OER ACHIEVEMENTS, CHALLENGES, AND NEW OPPORTUNITIES
One of the most enjoyable parts of reviewing the MIT OCW for Atkins was a dinner meeting in October 2005 with four MIT students who have participated in international engagements for OCW in West Africa as well as rural and urban China. The take-up of OCW resources in these different venues varies, but in all cases there is anecdotal evidence of positive impact. We were impressed with the power of the OCW as a means for cross-cultural engagement and with the life-changing impact that this experience has had on the students involved.
2.3 Major Remaining Challenges
2.3.1 Introduction
The portfolio of OER investments has created pilot projects within the strategic plan. The projects have demonstrated enthusiasm by the participants on both the production and consumption side but have also revealed challenges. In this section we comment on some of the most significant of these challenges. Each of these topics is complex, so we can do little more than state that further work is needed. Fortunately, there is a growing body of activity on each of these topics that the OER movement can leverage.
2.3.2 Sustainability
A challenge of any fixed-term, externally funded initiative is long-term sustainability by an entity other than the original investor, in this case the Hewlett Foundation. In the MIT project, bringing a course to the OCW costs approximately $25,000 per course plus maintenance and enhancement. The MIT OCW model involves professional staff taking course material in almost any form from faculty and bringing it into a uniform, professional format. This was appropriate for the rapid startup of a large-scale, pioneering project but it will not work for many other places. It does appear, however, that MIT will be able to sustain the maintenance through internal funding and external contributions. Additional approaches to sustainability need to be explored, including the following:
- Encourage institutions, rather than just individual pioneer-faculty, to buy into the OER movement so that institutional resources will be committed to sustain it.
- Situate OER collections not as distinct from the courseware environment for the formally enrolled students but as a low marginal cost derivative of the routinely used course preparation and management systems. Increase the amount of course preparation and management systems that service closed and open institutional courseware.
- Encourage membership-based consortia (along the lines of Internet 2) to distribute and to share cost and expertise.
24
