Previously I have come across to the concept of openness in relation to open science and open access. It was nice to see, how similar kind of thoughts were evoked. In relation to open access publishing, I had previously come across also the creative commons licenses that I at the time found quite difficult. Therefore, I very much enjoyed the video material provided to us about cc-licenses (Creative Commons Aotearoa New Zealand). I wish I had had this when I was first submitting my open access article. I still haven’t produced that much teaching material apart from a few sets of lecture slides, but I think that CC-licensing would be a great option for sharing the materials more broadly if needed.

When it comes to openness itself, I do think it is valuable. However, put into the educational context, our PBL group had a great discussion on how out institutions may limit our possibilities to produce open material. And I do understand the institutional point of view as well, institution may not want to pay and give resources for work that does not benefit them (i.e. produce graduates). However, on an individual level, teachers may not have enough time to produce well thought online materials as the pedagogical underpinnings do vary quite a bit between traditional face-to-face course, “small group” online course and a MOOC for instance (see also Tieteentekijät, 2020). So a change towards a more open education requires multi-level actions already because of resources. In Finland a large amount of University funding comes from the state and the amount of funding receives depends on a set of criteria, for instance how many degrees the university produces, how many publications and in which journals, you get extra funding also from open access publications. However, I am not sure but my gut feeling is that at the moment the universities do not get funding from MOOCS so that it would be profitable. I do think that making profit is not the core mission of a university but as there have been cuts in university funding, it leaves less resources to be used for actions that do not bring profit. This is naturally unfortunate.

 

Resources:

Creative Commons Aotearoa New Zealand (2011). Creative Commons licences explained. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ZvJGV6YF6Y

Tieteentekijät. (2020). Avoimia oppimateriaaleja järkevästi resursoiden ja tekijänoikeuksia kunnioittaen [Open learning materials, reasonable resources and respecting copyright]. Available at : https://tieteentekijat.fi/avoimia-oppimateriaalia-jarkevasti-resursoiden-ja-tekijanoikeuksia-kunnioittaen/