This idea for this flash talk at the OER17 Conference by
John Casey, and Wolfgang Greller was sparked by comments made in Jim Groom’s
OER 2016 keynote, about OER’s in America being used to politically
undermine funding in public higher education
http://bit.ly/2fNdNpU.
Others have expressed similar unease about how OERs are situated in
current economic and political developments; with Weller (1) observing
the growing links to corporate business interests and Daniels (2) making
the comparisons to a form of neo-colonialism.
This talk situates OERs in the context of present day neoliberalism
and asks what’s going on here? To do so we (briefly!) describe
neoliberalism from Harvey’s (3) perspective as the reimposition of
economic and political control by the ‘ruling class’. We explain what we
understand to be OER’s, taking the more inclusive definition from the
Hewlett Foundation (4) and ask how our work with OERs may avoid being
co-opted into neoliberal strategies of austerity, control and
legitimization.
Jane Austen’s novels are widely admired as insightful accounts of
human character set in the style of an entertaining ‘comedy of manners’
that lampoons the pretensions of polite society. Less widely appreciated
in Austen’s writing is her great attention to financial detail,
reflecting the tumultuous social and economic uncertainty that the rural
gentry were facing as a result of the agrarian and industrial
revolutions – the first bloom of liberal economics. We see parallels
with this in in present day discourse about technology in education.
Guided by Cicero’s dictum of ‘cui bono?’ (“who benefits?”) we argue for
the need to examine how our work with OERs fits into the wider changes
that are going on in society. To do this we need to adopt a systems
approach to identify the political ‘feedback loops’ described by Apple
(5) that may be operating to gain a better understanding of how we
manage our work. We don’t have all the answers – but we do have some of
the questions!
References
(1) Weller, M. The Battle for Open: How openness won and why it doesn’t feel like victory, Ubiquity Press: London, 2014.
(2) Daniel, J., (2012). Making Sense of MOOCs: Musings in a Maze of
Myth, Paradox and Possibility. Journal of Interactive Media in
Education. 2012(3), p.Art. 18. DOI: http://doi.org/10.5334/2012-18
(3) Harvey, H. (2007). A Brief History of Neoliberalism, Oxford University Press, U.S.A
(4) OER Defined (2016). The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. http://www.hewlett.org/strategy/open-educational-resources/
(5) Apple, M. Ideology and Curriculum, 2nd ed. New York: Routledge, 1990