• applybc.ca 
• coursesbc.ca 
• mycreditsbc.ca 
• abt.onlinecollaborative.ca 
• ict.onlinecollaborative.ca
• aece.onlinecollaborative.ca 

According to ETUG: "The “Showcase of Innovation” will be a riff on the poster session and we want you to be creative and tell us about your project or practice using whatever method you like whether it be through visuals, brochures, video or a demo on on your laptop. Remember innovation comes in a variety of shapes & sizes – not always nuts & bolts, robots & lasers or large-scale roll-out!" 

Check in at the ETUG web site for more information, and see you in June!

Hilda came to work for BCcampus in fall, 2010 and Diana followed the next semester. Then we latched on to them and wouldn't let them go. :-) 

These co-op students brought so much to the workplace -- talent, enthusiasm, humour, energy, and everything else you can think of when imagining a perfect employee.

But employee is altogether the wrong word; it just wasn't that kind of relationship. As a team we absolutely gelled. We all shared this desire to try out new things, and take risks. We also seemed to be able to thrive in the middle of chaos and uncertainty. But most important, we each had something unique to bring to the table, and we all listened to, and appreciated, all contributions.

It sounds pretty straightforward, but this kind of collaboration is really quite rare. What is even more impressive is that I can probably count the number of times we met face-to-face on one hand. I work from my home office. Leva Lee, Client Services Manager, works from a school district office in New Westminster. Diana and Hilda worked from the Vancouver BCcampus office some days, and other days from their homes or Simon Fraser University. Yet we felt very connected. And we had so much FUN! 

Diana has already written a blog post where she shares her experiences working at BCcampus, and also showcases some of her work. Hilda is working on one as well. One thing I'm sure they'll neglect to say as they modestly display the many artefacts they produced -- logos, websites, prototypes, videos, blog posts, help documentation, guides, and on an on -- is the break neck speed in which they worked. They were able to make sense of complex issues and needs, sometimes requiring a lot of digging into the history of communities or earlier conversations and decisions. Then they would come back with brilliant, clear proposals, or the perfect logo, or website design solution, or whatever. WOW. All I could say, everyday, was WOW.

Lately I've been reflecting on why our experiences with working with co-op students was so successful. Obviously what Hilda and Diana each brought to the workplace was outstanding, but there was also something about the team dynamics, and our use of technology to support our work.

From the beginning we agreed that email should be used only when necessary. It's too easy to default to email, and then regret it when you lose track of the history of conversations and decisions. For several months we combined Beluga group messaging (since acquired by Facebook then shut down) with Skype voice meetings. In addition we used [the BCcampus] Confluence wiki where Hilda and Diana each had their own "job jar" space to keep track of projects and progress, as well as store sample work and files. We also used Dropbox for many of our shared files, and Google Docs for some work-in-progress. We experimented a lot, and the conversations around what worked and why was part of the fun.

Eventually we settled on Skype as our main venue for communication, and set up a "perpetual chat". The result is that in a single space we have a record of all of our conversations for the past 15 months. If you go back to the beginning of our history, it takes a long time to load! And every Friday we scheduled a check-in (also Skype, and combined with our perpetual chat) for an hour or so for project updates and to brainstorm / problem-solve. If, at any time, the text conversation was getting hard to follow or we need to quickly reach a consensus, we'd just switch to audio.

When it came time to hire a co-op student for the summer semester, it only made sense for Hilda and Diana to be involved in the interviews. In fact, they took charge of the entire process -- resume reviews, short list, interviews, welcoming committee, and training. Enter Heather Kincaid, the new, energetic member of our team. It has been such a smooth transition.

Last week I smiled when Diana popped into the perpetual Skype chat to offer some WordPress expertise. It made me realize that the team was still connected after all.

Photo: Skype Team Meeting L to R - Leva, Diana, Hilda, Heather

Republished from Sylvia's web site, under Creative Commons license

At BCcampus, we ask our co-op students to jump into the deep end of the pool.

[Enter Gracie Messina]

With Gracie, who started a four month stint with us in January of this year, it went something like this:

Dave: Welcome, Gracie. Btw, we need to do a user study of our ApplyBC.ca web application in three weeks. We need to recruit five students that have never used it before, and come up with recommendations for a complete redesign before March.

Gracie: No problem, Dave.

Dave: Video?

Gracie: NP.

Dave: Report in Confluence?

Gracie: NP.

[Four weeks later] Voila! The ApplyBC 2012 User Test Report is born.

In Victoria, work begins on the ApplyBC re-design, and usability recommendations from the report prove to be quite useful.

[Later]

Dave: Hey Gracie, can we do heuristic evaluations of our other web apps? CoursesBC.ca? MyCreditsBC.ca?

Gracie: NP, Dave.

Dave: Accessibility?

Gracie: NP.

Dave: Report in Confluence?

Gracie: NP. ... Do you want interactive mockups with that?

[Later] Voila! The CoursesBC Heuristic Report, The MyCreditsBC Heuristic Report, and The Expert Review Checkpoints with Accessibility Sheet are born.

Zoom!, four months pass and, sadly, Gracie must leave us and begin a summer term in Designing SFU Mobile, but before she goes...

Dave: Hey Gracie, can you help us find another amazing co-op student to fill your boots?

Gracie: NP, Dave.

[a flurry of interviews follow]

Voila! Patrick Clarke is hired.

Dave: Gracie, before you leave, could you show Patrick the ropes?

Gracie: NP, Dave.

[Enter Patrick Clarke]

Gracie: Welcome Patrick! Here's a Learner Services Research Assistant Survival Kit I built for you.

[BCcampus waves a fond farewell to Gracie -- read her blog post about her experience with us -- and extends a warm welcome to Patrick] 

[Monday Morning] 

Dave: Welcome, Patrick. At 9 AM we have a major design meeting telephone/web conference with four people from Vancouver/Victoria offices. Can you take notes?

Patrick: No problem, Dave.

And so it begins again...

Only 5 weeks until the ETUG Spring Workshop! Workshop organizers are busy with plans for “Innovation: What’s on Your Horizon?” hosted June 7th and 8th at Vancouver Community College (VCC) downtown campus.

Ever explored VCC downtown? Now’s your chance. With a rich and varied history the place is bustling, like a city within a city. It has its own fine dining establishment JJ’s, a bakery, hair salon and spa, and dental clinic! It is really great to see students in action in these hands-on teaching and learning environments. The campus is very easy to get to; just 2 blocks from the Stadium Skytrain station.

On June 6th (afternoon) JustID will get things started with a “pretug” event: “Innovations in ID“. Then all are invited to gather at The Charles Bar in Gastown for our ETUG pub night.

Thursday morning Alexandra Samuel, Emily Carr University will give the keynote. We are excited for the chance to hear her speak. Take a look a her bio and review many of the wonderful facilitators and sessions scheduled over 2 days of ETUG. On Thursday night, you can join ETUG for a Westcoast dinner buffet prepared by VCC Catering. Dinner is included with your workshop registration and is great opportunity for an evening out with your colleagues and friends.

A “showcase of innovation” is being planned so watch for the Call for Participants. As always at ETUG, there will be lot opportunities for excellent networking and sharing of ideas. On Friday afternoon, Griff Richards, Thompson Rivers University will facilitate a plenary session when we can discuss and reflect on our best workshop”take aways” before departing for summer adventures.

Are you registered yet? It only takes a minute…just go here.

Then grab one of these cool badges to put on your blog or web site. You can also connect with people on etugspring12.crowdvine.com to let them know you are coming, carpool to ETUG or coordinate a group for lunch on Thursday which will be on your own.

"Academic writing skills are the key to success in higher education," said Elaine Fairey, Associate University Librarian at Simon Fraser University. She explained that writing was chosen as the first provincial online tutoring subject for higher education because "the immediate bang for the buck is in writing support. There are consistent standards across institutions and good commonality among all the partners."

College of the Rockies, Douglas College, Kwantlen Polytechnic University and Simon Fraser University are the first institutions to join the pilot, which is modeled on the province-wide online reference service AskAway. Expansion to other universities and colleges could happen as early as this fall.

Learning to write effectively and at an appropriate academic level is one of the most important skills a post-secondary learner must acquire, and one of the most challenging and in-demand. It's a complex skill that needs to be learned and reinforced in many contexts, but the B.C. higher education system is up for the task.

"B.C.'s strength in offering a province-wide service like this is that we work together to deploy different areas of expertise to the various services - the partnership is gold," said Ms. Fairey. The WriteAway partnership includes the participating institutions, the BC Council of Senior Student Affairs Leaders (CSSAL), the BC Electronic Library Network and BCcampus.

BCcampus will provide the software and information technology architecture that will allow tutors to staff the service, much like it does currently with the AskAway service. The chosen software is eTutoring, developed but the Connecticut Distance Learning Consortium.

"Our involvement with AskAway makes perfect sense," said Lawrence Parisotto, BCcampus Director of Shared Services and Collaborative Programs. "It brings together institutions and partners to provide a province-wide service that no one university or college could do on its own. Many universities already have writing support and learning centres, but WriteAway will be an 'anywhere' service available many more hours than a single institution can offer."

"WriteAway will be an ideal companion service to AskAway," said Elaine Fairey. "It has the potential to be a lifesaver for many students, helping them develop a vital skill for academic and career success."

Front page photo by Tony Hall, used under Creative Commons license.

Edited May 10 to include eTutoring as the chosen software.

Working at BCcampus as a Learner Services Research Assistant has been one of the most rewarding experiences since the start of my post-secondary academic studies. I’ve worked with and met so many fascinating and fantastic people who truly care about every aspect of post-secondary education. I’ve been involved in many projects pertaining to BCcampus’ online Student Services, including ApplyBC, CoursesBC, and MyCreditsBC. Furthermore, I’ve learned plenty about BCcampus, about the backstage operations about some of our services, about learning itself, as well as the importance of how my own studies and how it can be applied to the job.

As a Learner Services Research Assistant, my main responsibility has been improving usability on our online Student Services by applying my existing knowledge and skills I learned from my courses in the School of Interactive Arts + Technology (SIAT) in conducting user tests, doing heuristic evaluations, and analyzing the data to be able to recommend design solutions. An example of this is my involvement with the development of ApplyBC as it has been the core of my work-term experience.

Along with my supervisor, we planned and facilitated an official user test for ApplyBC with participants we recruited, who fit into the criteria of who a typical ApplyBC user would be. Participants completed a post-secondary entrance application and from that, we recorded any questions or issues that were encountered. The report we wrote was based on these observations, as well as our processes, in which we then we presented design solutions (through mock-ups) derived from research and brainstorming. The full report and additional supplementary information can be accessed here.

Ever since starting university, I have taken advantage of many resources that are provided for students. However, I’ve only realized and appreciated now how the background processes operate and how hard the people work in terms of making these resources relevant, user-friendly, and fully functional. Not only this, but I’ve learned so many things on the job about BCcampus, about working in an office environment, and about myself in my four months of working here. Here’s the top-three list of the most valuable things I’ve learned:

1. BCcampus is amazingly innovative in the services they provide for BC’s post-secondary schools and if I knew more about them prior to this job, some of my tasks (e.g. searching for online courses) could have been easier to accomplish
2. I’ve always worked in retail prior to this position, and my dream upon graduating was working for the big companies like Apple and Google, but working in the small, cozy office of BCcampus has made me realize that I have plenty to contribute, and that I’m more than an employee number
3. I now fully understand and appreciate adulthood pertaining to the eight-hour grind, the two-hour commute (to and from) on transit, and the importance of coffee or tea to start the day

One of the most enriching experiences I had here was being able to refer to the design knowledge and user testing techniques I learned from school, and then applying them in my projects. In other words, my own post-secondary education has provided me with the skill-set for this position to improve services that supplement other’s post-secondary education. Moreover, being in my school’s co-op program has helped me prepare for the job-hunting process I will be doing after I graduate; a whole semester prior to getting this position, I was applying for co-op jobs, writing cover letters, and competing with many of my peers for interviews.

Although I would have loved to continue growing at BCcampus, courses and degree completion awaits me. I cannot emphasize enough how amazing this co-op experience has been. I learned how passionate my colleagues are in improving post-secondary education in any way possible, and making it a priority, and that too has become something I believe in. Not only did I serve BCcampus in terms of projects I’ve completed or ideas I’ve contributed, but I also served the post-secondary students (both prospective and current) by helping making better web experiences in our web applications for them. I am so humbled to have contributed my ideas to web applications that will be used by plenty of students with bright futures.

Although I’m aware this is not an award ceremony, I would like to thank BCcampus for the opportunity and for all it provides for us post-secondary students, and all its employees for their hospitality, wisdom and guidance! And a special expression of gratitude to Dave Dumaresq for being the best supervisor and sensei!

My experience at this office has far exceeded my expectations. There is no set schedule each day as the tasks change every week and it’s a great learning experience. What was a 4-month co-op term at BCcampus eventually involved into a 16-month co-op, the plethora of projects that I worked on made working at BCcampus enjoyable and engaging.

A majority of my time in the office is working with my supervisor – Sylvia Currie the acting Director of Professional Learning.  As well as Leva Lee, the client services Manager of the ETUG community.

As they work remotely from other parts of British Columbia, we utilized a variety of different programs to communicate more effectively.  Eventually we settled on using Skype as our primary communication tool to share files and provide continuous updates on projects. Working independently gave me room to explore different ways of executing a project, while maintaining the integrity of the company.

My favorite project was the Demystifying the Student Prospective webinars where we would gather a panel of undergraduate students to bridge the gap between post-secondary instructors and undergraduate students. It was established in 2011 as we felt there are a lot of misconceptions about what students want. The webinars provided a better platform for discussion between instructors and students to share their experiences to improve teaching and learning. We were able to cover 2 hot topics – Social Media and online learning in relation to educational technology.

During larger events hosted by BCcampus, I would take photos, tweet, and blog when it is necessary. It’s one of my favorite tasks because you get to see the impact of BCcampus in Higher Education. We then take those items and create an archive of all the resources so people can always go back to reflect.

There is no project too small or too large to take on. It’s always fun and I can bounce ideas off co-workers. We collaborate on projects often using our different backgrounds as an advantage, thus, the slogan – Connect, Collaborate and Innovate.

I have met an array of individuals in the e-learning community and was amazed by the evolution of classrooms from traditional teaching methods to more modern techniques that incorporate new tools and resources.

The co-op position allowed flexibility to continue taking courses, while working part-time. I was able to continue co-op without delaying my graduation. 

Through working at BCcampus, the experiences from working alongside online learning and community of practice experts, I am able to apply the knowledge towards personal projects like my food blog – Foodology.ca to maintain and grow my base of followers.

As my co-op term has come to a close and I am graduating, I know for certain I will continue having an interest in digital marketing and new emerging technologies.

More from Diana’s Website: http://diana-chan.com/projects/bccampus/

BCcampus is looking at this as an area to work with institutions, but before we start creating something new, we thought it a good idea to find out what activities are already under way on campuses around BC, and also what kind of additional support would be most welcome.

Please take a few moments to fill out the short form below. Not only will it help inform our efforts, but it will help to jumpstart a collection of examples from peer institutions in B.C. that we will share once we’ve had a chance to digest the submissions.

If you have any questions or want to discuss other ideas on how best to help faculty and staff cope with this complex landscape, please feel free to contact Scott Leslie, BCcampus Client Service Manager for Open Education at 250-415-3490 or sleslie@bccampus.ca

For individuals involved in supporting faculty and staff in higher education, this question never seems to go away. Over time, as we refine our goals and teaching and learning philosophies, the nomenclature becomes mismatched, or outdated. In teaching and learning centres across the province we hear people talk about faculty development, faculty developers, professional development, academic growth, educational developers, and so on. We coach, mentor, facilitate workshops, encourage reflective practice, and even train (ahhh! the "t" word!). We all know what we do, but seem to be challenged by which labels to apply.

At BCcampus our work around curriculum and professional development has always been closely integrated, and for good reason. Although curriculum is often thought of as a set of courses and content, it embraces much more than that. Curriculum is what educators are immersed in, and they require professional knowledge and skills to do this work effectively. Over the years we have cycled through names for this service area, such as Online Communities and Academic Growth and Curriculum Development and Academic Growth. In this profession, there is a tendency to think of where one activity ends, the other begins -- you develop something here, you learn something there. In practice, we are all doing this thing called curriculum and learning how to do it better. Hmmm, so that's what we do. But still, what do we call it?

For my first three years at BCcampus my job title situated me squarely in the online communities service area, again a label that was too narrow for the nature of the work. While supporting learning through communities of practice is a major focus, we are also involved in cultivating learning networks and organizing and hosting events -- both face to face and online. So when I began my role as Acting Director last year, I wanted to find a label that aligned more closely with the full suite of educator services, and stated more clearly our ultimate goal -- to support learning. What better way to figure this out than to ask the twitterverse! The winner? Professional Learning (Thanks @bill_world!).

After settling into this new Professional Learning job title, it made sense to also modify the name for our service area. It is now called Curriculum Development and Professional Learning. Do you find it encompassing and meaningful? We hope so!

Re-posted from Sylvia's blog, republished under Creative Commons license.

Photo by Chris McClanahan, used under Creative Commons license

This is not a new affiliate so much as a re-ignition of our existing Canadian community. Since 2004, a number of volunteers, interns and affiliate leads have supported and promoted CC and the use of open licenses generally in a Canadian context. This new team, representing three institutions spread across the geographic and cultural expanse Canada, will be a key asset to support and lead the CC activities of this community.

Through public outreach, community building, tools, research, and resources this team will work with a network of open supporters to maximize digital creativity, sharing and innovation across Canada. The work of CC Canada is aligned with the overarching vision of Creative Commons--to help provide universal access to research and education, and full participation in culture to drive a new era of development, growth and productivity.

Whether you're an artist, teacher, scientist, librarian, policymaker or just a regular citizen, Creative Commons provides you with a free, public, and standardized set of tools and licenses that create a balance between the reality of the Internet and the reality of copyright laws. CC Canada joins over four hundred other affiliates working in seventy-two jurisdictions around the world in supporting global use of Creative Commons infrastructure. Collectively this global network is creating a vast and growing digital commons pool of content that can be copied, distributed, edited, remixed, and built upon, all within the boundaries of copyright law.

Here's the road map for Creative Commons Canada activities. 

Congratulations to the CC Canada affiliate team!

A broad range of Ministry of Advanced Education priorities are being targeted with this year's fund:

• Technologies and applied programs related to natural resource sectors, construction and shipbuilding.
• Programs/courses on entrepreneurship and innovation (supporting the BC Jobs Plan). Entrepreneurship and innovation can be broadly interpreted and applied to many academic domains.
• Programs/courses on intercultural awareness and/or internationalization (supporting the BC Jobs Plan re: international education).
• Programs/courses designed for Aboriginal people (e.g. First Nations languages) and initiatives to incorporate Aboriginal content in all programs/courses.

Through the OPDF BCcampus works to connect the expertise, programs, and resources of all B.C. post-secondary institutions. The online learning courses and programs developed through this fund give students access to more courses and programs that help them complete degrees, diplomas and certificates.

The Thursday April 5, 2012 BCcampus OPDF Webinar was recorded and can be viewed by clicking here.

The call for proposals and application form are available from the BCcampus OPDF wiki. Due date for proposals is Thursday May 17, 2012.

Faculty can contribute, license and access free teaching and learning resources (SOL*R); join a community of B.C. post-secondary educational practitioners focused on enhancing learning and teaching through technology (ETUG); dialogue with people who share an interest in educational research and practice (SCoPE); and access centralized information about people, events, opportunities, and quality teaching and learning resources for people in higher education (Learn Together Collaboratory) – again, all online.

This year, as BCcampus is celebrating its 10th anniversary, we may not be surprised by what we can do via the Internet. But in the decade before BCcampus was established, all of the technologies that we now take for granted were brand new.

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Internet Basics: E-mail

The most common method of communication on the Internet is the exchange of electronic mail. With an Internet address, you can correspond with millions of people around the world. The first thing you need is an account on a computer that is an Internet host. Next, you need to familiarize yourself with the software that you will be using to send and receive e-mail….

Electronic mail is no longer restricted to the exchange of text messages. Many e-mail packages allow you to send and receive any type of file that you can store on your computer along with your text message (e.g., a colour graphic, a spreadsheet, a database file). These are called “attachments”….

– From Contact@bc.ca, 1995

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“It was a very exciting time,” says Randy Bruce, now Director of Student and Data Exchange Services and Chief Information Officer at BCcampus. “There was a huge interest across the post-secondary system in B.C. in just knowing what was going on around the world, and a great desire to share, collaborate and go down this new path together.”

Considering all the possibilities was the Standing Committee on Educational Technology (SCOET), a B.C. college and institute system–wide group established in 1990. SCOET looked at the new educational technologies and proposed policy directions for the Ministry of Advanced Education, Training and Technology. It sponsored user groups focused on computer-mediated communications, multimedia, and interactive video conferencing – all of which came together as the Educational Technology Users Group (ETUG). It issued reports, started pilot projects, held workshops and conferences, and supported the development of software and of various local networks.  

For Amanda Harby, who retired from BCcampus in 2008 but like Randy Bruce was part of SCOET from the beginning, it was a lot of fun, because it was all startup. “The arrival of the World Wide Web in the early to mid-1990s (depending on where in the province you were) was huge,” she says. “We tried to prepare for it, and help faculty prepare for it, and it just kept coming, like a rolling freight train.”

Lots of technologies blossomed and then failed. It was the Internet that took hold, and by 1997/98 it had become the dominant technology, with a large majority of colleges and faculty using it, and early versions of online teaching platforms like WebCT, which was developed at the University of British Columbia, already up and running.

In 2002, as the dust was beginning to settle, BCcampus was established, bringing together several threads: administrative services and collaborative online programs for students, and access to teaching resources and like minds for faculty. 

And 10 years later, when it’s hard to believe that none of this existed such a short time ago – that something as ubiquitous as e-mail had to be described in such basic terms (see postcard above) – it’s also interesting to think about where we might be in another 10 years…

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BCcampus is ten years old in 2012. To commemorate, we're publishing a series of articles that illustrate some of our milestones and describe how we got here. This is the second article, featuring our "prehistory" - the education technology landscape prior to 2002.

As BCcampus Client Service Manager Scott Leslie explained:

"The initial request was to find suitable open textbook replacements for the “Foundations of Web Development” course and two database courses, “Database Design” and “Database Management.” These are but three of 18 courses that make up the program, all of which have both course outlines and learning outcomes well described and existing commercial textbooks in use." 

With open textbooks, ICT students could take advantage of course material using current technology: interactive models and multi-media components. Moving to open textbooks would minimize the cost of texts to families and students and create a financial saving for the ICT program. The current cost of the texts for these three, plus two other required courses is $371.91. With a projected enrollment in the program of 40 students and also an additional 100 students in face-to-face programs outside the ICT Collaborative, that's an estimated cost saving of $52,000 annually to students.

Bringing various OERs together into one textbook also makes sense to students and faculty in the program, as Scott Leslie found in his research:

"As my contact explained to me, students were themselves asking for a physical textbook to accompany their course in cases where one didn’t already exist. Fair enough. And in addition, while the instructors were well aware of the reams of materials available for free online and how they could simply point to these, increasingly they were tiring of the ever-present link-rot, finding that each term whole sections of their course would contain broken links due to the seemingly natural decay on the web. Hence – open textbooks!"

Scott has been researching the different technologies available for creating open textbooks and has documented his findings on his blog, EdTechPost

In the meantime, a four-week workshop on "Adopting Open Textbooks" is in its final week for a dozen or so faculty from the ICT and Applied Business Technology Collaborative Programs. Participants are discovering how to find open educational materials for re-use, how to work with stakeholders (including students) to promote a best-use model, and how to "share-alike" the results of an open textbook project. Everything from selecting resources to open licensing to using authoring tools has been covered. 

Some feedback from the participants so far indicates:

• the workshop was very well-received;
• those in the workshop are in favour of open textbooks, but have found the issues of implemention are challenging;
• there is demand for a further session together where they will actually develop an open textbook. Most are looking at adopting and revising a textbook that they found - but they want to go through the process of writing a book together;
• participants found that using the term "open textbook" was confusing and caused issues with trying to get course approval. It is a textbook, no matter where it's found or how it's licensed.
• Because the adoption of open textbooks means change, participants see a need for policy direction from the top that supports open textbooks.

The ICT Collaborative has plans to expand its open textbook pilot project to five courses in the near future, providing resources are available. In addition, the Open Textbook Workshop will be refined, remixed and reused for other faculty in other programs. As far as BCcampus is concerned, open textbooks are an important part of the future of the Open Agenda.

For the past 7 1/2 years, the SCoPE community has gathered together educators, researchers, students, administrators, and software developers from all over the world. When the idea for SCoPE came about, an open, international community that would also support educators locally was not your typical model for professional development. Nor was a sustainable community of practice model the norm, where ideas for learning opportunities emerge through participation, and where members demonstrate their passion for learning and sharing by volunteering and giving back to the community in a variety of ways with no exchange of funds. Throughout the years of organizing and hosting a variety of online activities: seminars, workshops, conferences, MOOCs; we have remained committed to the original vision that SCoPE would provide OPEN professional learning opportunities for everyone.

Over the years many of the facilitated discussions at SCoPE have focused specifically on open educational practices. Just in the past year a series of three seminar discussions have helped to move concept of an OER university to the next level:

• OER University
• Designing OERu Credentials
• Developing a Framework for Academic Volunteers International

Last month a seminar called Writing an e-book for fun and no profit combined an exploration of this new way of writing, creating, compiling, and publishing digital content with a how-to session on authoring strategies and platforms.

The British Columbia Educational Technology Users Group (ETUG), a grassroots group with a 18 year history, is another great example of commitment to the open agenda. At last year's Spring Workshop the theme was "Open 4 Learning." Not only were all sessions about openness in education, but they were all recorded, archived, and materials made available to the world. This has become standard practice for all face-to-face events organized by ETUG.

More recently, the new monthly Tuesdays with ETUG Lunch & Learn (T.E.L.L.) series has attracted a lot of interest as a way for members to repurpose workshop materials they have used with faculty and staff. The deal is you offer the workshop (or present the materials) then participants can leave with a bundle of resources and ideas for implementing the workshop at their own institutions. Simple, effective, and open.

Opening Up Events

As more and more educators experience the benefits of open professional learning, they are in turn becoming more mindful of the opportunities they can provide to others by extending invitations beyond the walls of their institutions. Beginning in 2007, BCcampus hosted a series of meetings to bring together representatives from various groups involved in faculty development and educational technology. A key outcome of that group was the shared vision to improve communication and dissemination about learning opportunities taking place at post-secondary institutions around the province,  and to explore ways to share resources and expertise.

The practice of reaching beyond the walls of the institutions for professional learning continues to take on many shapes. BCcampus has been called upon to help support events through the use of social media, both as a way to help institutions get started with these new ways of working, and to model for others the many ways educators can be engaging a wider audience in learning activities. This summary of a Selkirk College event  outlines what went on behind the scenes, and  this Opening Education example describes a participant's experience.

Each year we are also called upon to participate as sponsors and hosts for conferences and events such as Moodle Moot and JustID. BCcampus support always comes with a condition: that open practices be part of the program.

Events About Being Open

In addition to the many activities embedded in the educator communities supported by BCcampus, we are also involved in planning and hosting events about open educational practices. In 2012 Vancouver will be home to the annual OpenEd conference for the second time, and BCcampus is once again playing a role in organizing, this time as host. In October, 2011, we hosted a one-day Opening Education event focusing on how practices of Open Access research, publishing, and open educational resource (OER) course content have emerged as complementary and creative alternatives to traditional copyright practices.

A new project now underway is to engage educators in dialogue about open textbooks. We are in the final few days of a 4-week Adopting Open Textbooks workshop pilot with faculty in the BCcampus Collaborative Programs, all based on materials developed by the College Open Textbooks Collaborative. Future plans include online workshops open to all faculty across the post-secondary system, and open textbook learning activities and resources tailored for librarians and others in faculty support roles to implement at their home institutions.

One thing is for certain: as we continue to respond to emerging needs and trends it is important to engage educators in dialogue about their practices and  in learning new skills. To bring together the wide range of professional learning activities related to open educational practices, we have launched the Opening Education Website. This will become the go-to place for educational professionals to learn about open curriculum development, publishing, teaching, and administrative practices.

Written for Open Education Week March 5-10, 2012

Open Educational Resources (OER) are materials used to support education that may be freely accessed, reused, modified and shared by anyone. OER include full courses, course materials, modules, textbooks, research articles, videos, and other materials used to support education. OER creators own the intellectual property and copyrights of the OER they create. However, they license the OER and make it freely available to others.

Every time I present the OER work I do at BCcampus I face questions from the audience:

• “Why would a creator who holds copyright and intellectual property license it for others to freely access, reuse and modify for their own purpose?”
• “Why would a creator give something away for free when it has inherent potential to generate revenue and income?”
• “How does a creator earn a living giving away their work for free?”
• “Why would an institution that relies on grants and student fees make core assets freely available to others?”
• “Given the dire financial times countries, governments, and public education providers find themselves in why would we adopt this practice of open?”
• “What is the business model of open?”

To those questions another one was added when David Porter and I were in Ottawa presenting the work of BCcampus broadly including the benefits of Open Educational Resources to Canada’s federal government.

The question we got asked there that stuck out for me is:

“How does open not only save money but act as an economic driver?”

The UNESCO / Commonwealth of Learning project Fostering Governmental Support for Open Educational Resources Internationally led by Sir John Daniel of the Commonwealth of Learning and Stamenka Uvalic-Trumbic is hosting a series of regional policy forums on OER for governments between now and the World OER Congress in June 2012. The purpose of these policy forums is to raise governments’ awareness of OER and their support for them, as well as getting input to the Declaration on OER and Open Licensing that will be put to the June OER Congress.

Shortly after returning from Ottawa Cable Green of Creative Commons sent out a request for responses to a question coming out of these policy forums:

“What is the business case for OER?”

I like all these questions.

Open needs to make financial and economic sense.

All of us involved in OER work need to be able to answer these questions directly.

We need to be able to state in simple, straightforward terms the economics of open.

So that got me to thinking that I should tackle these questions.

Someone needs to make a stab at generating answers.

So here goes.

Cable Green’s request for input into what the business case for OER is generated a flurry of responses and recommended readings on international OER list servs. I’ve gathered those readings into a What is the business case for OER? Collection which I’ve pasted at the end of this blog post. In addition my colleague Scott Leslie began assembling evidence of the economic benefits of many different kinds of open including open access research publishing, open source software, open standards, open data, and OER. I spent some time going through all these resources seeking to extract short straightforward statements that answer the question, “What is the business case for OER?” Here’s what I came up with.

OERs:

• increase access to education
• provide students with an opportunity to assess and plan their education choices
• showcase an institution’s intellectual outputs, promote it’s profile, and attract students
• convert students exploring options into fee paying enrollments
• accelerate learning by providing educational resources for just-in-time, direct, informal use by both students and self-directed learners
• add value to knowledge production
• reduce faculty preparation time
• generate cost savings – (this case has been particularly substantiated for open textbooks)
• enhance quality
• generate innovation through collaboration

The business case for OER includes both cost savings and revenue generation. Making something open is not always a means of direct revenue generation. It often is indirect – because something is open it leads to a revenue opportunity that wouldn’t have existed otherwise. Using OER as a means to market reputation and institutional prowess can convince students to enroll. While better quality learning resources may not directly generate revenue they can lead to faster learning, greater learner success, or reduce drop outs. By their very nature OER can lead to new ways of education through more cooperation, collaboration, and partnerships between institutions. OER make totally new forms of education possible and bring new players into the education market.

I expect many of you may have additional short straightforward statements that answer the question, “What is the business case for OER?”. Welcome your statements as comments to this blog. I expect many more elements of the business case to emerge as the practice of open in education matures.

While the above statements provide a business case for OER they don’t completely answer questions associated with financial rewards to creators who share, or the business models of open, or how open acts as an economic driver. With the business case established lets move on to defining these other economic aspects of open.

The economics of open can be described from multiple perspectives. If I am a creator I describe it one way. If I’m a consumer I describe it another.

In education the way I describe the economics associated with open differs depending on whether I”m describing it from the perspective of a student, an instructor, a college, the education system of a region, or government of a nation.

The economics of open also differ depending on whether you are taking a public or private perspective. Education is both a public service and a for-profit activity around the world. In the public service context there is a very strong business case that publicly funded goods be made freely available to the public that funded them.

In the current OER higher education context “creators” are faculty and/or institutions. When you look at a question like “How does a creator earn a living giving away their work for free?”, in a public sector context the answer is partly that those in the public sector are already earning a living via salary derived from public taxpayer dollars. If they are already being paid by the public shouldn’t the educational work they are being paid to develop, whether it be research or educational resources, be freely available to the public?

After thinking a lot about which persona I should describe the economics of open for and which sector, public or private, I decided to discard these differentiations and focus in on how the economics of open generates benefits that accrue to all players regardless of who you are and regardless of whether it be for public service or for profit. My aspiration is for short direct answers that make sense to everyone.

To derive answers I started looking at things like open source software business models, the sharing economy, and how digitization and the Internet affect supply and demand. There is a lot to explore! I’ve taken it on as my challenge to show how the economics of open, as it plays out in other sectors, applies equally well to education. The language of business and economics is not always used in education. However, for the purpose of generating direct short answers that everyone understands I have chosen to use the language of business and economics in my answers.

Here then are my answers.

Open enables rapid market entry, market penetration, and market share.

We are all creators. Some take photos, some make music, some paint, some write. Most creators are interested in having others experience their work. However default copyright and IP laws tend to constrain access, dissemination and use. Openly licensing work reduces barriers to access and dissemination friction. Going open is a good way to make the market aware that you exist. When something is open it can be disseminated quickly and widely to people everywhere. You may have created a great work but if no one knows about it then its not generating you, or anyone else value.

A central reason for developing and distributing free open source software is that it enables fast entry into the market, rapid market penetration, and generates market share. When Google made the source code for Android open they wanted to make sure that there would always be an open platform available for carriers, OEMs, and developers to use to make their innovative ideas a reality. They also wanted to make sure that there was no central point of failure, so that no single industry player could restrict or control the innovations of any other. The single most important goal of the Android Open-Source Project (AOSP) is to make sure that the open-source Android software is implemented as widely and compatibly as possible, to everyone’s benefit.

Educational institutions who go open frequently report institutional impact in marketing terms.

Patrick McAndrew at the UK Open University in 2009 reported in his Learning from OpenLearn presentation that the the institutional impact from their OpenLearn initiative included:

• 3 million new “users”
• 232 countries
• 7700 “sign ups”
• 10 funded projects
• 30 collaborations
• established methods
• changed image
• won awards
• new plans

In October 2011 BBC News reported Open University’s record iTunesU downloads had reached 40 million and put the Open University alongside Stanford University for the most downloads.

In 2011 after ten years of open sharing, MIT states it shared its OCW materials with an estimated 100 million individuals from over 200 countries worldwide. MIT’s goal for the next decade is to increase their reach to a billion minds.

The UK Open University, MIT, and Stanford all get that going open enables rapid market entry, market penetration, and market share. They’ve established first mover advantage in building up their market presence. For them going open is good business.

As the OER field moves forward I expect we’ll see data that shows increased enrollments where OER exists for courses and shows conversion benefits associated with students being able to try before they buy.

Open generates revenue through advertising, subscriptions, memberships, and donations.

When most people hear about open they find it hard to imagine how making something you own, open and free to others could possibly yield a financial benefit. Obviously you’re not going to generate direct revenue from a free resource. However, you can generate indirect revenue and there are lots of existing business models that already do so which education can emulate.

Advertising

Google makes a search engine available to all Internet users for free. It makes its revenue from advertising.

Facebook provides a free social network platform that supports personal networks, friendships, and social movements. It makes its revenue from advertising.

Given the market valuations for Google and Facebook it’s clear that the business model of generating revenue from making something you own, open and free to others can generate large financial benefits from advertising. Both Google and Facebook have worked hard to make the advertising tolerable by personalizing and targeting it to match your interests and needs as closely as possible.

Advertising and education tend not to mix. There is a tacit understanding that education should be pure and not unduly influenced by something so crass as advertising. However, given the success of ventures like Google and Facebook I expect this will change. Already sites like Udemy have emerged. Udemy’s goal is to disrupt and democratize the world of education by enabling anyone to teach and learn online. They’ve built a platform that makes it easy for anyone to build an online course using video, PowerPoint, PDFs, audio, zip files and live elements. Students can take courses across a breadth of categories, including: business & entrepreneurship, academics, the arts, health & fitness, language, music, technology, games, and more. Most courses on Udemy are free, but some are paid. Paid courses typically range in price from $5 – $250. Udemy features advertising in their third column (aka Facebook) and takes a percentage of each course fee.

Its important to point out that sites like Google, Facebook and Udemy are not open in the full sense that I established at the beginning of this blog. Open in its fullest sense means education resources that are freely accessed, reused, modified and shared by anyone. While Udemy provides “free” access everything on the site is locked down by copyright and can not be reused or modified.

Subscriptions

My own blog, EdTech Frontier, is built using WordPress open source software. Anyone can create a blog for free at WordPress.com. You get a whole array of free functionality – customizable design themes, ability to write posts, upload and embed photos and videos, stats dashboard, privacy options, complete hosting, … This free functionality is sufficient to get you going and may be all that you need. But for those who want more control you can subscribe to premium features. WordPress generates revenue from advertising so if you don’t want advertising you can remove ads from your blog for a low yearly subscription fee. Think about that for a minute – if its free you accept advertising, if you don’t want advertising you pay a fee. Additional subscriptions get you your own domain, extra storage, custom design, VideoPress, … The business model is very clear – basic for free, premium for a fee.

GoodSemester is an education platform that has adopted the same subscription model. GoodSemester is interesting in that it has been developed by students. They think that education deserves the collaborative power and ubiquity of the Internet, and they don’t understand how schools have gotten on for so long without some amazing tools we take for granted in other fields. GoodSemester is a course platform for students and teachers providing a means for developing and delivering online courses, notes, assignments, questions, discussions, groups and analytics. GoodSemester offers subscription plans for students and professors. While not exactly “free” GoodSemester is interesting for the way it has adopted business models from open source software entities like WordPress and applied them to education.

Memberhsips and Donations

Open initiatives like Wikipedia and Creative Commons are committed to the ideal of free and open with no restriction or influence from prospective advertisers. Accepting donations provides them with the independence they need to achieve their mission. Curriki the online community and wiki platform for teachers, learners, and education experts to share, reuse, and remix free quality K12 curricula uses both donations and memberships as a means of financing its work. Curriki membership is free to educators, but they ask a small annual membership fee from individuals who join Curriki representing for-profit entities. In exchange for a small annual membership fee, you can publish the Curriki logo on your Web site and let the world know you are a corporate member! Donations are welcome from anyone.

Open generates revenue through services.

Proprietary off-the-shelf software is funded through the sale of licenses to end users. Open-source software is given away for no charge. One of the main funding mechanisms for open source software is ancillary support services. Revenue is generated by value added resellers and integrators who specialize in supporting open. Consulting, selection of open source software, installation, configuration, integration, training, maintenance, customizing and tech support are examples of services used to generate revenue from open. The software is free but these fee-based services enable users to optimize use of the product and extract value from it. Its worth pointing out that proprietary off-the-shelf software often requires these support services too, so open source software typically provides a lower cost solution by not charging a license fee for the software itself.

Linux, Apache, Drupal, MySQL, MediaWiki, the list goes on and on of open source software available for free but whose full utilization is best achieved through support services. Red Hat provides services for Linux. O’Reilly Media has built a business around providing books, magazines, research, and training for open source software. Pick your open source software product and inevitably there is a local or global business providing support services for it.

There are a growing number of open source software applications in education. Moodle, Sakai, and recently Pearson entered the fray with OpenClass. As might be expected there are revenue generating business models around each of these.

Moodle has the Moodle Service Network. and here’s how Pearson promotes its product:

OpenClass has no hardware costs, licensing costs, or hosting costs. Why would we do that? Because “free” enables the widespread adoption of new learning approaches that encourage interaction within the classroom and around the world. OpenClass is unbelievably easy to set up. It works with what you’re already using. Get set up with just a few clicks and instantly import content from other learning management systems such as Blackboard, Angel, or Moodle. OpenClass is simple to install, simple to use, and simple to support. We’ve provided a robust KnowledgeBase, up-to-date support forums, and numerous demos and instructional videos to help you get the most out of OpenClass. Of course, we know that self-service isn’t the right solution for everyone — we also provide 24/7 email, phone, and chat support to instructors, students, and administrators. (emphasis added by me)

The OERu is a more fascinating model. As described on its home page:

The OER university is a virtual collaboration of like-minded institutions committed to creating flexible pathways for OER learners to gain formal academic credit. The OER university aims to provide free learning to all students worldwide using OER learning materials with pathways to gain credible qualifications from recognised education institutions. It is rooted in the community service and outreach mission to develop a parallel learning universe to augment and add value to traditional delivery systems in post-secondary education. Through the community service mission of participating institutions we will open pathways for OER learners to earn formal academic credit and pay reduced fees for assessment and credit.

In each of these examples open has a fee for services built around it. Eric Raymond, in his book The Cathedral and the Bazaar called this “Give Away the Recipe, Open A Restaurant.”

Almost all the early examples of Open Educational Resource initiatives – MIT OpenCourseWare, Connexions, Carnegie Mellon Open Learning Initiative, UK Open University’s Open Learn, and even the new initiatives like MITx are based on a model I think of as “Content for free, Teaching & Credentialing for a fee”. Explicit in all of these OER initiatives is that contact with faculty and the actual credential or degree that is awarded are not part of the offer. Those are services that cost.

The OERu is looking at a business model where some teaching/tutoring services are provided through academic volunteers international see A Framework for Academic Volunteers International: Dec 5-16, 2011. In the absence of teaching services and faculty contact students will turn to each other through initiatives like OpenStudy. I personally see a tremendous opportunity around bolstering education globally through OpenStudy student to student peer mentoring and support.

Teaching and credentialing are two areas of service that are undergoing change in the open market. Institutions like MIT and Stanford have brand value. A credential from those institutions has cachet. Indeed all institutions tend to think of themselves as having a prestigious brand. In the open market brand prestige and its value is undergoing change.

Udacity is co-founded by Sebastian Thrun one of the Stanford University professors who co-taught the massively open Artificial Intelligence course last year that attracted over 160,000 students from more than 190 countries. After teaching this course Thrun left Stanford to found Udacity believing that university-level education can be both high quality and low cost. Udacity aims to use the economics of the Internet, to connect some of the greatest teachers to hundreds of thousands of students in almost every country on Earth. Currently Udacity has investment funding and is offering its courses for free while it figures out its business model with several possibilities for revenue generation described in the article Massive Courses, Sans Stanford. Thrun is leveraging brand value out of his own name rather than Stanford's.

This idea that students will accept and appreciate a credential not from an institution but from a teacher has been done before in Massively Open Onlne Courses and is now emerging in the form of badges. The MITx initiative has put a new spin on this by devising a credential not exactly from MIT but associated with MIT. The extent to which these badges, letters and certificates of completion from an instructor or non-traditional institution have credibility and value in the market will be fascinating to see.

Open generates revenue through direct and indirect sales

In the economics of open there still are direct and indirect sales. Participants who receive free and open educational resources may still pay for teaching, assessment, and credentialing. The open textbooks being generated in the Washington States Open Course Library initiative aren’t completely free merely targeted to be less than $30 compared to $100-200. Open textbooks are often free in a .epub or .pdf format but cost for a physical print version. I think of this as “Digital for free, physical for a fee”. FlatWorld Knowledge, CK12 and others have all created an open business model around this new way of generating textbooks. The traditional print industry is scrambling to adapt. The economics of open still generates revenues but equally importantly generates cost savings. Take a look at the OpenStax Student Savings Calculator to see how big an impact this can have.

It has been fascinating to see Reuven Carlyle and Cable Green work together to establish the business case for open textbooks and create government policy that leverages the economics of open for Washington State. (Reuven Carlyle makes the business case here. Cable Green makes the business case here.) When you amplify cost savings at a state or national level the economics of open impact is huge.

Another variation on the digital for free, physical for a fee model, is software for free, hardware for a fee. In the rapid market entry section of this post I described why Google made the source code for Android open. Google’s end game was to generate revenue through direct sales, not of software but of hardware in the form of the Android phone itself. Lets see how well this tactic worked. As of February 2012 there were more than 400,000 apps available for Android, and the estimated number of applications downloaded from the Android Market as of December 2011 exceeded 10 billion. Android is one of the best-selling smartphone platform worldwide with over 300 million Android devices in use by February 2012. According to Google’s Andy Rubin, as of February 2012 there are over 850,000 Android devices activated every day. I’d say this strategy works pretty well. Eric Raymond, in his book The Cathedral and the Bazaar called this “widget frosting.” To date we’ve not seen hardware specifically designed and developed for the education market. But I see it coming and I bet it follows a similar model.

Another way of generating direct and indirect revenue from open is to build product add-on extensions and accessories. In the case of add-on extensions the base product is open and free, but additional more full-featured functionality costs money. Lots of apps work this way. You can download a basic app from Apple or Google but an “upgrade” is available for a fee that provides a more robust and full-featured version of that app. Product extensions can be modules, plug-ins or add-ons to an open source package. Indirect revenue can be achieved through accessories which provide users with an opportunity to customize something open in a way uniquely personal to them. The accessories market is huge. Ringtones, laptop covers, apparel, mugs, cards, the variety and range of accessories is endless.

It’s worth pointing out that in music, book, and photography markets some creators give their work away for free and simultaneously offer it for sale. Nine Inch Nails have a brand new 36 track instrumental collection called Ghosts I – IV. You can download the first 9 tracks for free. You can get all 36 track in a variety of digital formats for $5. You can get the tracks on two audio CDs for $10. You can get a a deluxe edition package which includes a blu-ray disc with the songs in high definition stereo and accompanying slideshow. You can get a $300 ultra-deluxe limited edition package (already sold out).

Giving away songs for free can generate more sales.

Cory Doctorow is an author who lets you download his books for free or buy them. He provides a great explanation on why he does this.

Open Generates Innovation

What makes open different is not so much what it derives economic returns from, but “how” it does so.

Open disaggregates supply chains into constituent parts and makes one or more of those parts open and free.

Here’s the OERu logic model:

Although it wasn’t designed for this you can see education supply chain parts revealed – textbooks, journals, curriculum, design & development, pedagogy, student support, ICT infrastructure, assessment, credentialing, … The OERu is looking at how open makes one or more of those parts free or substantially lower in cost.

Open diversifies and democratizes both the production and use of goods and services.

The innovation around open is not based on hoarding knowledge or building monopolies and locked-in proprietary models but instead on freeing knowledge, building collaborations, and finding flexible shared ways of generating economic benefits.

If I give you something and you give me back a new and improved version of that thing, we have engaged in mutual exchange. There has been no financial transaction but we both have mutually benefited. If we have a shared educational need, lets say we have common curricula across a range of courses. Using the economics of open we can divvy up the effort associated with creating that curricula and openly license the curricula for mutual use.

One of the ways the economics of open drives the economy is through reciprocity – by granting you rights I too gain.

Innovation is an economic driver. While the business case for open can be made within traditional frameworks its greatest impact is felt through new business models. When representatives in Canada’s federal government ask me how open acts as an economic driver I’m tempted to ask in reply, “How important the digital economy is to Canada?”

While the business model of open can work with physical goods, its effect as an economic driver is compounded when digital goods are involved. The economics of physical goods is predicated on supply and demand. If I have a physical good and I give it to you, I no longer have it. However, if I have a digital good and I give it to you, I still have it. This fundamentally changes the economics of supply and demand.

In a traditional economy based on supply and demand, scarcity generates premium prices. Supply emphasizes mass produced solutions that are just good enough to attract a large segment of users without being optimized for anyone. The power of the marketplace lies more with suppliers than customers. In contrast, the open marketplace, especially the digital open marketplace, massively diversifies and expands supply. In the open marketplace we all become suppliers and power shifts toward customers.

The open market reduces supplier lock-in and offers lower costs, more choice, and personalization options.

In the open marketplace you can choose what best meets your needs, customize the solution to a much greater extent, and flexibly integrate pieces into more complete solutions.

One of the greatest innovations in the open economy is the formation of communities of developers and users who collectively work on and continually enhance creative work for mutual benefit. So when I see Washington state developing an open course library of their top 81 high enrollment courses and a series of <$30 open textbooks I think about how this could scale by working with other states and regions. I think about the formation of an open consortia of others who collectively use the same courses and improve them together. I think about coordinating and building out through collectively planning and distributed effort.

Almost all successful open initiatives have a vibrant and active community built up around them. An intriguing innovative aspect of this is that frequently the community that forms around open is global not regional.

Leveraging open as an economic driver involves developing and delivering open products and services in partnership with others around the world.

Open leads to collaborations and trading partners within a global context.

Open Makes Better Use of What We Already Have

As I’ve thought about and worked through the economics of open in this blog post its occurred to me that the biggest opportunity open brings to all of us is making better use of what we already have. We are all creators. What if we adopted a default of sharing instead of not sharing?

On January 24-26, 2012, one hundred thought leaders from all over the world were invited to come together in Austin to mark the tenth anniversary of the NMC Horizon Project. They engaged in discussions around ideas of where technology is going and how it is impacting learning and education worldwide. From those discussions megatrends emerged. A number of those trends directly relate to the economics of open including:

Openness — concepts like open content, open data, and open resources, along with notions of transparency and easy access to data and information — is moving from a trend to a value for much of the world.

• The world of work is increasingly global and increasingly collaborative.
• The Internet is becoming a global mobile network — and already is at its edges.
• Legal notions of ownership and privacy lag behind the practices common in society.
• Business models across the education ecosystem are changing.

At BCcampus we’re committed to being open in everything we do. We decided to proactively state that position and openly share the work we produce through a corporate statement on our “open agenda”. It starts out saying:

We are a publicly-funded organization serving British Columbia’s post-secondary sector. The goal of higher education is the creation, dissemination, and preservation of knowledge, and as such we have an essential responsibility to distribute the results of our work as widely as possible.

Our open agenda corporate statement goes on to describe our commitment to publishing all BCcampus reports, web content, and other media resources using Creative Commons licenses. We describe how our events will be open and use open communication practices. At BCcampus open is a default practice. We belief there is collective value in proactively publishing organizational statements regarding committment to open. We hope more organizations follow suit and welcome others to adopt or use ours as a starting point.

In Mark Zuckerberg’s masterplan for the ‘sharing economy’ the CEO of Facebook believes he is not changing human nature but enabling it. Zuck’s Law decrees that every year, we will share twice as much as we shared the year before, because we want to and because we now can.

I’m fascinated by the emergence of the sharing economy. As Fast Company notes in their article on The Sharing Economy:

Spawned by a confluence of the economic crisis, environmental concerns, and the maturation of the social web, an entirely new generation of businesses is popping up. They enable the sharing of cars, clothes, couches, apartments, tools, meals, and even skills. The basic characteristic of these you-name-it sharing marketplaces is that they extract value out of the stuff we already have. The central conceit of collaborative consumption is simple: Access to goods and skills is more important than ownership of them. Botsman divides this world into three neat buckets: first, product-service systems that facilitate the sharing or renting of a product (i.e., car sharing); second, redistribution markets, which enable the re-ownership of a product (i.e., Craigslist); and third, collaborative lifestyles in which assets and skills can be shared (i.e., coworking spaces). The benefits are hard to argue — lower costs, less waste, and the creation of global communities with neighborly values.

Making better use of what we already have generates economic benefit by increasing utilization.

Given the worldwide demand for education shouldn’t we be doing a better job of using what we already have? Don’t the principles we see at play in the sharing economy apply equally well to education? If we really want to address the world wide shortage of education an obvious first step is to open up the education resources that already exist within education institutions around the world.

The economics of open drives the economy through better utilization of what we already have.

Economic development is driven by skilled labour. Better use of existing educational resources increases access and skill development. The economics are simple.

The economics of open allows us to increase the skills and knowledge of all.

Too many of our educational resources sit on a shelf unused or behind password protected systems. Open makes better use of what we already have.

Open works don’t end, they expand and evolve on and on through others.

This post is for everyone who has been grappling with the business case for open.

My hope is that you’ve had a few "aha" moments and that some of your questions have been answered.

I expect many of you have additional insights and examples of the economics of open.

I invite you to share your insights and examples by leaving comments at the bottom of this post.

The more we can collectively expand and evolve a global understanding of the economics of open the better for all.

Reprinted under Creative Commons license from Paul's blog: edtechfrontier.com

You will also find there references for What is the business case for OER? Collection (from OER list serv Feb 2012)

OPEN

So - welcome to Open Education Week.

At BCcampus, we're celebrating by highlighting, in the next few days, the myriad ways we live, work and breathe Open here at BCcampus. We've started by posting our Open Agenda statement front and centre on our web site, permanently, for all to see. It states:

"BCcampus is committed to being open in everything we do.

We are a publicly-funded organization serving British Columbia's post-secondary sector. The goal of higher education is the creation, dissemination, and preservation of knowledge, and as such we have an essential responsibility to distribute the results of our work as widely as possible.

This has implications for how we operate on a daily basis.

Connect:

Our public meetings and events are streamed live online whenever possible. We will take photos and notes of our face-to-face events, and screen shots from our online events, and post them on our web sites and through our social media accounts on Twitter and other social media sites. We encourage speakers and participants to do the same with slides, photos, videos, crowdsourced notes and discussions. We will post archival video of keynote addresses, presentations, panels and discussion sessions on our web properties for anyone to view and comment on. Speakers, facilitators and attendees of all events, online and face-to-face, will be made aware at time of registration that their image and contributions can and will be shared in these ways.

We are committed to open data and open information, which is about proactively releasing information to our stakeholders on an ongoing basis. We will distribute all BCcampus reports, web content, and other media resources using the Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 Canada license (see below). 

Collaborate:

We are always seeking ways to give the post-secondary system a stronger say in BCcampus strategic planning and priorities, and expanding engagement through online technologies. We will enable moderated commenting on all our web pages where appropriate, and make use of opt-in mailing lists to disseminate information and solicit feedback.

BCcampus has a solid reputation around open educational resources in the context of professional development and academic growth. Resources developed as a result of BC Online Program Development Fund are mandated to use an open license.

Our professional development activities through the Educational Technology Users Group and SCoPE have a long history of encouraging open sharing, reuse and remixing of knowledge and resources.

In the interests of remaining transparent in our business processes, BCcampus will refrain whenever feasible from signing non-disclosure and confidentiality agreements with vendors and partners. 

Innovate:

We are committed offering data in a more useful format to enable our stakeholders to leverage it in innovative and value-added ways. BCcampus supports freedom of choice in technology and where possible source files will also be made available in open and free file formats. Our commitment to an open agenda in developing our applications and services is mentioned in our Strategic Plan for 2012-15: "The Challenge-Driven Innovation approach requires us to be more transparent than we think we are now, making our strategies, plans and key documents network-accessible to our system partners, tagging each with an open license, providing our source code for download where appropriate, and using crowdsourcing techniques to openly solicit input from stakeholders and partners in the form of challenges to be solved. CDI is about socializing responses to innovation challenges." 

The wealth of open, shared resources and knowledge are compelling many learners, faculty and institutions. At BCcampus, we want to cast a wider net, so this week you'll hear more about other aspects of the Open Agenda: how the economics of Open might work, about the Creative Commons Canada project, about an Open Textbook pilot we're heading up, and about the next round of the Online Program Development Fund.

During this year's Open Education Week, we hope to demonstrate how Open makes sense.

Our work at BCcampus is a mix of innovative projects and operational services, many of which are on the edge of the possible. That is: they are new, developmental and formative. We ask our stakeholders to work in new ways, to collaborate on activities that promise to establish systemic value propositions. As a consequence, we tend to work on the knife-edge, a sometimes-uncomfortable place to be, often asking our stakeholders to take a leap of faith with us. So, when we read and interpret our annual stakeholder survey, it is in the context of innovation and its tensions that we measure our progress.

This year’s Stakeholder Satisfaction Survey tells us that BCcampus is generally well regarded in British Columbia’s higher education sector. However, there were more “neutral” and fewer “satisfactory” responses among our stakeholders than expected. With a 60 per cent approval rating overall, there is ample room to build on goodwill already found within segments of our stakeholders and clients.

Sixty percent is good, but we know we can do better.

While there is lukewarm support for customer service and for our Shared Services and Collaborative Programs and Student Data Exchange Services, there is stronger support for Curriculum Development and Academic Growth. We've taken some bold steps in the area of "open" lately and it certainly shows.

There is a general appreciation of our communication efforts and support and understanding of our strategic goals, and that's certainly something we can leverage.

The audience presenting BCcampus’ main challenge is in information technology and registrar’s offices, many of whom have yet to be persuaded of the benefits of collaboration in system-wide services. We hear that message loud and clear, and we're taking steps to address those concerns. At the same time we are also taking our message about the strategic importance of systemic collaboration to presidents ands vice-presidents directly, and through their post-secondary sector affiliation groups (RUCBC, BCAIU, BCC)

Our biggest takeaway from what you've told us is this: BCcampus spends much effort telling our stakeholders what we're doing, which is important but not sufficient. We need to listen. When we ask our partners to leap into an innovative technology or process, there can never be too much communication. We need to build awareness, trust and confidence, and create a collegial, open space where feedback is a continuous loop.

We will redouble our efforts to invite our stakeholders to engage with us, to collaborate with us, to offer their wisdom and participate in our projects. Why? because BCcampus can help our partners in the B.C. post-secondary system do what they do better. BCcampus provides the innovative technological infrastructure solutions that can make the whole system move more smoothly and efficiently. BCcampus makes sense, and we have to make sure we're trusted to deliver on our promise to connect, collaborate and innovate.

We're still exploring the ways in which we'll adjust to meet our clients' and stakeholders' expectations, but for now we know that we have to:

• Keep a focus on face-to-face communications: meetings, conferences, phone calls and more importantly relationship-building. This means beefing up our client service system at the front lines of day-to-day dealings with stakeholders on an operational level. It also means having our senior management involved in relationship-building on a senior level.
• Codify and quantify those relationships as much as possible through a comprehensive and standardized customer relationship management strategy.
• Find innovative and creative ways to invite stakeholders to be a part of the BCcampus process: meeting and event follow-up, leveraging existing communications tools and focused engagement. 

Above all, we'd like you to tell us how we're doing: suggest ways we can serve the system better, let us know what we're doing right and where we could do better. You could start by commenting on this article below.

David Cunningham had been out of school for the better part of 30 years, working in a variety of different fields, when the economic downturn resulted in a period of unemployment. From the early 1990s, a growing interest in computers had kept him learning on his own, but David realized that he needed more than self-training to get stable work in the IT field. 

Living in Nanaimo, David found he had three options for getting the formal training and certification required for IT work: take the courses offered at a local institution, travel or move to attend another institution that offered the courses he wanted, or take online courses. And that’s where BCcampus came in.

After looking closely at the options, David chose to enroll in the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) online collaborative program, supported by BCcampus. Not only would the program provide the certification he needed, but he found that the way it works and the particular combination of courses offered were impressive, and he liked the fact that he could work from home.

The ICT program is a collaboration on the part of four colleges: College of New Caledonia, Northern Lights College, Northwest Community College and Yukon College. Students choose one of the four colleges as their Home Institution, where they register and from which they ultimately receive their certification, but their courses are with faculty from the other participating institutions as well. BCcampus serves as the virtual campus for the program, connecting the students, faculty and institutions through a variety of shared hosting and support services.

Classes are offered online in real time through Adobe Connect, a web conferencing system, with students able to participate and ask questions as though in a real classroom. Students who are unable to attend the online classes during the day are able to access recordings of the classes afterwards.

Students participate in discussion forums and do their assignments, tests, group projects and other work through the learning management system Desire2Learn (D2L), which is hosted by BCcampus. The flexible schedule and accessibility of the online courses means students can attend full-time or part-time, depending on their situation.

The ICT program offers two options:

• The certificate option requires 30 course credits, which can be completed in two terms full-time or over a longer period part-time, and prepares a student for work as a hardware technician, network technician or junior programmer in business, government, industry and other organizations.
• The diploma option requires an additional 30 credits after completion of the certificate. This part-time option is designed for the working ICT professional, providing  skills in database design and data storage and transfer, and in installing and customizing Microsoft operating systems, as well as foundational knowledge in project management.

In addition, ICT courses provide the theory component of a number of global IT certifications offered by organizations such as the Computing Technology Industry Association, Microsoft, w3schools and Certified Internet Web Professionals. Once they have completed their ICT courses, students can choose to take various certification examinations.

David is currently completing the ICT certificate. As a full-time student, he spends most days at his computer, attending classes or doing coursework. “It’s a lot of work,” he says, “but I’m loving it.”

High points for David include the geographic and cultural diversity of his classmates. Many are from northern B.C. or Yukon and beyond, and since some of the older students are already working in IT and have a broad range of experience, they are able to talk about how what they are learning can actually be applied in hands-on situations.

Similarly, with the ICT program instructors coming from several institutions, there is a broader range of experience and knowledge to draw from in the courses than might be found in a single institution.

David isn’t yet sure where his ICT certificate will take him, because his own interests are so wide-ranging, and there are so many possibilities. For the moment, he is just enjoying the learning, knowing that with his ICT certificate in hand he will be well qualified for both ICT work and ongoing education and certification.

“It’s great,” David says, “a complete win-win.”