lowe in maintaining that textbook funds should be spent on printed books, not technology:
“Some homes in south Texas, in the barrios, don’t even have electricity, much less laptop capabilities. I think we’re putting the cart before the horse. It’s important that students grasp the material, not that they have a new toy to play with.”
I hope that in saying this, Ms. Lowe was really just venting frustration at the apparent spreading of power from only the board to the board and the commissioner. I really pray that she doesn’t advocate the view that technology is a “toy” and that it shouldn’t be wasted on children of poverty.
It is a crime that in the United States, we have such poverty that children are growing up without electricity and running water, much less high quality education. Surely, QUALITY EDUCATION is the most prominent path out of poverty.
Will textbooks that are written in a way that is neither engaging nor even accessible, especially to children of poverty, help this situation? I think not. Engaging technology is certainly not the only answer, but it is one answer. And with the attitude of many adults in the educational-industrial complex, who are responsible for traditional educational environments, engaging tools for independent, differentiated learning may be students’ best chance.
One more note — A few of the significant benefits of laptops are that they can be charged and run for hours on batteries, that their mobility extends learning opportunities, and that they can facilitate rich collaborations around the world. They are uniquely suited as a tool for developing 21st century skills in all types of environments.
Let’s put politics aside and give our kids a chance to be successful.
Online and free ≠ open
Posted by karen on November 4, 2009 in Uncategorized
Newsweek ran an article this week about online courses. This article provided some publicity for the OER movement…except that the article really wasn’t about OER.
The article said, in part, “In addition to YouTube EDU, Web sites like iTunes U, TED, and Academic Earth allow millions of people to download lectures by some of the world’s top experts—for free. Known as open educational resources—or OER—the movement is turning education into a form of mass entertainment.” Unfortunately, only one of those sites listed, TED, is published under an open license (and with TED’s no-derivatives license, some would refute that).
While the article does talk about MIT’s OpenCourseWare and a couple other open projects, it is really about free online courses. Nowhere does the article define OER or talk about what open is and how open is different from free and digital.
This is sloppy journalism, which seems to abound in our sound-bite-driven, superficial media, but it is also indicative of a bigger problem.
The OER movement needs a more cohesive messaging approach. The benefits and needs for OER and what it can bring to education are overwhelming; we need people to understand that.
How “conventional” do open textbooks need to be?
Posted by karen on October 12, 2009 in Uncategorized
I’m working on some product plans and business models for open textbooks in K-12 and have been thinking a lot about how “textbook-like” they need to be to get broad adoption.
A lot of the work in OER is reform-driven, and in fact, the most substantive reasons to produce and use OER are pedagogical, not cost-driven. OER allows innovative teachers and learners to differentiate instruction in exciting ways.
Many in OER have questioned whether new open core curriculum should even be called “textbooks” at all.
Still, I’m not sure that an the best path for anew entry is to be hugely innovative.
The first and important goal for a significant new entry into the open ed market should be broadscale use. And the textbook adoption process in K-12, whether in formal adoption states or open states, is such that an innovative product is not likely to even be considered in many places, much less be broadly used.
I know this firsthand, having created some very innovative products that were used by few.
An important note, for those motivated by reform, is that those who are prone to innovate will do so regardless of the raw materials and/or environment. They are doing so now with very conventional materials (although in many cases illegally with great technical difficulty and huge personal time expenditures).
Providing high-quality open curriculum gives these innovators new resources with which to innovate. Providing open curriculum in a conventional textbook format gives traditional teachers a path to future innovation.
Now I’m thinking about how these materials might look like a conventional textbook but also be packaged with a toolset that allows for more innovation when users are ready. Stay tuned for more on that.
Education already has a “public option”
Posted by karen on October 7, 2009 in Uncategorized
Recently, there has been a lot of fed policy activity on open ed, including the introductions of the Durbin open textbook bill and the Foster Open Source Textbook act [sic...open source applies to software, not OER, but we'll leave that aside for now], as well as talk about an “Online Skills Laboratory” for open online courses.
These efforts have been called “misguided” by some and have received more criticism than one might expect. I mean, who can argue with initiatives to bring free, open educational resources to the masses? Many, apparently.
One of the big arguments seems to be that this is some effort to enact a government-takeover of the commercial publishing industry. I suppose this argument is to be expected with the publishers having an extremely well-funded and active lobbying effort (which is being quoted frequently in these discussions). Comparing the OER movement to the health care “public option” seems a bit absurd to me though. Didn’t most of us get into (public) education precisely because, in the U.S., education is public, free, and available to all? (See previous post on the equity agenda.)
An important sidenote is that these proposed initiatives do not aim to subsume commercial initiatives. Many, in fact, just try to assure that public funds, such as federal grants, that are already directed at materials development result in publicly-accessible materials. Public funds for the public good seems like good sense to me. And no one is forced to apply for these funds or to open license materials developed on their own dime.
Some have also claimed that it’s not clear what problem these initiatives are trying to solve, given that there are a plethora of high-quality, commercially-produced educational resources already out there. These folks are missing the most significant driver behind OER: The pedagogical demand for open resources comes from the need to differentiate instruction. Remixing content has become a vital way to reach and empower learners of all levels; however, remixing most commercially-published content is prohibited. The publishers are very invested in preserving this status quo, time and time again refusing schools’ requests to give them this ability.
Open-licensed content gives educators and students the ability to remix and redistribute educational content in the way that is best for each learner’s particular learning style. This kind of differentiation is a fundamental part of ensuring every learner’s success.
The equity agenda
Posted by karen on September 30, 2009 in Uncategorized
I was at a meeting to discuss OER where a very salient point was made. As the group tried to articulate a consensus position on the important principles of using OER, Glen Thomas, the Secretary of Education for California talked about an “equity agenda.” Most of us got into public education, he said, because we think that everyone should have access to knowledge and learning. OER is all about “ubiquitous access to all content” for all learners.
This was reminiscent to me of Jimmy Wales’ goal of giving “every single person on the planet … free access to the sum of all human knowledge.” How can anyone argue with the nobility of that aim?
This also brings to mind the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights which states that everyone has the right to a free education.
Some may say that these goals are not new. Nearly since the birth of our nation, we have striven for educational equity and (arguably) have provided it through nearly universal public education, free (in some places) textbooks, etc.
So what has changed?
Two things, at least. First, technology. In today’s world, access to technology and, more specifically, the Internet is a vital resource and tool needed to be a well-educated citizen. To be without this access is to be profoundly disadvantaged. And clearly, we are a long way from equitable access to the Internet in both schools and homes.
Secondly, our learners have changed. They are increasingly diverse with widely varying prior experiences, native languages, reading levels, learning styles, interests, etc. Old one-size-fits-all models are no longer effective. For many students, methods like lecturing and tools like textbooks no longer provide access.
Let’s reconsider the equity agenda. One of the greatest things about America has been a commitment to education for all. We need an update on how to continue this tradition.
Four letters: CC BY
Posted by karen on September 26, 2009 in Uncategorized
I was in a series of policy meetings on OER this week. One of the big discussion areas was on definitions and language.
I have written already about my concern with the confusion between digital, free, and open that I seem to see everywhere lately (with OPEN being the key factor in my mind). In other discussions, I have heard “open” and “open source” used to describe materials that are not open under even the most broad definitions.
Creative Commons and a team of others are working on a “consensus” definition of open educational resources, and I think this is important work. But whatever they come up with, it is likely to be a bit complex for some and thereby may be misinterpreted, miscommunicated, and misunderstood by those who are casually interested parties.
My advice for policy makers, legislators, and others who want to promote openness but are struggling with language: require CC BY (especially for materials developed with public funds). This is simple and guarantees that materials that are intended to be open and shared will be so.
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