This week in Introduction to Open Education I was introduced to the course materials on the 5R’s, Creative Commons, and Open Licensing. This is territory that I’m comfortably familiar with, but there’s always something new to learn. One of the ideas that emerged for me, and admittedly it’s been brewing, is the need for a change in how I choose to license and share my work. I have wrestled of late with the ever-growing phenomenon of “open washing” particularly among panicked for-profit publishing companies. I have a less-than-generous view of what publishers are playing at regarding OER.
My example for this post is Cengage’s new OER website (probably an unthinkable concept for them not long ago). I downloaded the Cengage paper called Open Educational Resources (OER) and the Evolving Higher Education Landscape. I had to trade my name, email, and institution for the privilege of downloading it, so already not open.
The following paragraph from the paper is an example of what alarms me about for-profit positions on OER, Cengage states,
In the 2014 Babson survey, participants judged the quality of OER to be roughly equivalent to that of traditional educational resources. OERs were deemed to be more current than traditional publishers’ resources, while traditional resources were deemed superior in the areas of range of subjects, range of materials for each subject, resources mapped to learning outcomes, and trusted quality. Overall, 31% of those who had an opinion on OER rated their quality as excellent or good, versus 56% who rated traditional resources as excellent or good (Cengage, n.d.a.).
Cengage seems to be deliberately misstating what the 2014 Babson survey reported. Either that, or they’re misreading the graphs (neither option instills confidence). What Babson actually reported was that among faculty members that had used OER, – and that’s the only subset that matters for purposes of the comparison of OER to traditional resources – the majority of faculty members found OER either the same or better than traditional resources in every category. See Figure 1 below. And Cengage’s additional statement that “Overall, 31% of those who had an opinion on OER rated their quality as excellent or good,” was actually 76% excellent or good if you remove the 59.2% of faculty members that “did not know,” e.g., did not have an opinion, see Figure 2 below. It’s possible I’m missing something, or that I’m wrong, so I have included the graphs for you to read. Please let me know.
Why would Cengage want to mislead educators about peer perceptions comparing traditional and OER resources? Here’s my hunch. Where Cengage claims to be adding value to OER as part of its sales pitch is in curation (trusted quality), range of materials for each subject, and resources mapped to learning outcomes. Convincing educators that OER somehow fail in these categories makes a business case for Cengage to curate and supplement OER for $25 USD per student, per course (Cengage, n.d.b.).
The kind of OER repackaging that Cengage is engaging in requires the foundational resource to have a CC-BY license. I’m not convinced that CC-BY-SA would pass muster for repackaging, but there’s probably an argument publishers will try to make. If the resource were CC-BY-NC, however, for-profit publishers would not be able to include it in their firmly closed commercial products. While I want to be generous with the work I create, I most certainly do not want it to land in a publisher resell (or a for-profit journal either). Going forward, I’m using CC-BY-NC for my work. Non-commercial is not a complicated license to figure out. Others cannot sell my work, period. Outside of commercial sale, folks can go ahead and use it, if it’s of interest.
This may not seem like a big deal, $25 per student is way better than $115 to $160 (Cengage’s premium Biology textbook pricing), but Cengage’s low-cost solution is only on the table because the highly questionable for-profit publishing practices of the past few decades have contributed to the problem-solving that OER represents. Cengage’s open washing reaction is clear evidence that there is a rising tide of high quality, no-cost, adaptable open resources emerging that learners and educators are ready and willing to use. I want resources to be easy and well-curated as a contribution to educator workload, but it probably doesn’t need to cost $25 USD per learner, per course, probably.
References
Allen, I. E. & Seaman, J. (2014). Opening the curriculum: Open educational resources in U.S. higher education. Retrieved from http://www.onlinelearningsurvey.com/reports/openingthecurriculum2014.pdf
Cengage (n.d.a.) Open for Learning [webpage]. Retrieved from https://www.cengage.com/oer#value
Cengage (n.d.b). Opennow [webpage]. Retrieved from http://www.cengage.com/institutional/opennow
This post is by Jenni Hayman licensed under a CC-BY-NC 4.0 International license.
