UNESCO Conference Posting by Fred Beshears: If You Build It, Will They Come--or Will They Get Mad, at You!. In addition to the summary logs of the virtual conference, I'll also re-post some of the best individual conference submissions. This posting by Fred Beshears (UC Berkeley) occurred early in Week 1 of the UNESCO virtual conference. ____JH
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Hi,
There are two questions we need to ask when we develop FOSS educational software and OER content:
1) if we build it, will they come and
2) if we build it, will they get mad - at us!
And, if we take the community source development model as a given for both software and content, then these questions need to be addressed differently for software and content.
In the case of Sakai, the community of institutions that support Sakai have also made commitments to adopt Sakai locally. In Berkeley's case, my unit supports the LMS function for the campus, and we have made a public commitment to switch from the commercial LMSs we now support (WebCT and Blackboard) to Sakai. So, my unit is essentially gate-keeper that decides which LMS will be supported campus-wide.
So, as far as the Sakai community is concerned, if they build it, then we know that Berkeley (and the other schools that have made similar commitments) will come. We can also be fairly sure that faculty will not get mad at us for undermining their financial interests if we build Sakai (i.e. very few faculty have built their own, commercial LMS).
However, when it comes to course content, we have a different set of issues.
First and foremost, when it comes to selecting course materials, the faculty are clearly in the gate-keeper's seat, not support staff.
So, a central staff group simply cannot make (and, in my view, should not make) the course content choice. Therefore, for OER it's much harder to answer the - if we build it, will they come? - question.
And, since some faculty have written their own commercial textbooks, we also have to worry about the - if we build it, will they get mad? - question.
I'll address the will-they-get-mad question first.
Some OER groups (e.g. OCW) tend to shy away from the question of whether their content could be or should be used as a substitute for textbooks. The last time I heard an OCW representative speak on this, the answer seemed to be that OCW content could (and should) be considered a supplement for textbooks. But, OCW to my knowledge has not established "textbook substitution" as one of their goals. So, they don't (to my knowledge) try to explicitly measure the potential cost-saving-on-textbooks as one of benefits of OCW. And, if they did, this might generate a negative response from some faculty.
However, if there are faculty who see OER as a threat to their textbook incomes, I believe it's a fairly small percentage of the faculty. I don't have hard data to back this up, but in my experience with faculty content developers here at Berkeley (which is close to 20 years now), I'd say that around five percent of our faculty actually get around to writing a textbook. And, after talking to many textbook authors (both here at Berkeley and at other schools), I'd say around five percent of all textbook authors make "serious" money from textbook sales. However, I would say that around 40 percent of all faculty think that someday they might write a textbook that might make money.
So, I would say that the OER movement needs to think about the concerns of this latter group (the 40% who think they might someday ...) if we want to develop resources that are viable substitutes for commercial textbooks. I'll address this question when I address the second question: if we build it, will they come.
If we build it, will they come?
As I mentioned before, this is a gate-keeper question. For FOSS LMS software, staff are often in the driver's seat. But, for content, faculty are definitely in the driver's seat. It's partly a question of whether faculty will use OER at all; but, as far as students are concerned, it's also a question of whether faculty can and will substitute OER for commercial textbooks.
To answer this question, I'd like to assume that we have developed content that could substitute for commercial textbook content and that this OER content is virtually free (except for the marginal cost of printing).
(BTW: The economic model for creating this OER textbook content can be found at: The Economic Case for Creative Commons Textbooks http://campustechnology.com/print.asp?ID=11891 )
Here, however, I'd like to present three local models that address the main two if-we-build-it questions:
The three local models are as follows:
1. the Jawbone - a simple library resource model that assumes that if we build it, and if we tell them about it (i.e. we jawbone them), then they will come. Of course, they may not come. And, some may still get mad.
2. the Stick - an administrative fiat model, where faculty are told they have to use open content as a substitute for commercial textbooks. This model may be used in countries where students simply cannot afford commercial textbooks. Of course, if we tried this at Berkeley, faculty would get mad, very mad.
3. the Carrot - a financial incentives model that would involve student fees and faculty stipends.
a. In this scenario, schools would establish a course material fee for the big courses that use textbooks.
b. The fee would be based on the cost of textbooks for these courses. So, if students were currently paying an average of $500 a year for the biggest 100 courses, then the course material fee for these courses would be $500 a year.
c. Students would not have to buy textbooks for these courses.
d. Faculty would be still free to assign commercial textbooks, and if they do then the books would be purchased with the fee.
e. However, if faculty elect to use the OER content (e.g. from the OpenTextbook consortium), then they can apply for a grant that would give them a stipend to customize the material for their course.
f. These grants would be paid out of the revenue from the fee.
g. Content developed by faculty paid through the grant would be contributed to the creative commons.
h. If faculty decide to use open content, but do not apply for a grant, then the savings could be refunded to students as a
patronage refund (i.e. a refund similar to those distributed by consumer cooperatives).
So, the carrot model tries to addresses both the will-they-come question and the will-they-get-mad question.
It provides financial incentives to get faculty to at least consider using OER, especially in the big courses that use textbooks.
And, for the estimated 40% of all faculty who think they might write a textbook someday, it encourages them to consider whether a stipend in the hand is worth a potential textbook royalty in the bush.
From my talks with faculty here at Berkeley, they know that most don't make much money on textbooks, and they are intrigued by the stipend-in-the-hand idea.
Best,
Fred Beshears
[EduResources Weblog--Higher Education Resources Online]
9:07:23 PM  Google It!.
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