Submitted for Assignment 5, Creative Commons for Educators
The goal of this post is to “produce a strategy or informational document in which you reflect on how the values and practices of the Creative Commons can (or already do) have a positive impact in a context that is important to you, and to confront a specific issue in that context where what you have learned can make a real contribution.” After several false starts, I finally settled on writing a more reflective piece, and to consider some more personal workplace goals.
When I think about Creative Commons, I recall all the sharing I have done with various colleagues over the past 30 or so years of working in educational technology and eLearning. And how much easier sharing has become over those 30 years as materials moved from simply electronic, to available on the Internet.
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k in the day, when I worked in DOS (remember DOS?) on computer assisted language learning (CALL), we used what basically amounted to open source software, developing language lab computer exercises we shared back to others in our CALL community across Canada. These programs were only 
available on individual computers, but we could share using floppy discs (you know, they looked like SAVE icons!).
Then I moved into the Learning Management System world where content was locked down, but we, as instructional designers in distance education, shared our practices and training materials with each other, as well with any instructor who had a yen for learning more, using URLs and email attachments.
Now, in my current position, a large part of my job is to develop training/development documents, courses, materials, etc. for faculty around integrating educational technology and digital pedagogies into their teaching – the technical hows, and the pedagogical whys. I create all of these materials under a CC-BY or CC-BY-SA license, and while they are first placed in our LMS for easy access for faculty, I now also blog them to the world.
So, we’ve come a long way, but one thing that has not changed over the years are issues of academic freedom and intellectual property, as well as questions of institutional “ownership”, and, sometimes, reticence by faculty to share. And even more now with the increase of Open Pedagogy, and the concept of the non-disposable assignment, we also face protecting the privacy of our learners (even if they are also faculty) and finding ways to support those not quite ready to share their learning experiences in an open space (as opposed to a more closed, safer feeling space).
To give you a better idea of my context before I talk about my own dreams and goals moving forward, I work as an instructional designer in an eLearning unit which is part of a larger teaching and learning centre at a mid-sized community college, and while I do work to advocate up the chain, much of my work creating, using, and promoting open happens at the one-on-one level with faculty and colleagues.
That being said, I am very grateful to have been given the opportunity, and institutional support, to engage in this Creative Commons certificate. Open is valued at our institution, particularly within the library where they have been providing students with low- or no-cost resource options for awhile now. Where we need to move now is in engaging with administration and faculty to show the benefits to not just students, but to the institution as a whole and to instructors facing a number of policy challenges (indigenization, interculturalization, inclusive design, accessibility, etc.) which OERs can help resolve. In other words, it should not be a checklist of separate things to add to your teaching, but supported as a holistic approach. This is a long-term challenge I cannot face on my own – I need to find and build a network of champions within my institution (librarians, faculty, administrators).
Luckily, I am not alone in facing challenges of promoting Open at a post-secondary institution. For example, just this week I received notice that Dr. Tannis Morgan (a past learner in this certificate) has published an article entitled “Getting to Openness at a Closed Institution: A Case Study of Evolving and Sustaining Open Education Practices” which is a great case study of how a BC institution has made OER a priority in spite of tensions to being open. In addition, we have BCcampus on hand to support Open initiatives within, and build connections between, post-secondary institutions across the province. Finally, I am curious to see how the new draft Unesco “UNESCO Recommendation on Open Educational Resources (OER)” will affect the way post-secondary institutions prioritize open within their mandate and policies both globally and locally.
My personal challenge, and one which I can realize more immediately, is to develop, host, and deliver open, asynchronous learning opportunities for our faculty, as well as to anyone who wants to avail themselves of them, and to encourage people to share back what they create and share back any improvements they make to the materials. For example, over the next 6 months, I will be creating asynchronous “workshops” in WordPress that are all licensed CC-BY-SA. I will also work with my colleagues to revise face-to-face workshops so they can also be shared online. At the same time, I can collaborate with others in BC around creating and revising CC tutorial resources, sharing out my revisions and remixes as I go.
All this sharing is sometimes tricky, not technically, but practically. In other words, how do you get the word out to people, how do you know if people are using the materials, and how do you encourage people to connect? I hope I am up to the challenge!
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
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