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Friday May 18, 2012 |
Appeared
in the Toronto Star on May 13, 2012 as Is Canada Lagging Behind in
Online Education?
William Gibson, the American-Canadian science fiction writer who coined
the term cyberspace, is well-known for having stated "the future is
already here - it’s just not evenly distributed." The quote succinctly
points to the gradual dissemination of new technologies that start with
first adopters but can take years to spread more widely.
To borrow from Gibson, in recent weeks it has become increasingly clear
that the future of education is here, though it is not evenly
distributed. The emerging model flips the current approach of expensive
textbooks, closed research, and limited access to classroom-based
learning on its head, instead featuring open course materials, open
access to scholarly research, and Internet-based courses that can
simultaneously accommodate thousands of students. The concern is that
other countries are becoming first adopters, while Canada lags behind.
For example, David Willetts, the United Kingdom Minister of State for
Universities and Science, left no doubt about his government’s view on
open access to publicly funded research in a remarkable speech to the
Publishers Association annual general meeting in London earlier this
month. Willetts told the industry that the UK government "is committed
to the principle of public access to publicly-funded research results"
and that it "believes that published research material which has been
publicly financed should be publicly accessible - and that principle
goes well beyond the academic community."
As Willetts was telling publishers that trying "to preserve the old
model is the wrong battle to fight", Harvard and MIT were announcing an
ambitious partnership to bring free or low cost Internet-based classes
to thousands of students. The "edX" initiative starts with US$60
million in funding from the two universities with five courses planned
for the fall. It joins similar offerings from Stanford (which offered
13 courses online this year) as well as Princeton, the University of
Michigan and the University of Pennsylvania.
While the U.S. online teaching initiatives come out of the university
system, last year the U.S. government injected hundreds of millions of
dollars into open course materials for colleges. Led by the Departments
of Labor and Education, the $2 billion program offers $500 million per
year for the development of openly licensed materials that must carry
the Creative Commons BY licence, which permits their free derivative
use for both commercial and non-commercial purposes.
With billions of dollars invested in research that is freely available,
course materials that can be freely adapted for any purpose, and free
online courses from some of the world’s leading institutions, the shape
of education is set to change dramatically in the coming years.
Yet there are serious doubts whether Canada is ready for these changes.
While countries such as the UK forge ahead with mandatory open access
policies, the major Canadian granting institutions dole out hundreds of
millions of dollars in grants without strict requirements to ensure
that the resulting data and research publications are made openly
available to the public that has funded it.
The massive investment in open course materials will likely prove
attractive to Canadian schools and students, with the prospect that
domestic materials are dropped in favour of more flexible, free
alternatives. Several B.C. and Alberta universities are investing in
the creation of their own open materials, but more is needed to
Canadianize the steady stream of U.S. funded works.
As for online education, there may be the occasional pilot project from
Canadian universities, but no one seems ready to confront the emerging
reality of competition from top tier schools from around the world
offering online courses at low cost to Canadian students. In fact, many
schools seem stuck in their traditional model, complete with
restrictive licensing agreements that are likely to slow the technology
transition. The future of education may be here, but few Canadian
universities have woken up to its implications.
Michael Geist holds the Canada
Research Chair in Internet and E-commerce Law at the University of
Ottawa, Faculty of Law. He can reached at mgeist@uottawa.ca or online
at www.michaelgeist.ca.
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Thursday May 17, 2012 |
Harvard Professor Winston Hide has stepped
down from the editorial board of the prestigious Genomics journal
over the lack of open access.
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Wednesday May 09, 2012 |
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The team at Open Medicine, a peer-reviewed Canadian open access medical
journal, has an editorial
on the first five years of the journal, reflecting on an experience
that demonstrates the potential and challenges of open access
publishing.
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Tuesday May 08, 2012 |
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Osgoode Hall Law School is now publishing the Supreme
Court Law Review freely online. The review is the result of annual
conference on constitutional cases dating back to 1997.
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