Week 5 - The Impact of Open Source

http://oyc.yale.edu/

The idea of free education provided by a prestigious institution like Yale University seems almost too good to be true. In an effort to “make an important contribution to expanding access to educational resources through the use of internet technology (http://oyc.yale.edu/about ),” Yale has made available course content and lectures from an array of undergraduate course offerings. While these materials are provided free of charge online, it is here that the similarities to true distance learning end. Instead of providing an online learning opportunity, Yale is simply distributing course materials for use in other, in-class, synchronous classrooms. Consumers of this material are given a syllabus, links to recorded lectures, and downloadable resources, much of which is incomplete due to licensing difficulties. Learners within Yale’s open course environment are essentially on their own if “auditing” an available class; a better format would be to implement the available syllabus and materials into a traditional classroom. This, however, has nothing to do with distance education; instead, Yale has dumped face-to-face course information online with no structure to learning, and certainly no pre-planning or intentional design for distance education.

Simonson et al. (2009) warn against this dumping practice. “The term shovelware has evolved to describe this practice: Shovel the course onto the Web and say you are teaching online, but don’t think about it much (pg. 248).” This really is precisely what has happened here; a bunch of learning material has been plopped onto an open source site and left to be used in whatever way seems good to an instructor. There is no structure to the learning events, other than a chronological order of topics as described in the syllabus; there is no grading criteria or point structure; nor are there any timeframes within which the course is to be completed in. Is it a semester-based course? A quarter-based course? Can the course be extended over multiple terms, or is it better served to be completed within one term? Suffice it to say that the open courses provided by Yale are not finished products; there is much work to be done once the decision to use the material has been made.

There is no online component to the courses at all. In order to construct distance learning opportunities around the provided materials, an instructor would have to work with an instructional designer extensively to build, from scratch, the entirety of the online learning environment. There are discussion topics described in the learning materials (for example: http://oyc.yale.edu/classics/introduction-to-ancient-greek-history/content/resources/02darkages ) but no platform upon which to conduct the discussions themselves. This requires the incorporation of a threaded discussion forum which will have to be contracted from another source, or built on-site for substantial cost. Regardless, this is a process in and of itself to be undertaken without any suggestions from Yale. Let’s take a look at a few recommendations from Simonson et al. (2009) regarding online learning to illustrate how far away the Yale open courses are from true distance education:

 “Students can work at their own pace.”

 “Online course materials, once developed, are easy to update, providing students access to current information.”

 “The Internet can provide a student-centered learning environment, if the materials and methods are designed to take advantage of the interactivity and resources the Internet provides.”

 The Internet promotes active learning and facilitates student’s intellectual involvement with the course content.”

 A well-conceived online course provides a variety of learning experiences and accommodates different learning styles.” (pg. 234-5)

The Yale open courses as they stand now offer none of these advantages typically afforded by effective online learning. The structure of the materials is ambiguous and mundane, as well as old-fashioned and teacher-centered. The courses do actually do a good job of offering access to materials anywhere, anytime by allowing for lectures to be downloaded via iTunes to mobile devices, but this is the only interaction the student has with the material; there is no inherent active learning opportunities for “small-group discussions, hands-on experiences with materials available in advance of the class period, or similar types of classroom strategies (Simonson et al., pg. 192, 2009).” While a great idea, the Yale open courses are quite obviously not designed for distance learning. To be transformed into a format viable for distance education, much work will need to be done by instructional designers and course instructors; so much so that a decision needs to be made whether or not to adopt the learning materials in the first place.


Reference:

Simonson, M., Smaldino, S., Albright, M., & Zvacek, S. (2009). Teaching and learning at a distance: Foundations of distance education (4th ed.) Boston, MA: Pearson.