Open Content & Ethics

“The movement toward open content reflects a growing shift in the way academics in many parts of the world are conceptualizing education to a view that is more about the process of learning than the information conveyed in their courses,” (Johnson, L., Adams, S., & Haywood, K., 2011, p. 22). Open content is a new measure of education, in which textbook companies and various institutions are making content available online, for free. When comparing traditional educational resources to open content, it is no surprise the latter is more pleasing. Conventional textbooks are beginning to appear outdated, and schools are beginning to face an increasing struggle to renew their educational resources in a cost-effective and timely manner. Many of the establishments releasing content online operate as a normal publishing company does. Flat World Knowledge, for example, writes and edits their books in a traditional fashion, but releases copies of the text for free online, making students pay for a hard copy only if desired. Teachers can benefit from the availability of online content as well, finding useful resources and shareable material that can contribute to their curricula. This way, teachers are able to easily devise new lessons with creative material, which will hopefully keep their students engaged and interested. “As customizable educational content – and insights about how to teach and learn with it – is increasingly made available for free over the Internet, students are learning not only the material, but also skills related to finding, evaluating, interpreting, and repurposing the resources they are studying in partnership with their teachers,” (Johnson, L., Adams, S., & Haywood, K., 2011, p. 22).

As discussed in previously posts, technology is spreading at a fast rate to schools, and educational tactics are beginning to revolve around what technology makes possible. “Currently, most electronic books and journals are essentially copies of printed versions that can be read on a computer or mobile device. Exciting new examples hint at the possibilities offered by more advanced forms of electronic books – self-directed, interactive experiences; easy exploration; collaborative work; multi-modal, immersive activities; and other deeply engaging approaches to learning,” (Johnson, L., Smith, R., Willis, H., Levine, A., & Haywood, K., 2011, p. 9). The advancements of technology have resulted in electronic readings to include graphs, videos, illustrations, and helpful tools, such as bookmarking, dictionary look up, and annotations. Because schools are investing in electronic equipment, such as iPads, laptops, and even Kindles, open content is becoming easier to attain and take advantage of. Although the prices of the latest technology is rather costly, the advantages tend to outweigh the costs, giving students and teachers endless educational opportunities to integrate into the curriculum. Looking only a couple years into the horizon, I feel it is safe to assume all students, both at the high school and college level, will have as much, if not more, of their content evolving from the Internet or other virtual databases.

One drawback to the movement of open content is authors’ copyright protection. Foundations, such as Creative Commons, offer licenses to secure authors’ rights to their work, if they may choose to do so. “CC0 enables scientists, educators, artists and other creators and owners of copyright- or database-protected content to waive those interests in their works and thereby place them as completely as possible in the public domain, so that others may freely build upon, enhance and reuse the works for any purposes without restriction under copyright or database law,”  (Creative Commons). Copyright holders are also given the choice under CC0 to decide against copyright protection altogether, sort of like a “no rights reserved” policy. If the authors do decide to opt out of their safeguard, is it okay for readers to copy their work? After all, because they have “no rights reserved,” using their work would not really be considered plagiarism, right? I am curious to learn more about this issue, and see how this could play in to students who may be writing papers, etc. If this philosophy is accurate, I feel that teachers need to be particular when explaining the concept of plagiarism to students, and depict a fine line between what is right, and what is wrong.

Johnson, L., Adams, S., and Haywood, K., (2011). The NMC Horizon REport: 2011 K-12 Edition. Austin, Texas: The New Media Consortium.

Johnson, L., Smith, R., Willis, H., Levine, A., and Haywood, K, (2011). The 2011 Horizon Report. Austin, Texas: The New Media Consortium. 

www.creativecommons.org