Controversial Issue Outline

B efore the advent of the inter- net, higher education course materials were a scarce resource, restricted to those who could afford to enrol.

Unfair, perhaps, but face-to-face contact with lecturers, a seat in a lecture hall, a place at a seminar, a library ticket: all these things cost money.

However, in an age of digital abundance, free-to-use, free-to-modify text, audio, video, user-generative and interactive tools can now reproduce the vast majority of uni- versity course materials at negligible cost. This possibility flips the dominant debate about higher education. Rather than ask how we can make restricted access fairer, should we simply let everybody in?

Why limit access to online higher educa- tional materials, when educational opportu- nity is so closely linked to social and eco- nomic outcomes? Why should the (sup- posed) vast sea of potential users of higher education not be let past the degree course dam?

The�rise�of�open� courseware Open courseware – freely-accessible, inter- net-provider-cleared, comprehensive, uni- versity course materials – is already begin- ning to take off. Web-published course syl- labi, reading lists with links to open access articles, course and lecture notes, video/audio lectures and audio-synched slideshows, together with essay assignments, problem sets, past exam papers and full-text readings, are now being used by self-learn- ers, existing students, and young entrepre- neurs worldwide.

A small number of vanguard universities are already publishing swathes of their undergraduate and postgraduate course materials, most notably the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the US, whose open courseware site, ocw.mit.edu, has been established, employing just 26 people.

MIT released its pilot version of open courseware in late 2002, placing 50 courses online, with Spanish and Portuguese trans-

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Should�higher education�course materials�be� free�to�all? In�recent�months,�UC�Berkeley�and�the�Massachusetts Institute�of�Technology�have,�respectively,�announced and�achieved�their�intention�to�make�entire�lecture�and course�materials�freely�available�online�– to�anyone.� Leo�Pollak argues�that�while�British�universities�lag�far behind�in�online�course�provision,�the�UK�is�uniquely placed�to�innovate�further�than�MIT,�and�to�once�again radically�redefine�the�basis�of�opportunity,�learning�and social�mobility.�

lations added shortly after. In just four years, MIT’s open courseware unit has overseen the publication of complete edu- cational materials for over 1,800 of its courses, almost its entire course catalogue, with materials contributed from 90 per cent of its professors. In November 2007, they finally achieved ‘steady state’, with 200 new and updated courses to be added annually.

Kyoto, Tokyo, Yale, ParisTech and 200 other universities worldwide have followed suit.1 In addition to these open courseware offerings, UC Berkeley last October launched its own YouTube page, with full lecture courses placed freely online. On a similar tack, the Connexions programme at Rice University (Houston, Texas) has explored new models of dynamic peer review scholarship, while simultaneously developing high-quality open educational resources, communally generated by aca- demics.

These leading global universities have been making their existing offerings univer- sally available online, providing for a show- case of their teaching practices, a more flexi- ble learning experience for students within and without the university, and a new dimension of institutional morale.

As the open courseware movement expands and innovates at institutions worldwide, the UK’s sole offering comes from the Open University and its OpenLearn programme. Beyond this, the current UK model operates with those paying partial tuition fees receiving the full benefits of a face-to-face educational expe-

rience, while all others receive little per- sonal tangible benefit from higher educa- tion, be it face-to-face or online. This, despite the fact that over 70 per cent of the costs of higher education’s teaching and research costs are covered by the taxpayer (Dearing 1997).

The return on this public investment was based on the idea of an elite class of highly skilled graduates unleashing their learning and human capital on a grateful, taxpaying, underskilled population of non-graduates. This idea, thanks to far-reaching digital and economic change, no longer has the back- ing of economic evidence, nor of social sen- timent.

The�Open�Access�proposal If Britain is to maintain (or, indeed, regain) its position as a progressive innovator in ‘world class’ institutions, it must keep up, and go further, than the pioneers at MIT. I propose the Government takes swift action on the following:

1. To establish a centralised online hub of diverse British open courseware offerings at the free domain www.ocw.ac.uk, accessible to teachers, students and the general public alike. This site would have several purposes, solv- ing a number of problems in higher educa- tion today: i. It would provide an integrated single

point of reference for the range of high- quality guidance and information on effective teaching practice, promoting diverse teaching methods while sharing best practice and driving up standards. A central open courseware site would also better enable educators, students and recruiters to assess the comparative value of a plurality of university programmes in Britain.

ii. The seemingly intractable opposition between academic autonomy and public accountability would be overcome with online ‘distance auditing’, possible for

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public�policy�research�–�March-May�2008 37

In�just�four�years,�MIT’s�open courseware�unit�has�overseen the�publication�of�complete educational�materials�for� over�1,800�of�its�courses

1. For links and details of open courseware-providing universities, see www.ocwconsortium.org, site of the Open Courseware Consortium, which, since 2005, has been aiding the development and sharing of open courseware models and setups between contributing universities.

courses that publish comprehensive and up-to-date course materials. This princi- ple would establish a more efficient mechanism for teaching and (if published openly) research assessment, freeing up time and resources for actual teaching and actual research.

iii. With its onus on encouraging consump- tion of diverse course materials in differ- ent areas of study, such a hub would help guard against restrictive framings of syllabus materials, limited course pre- scriptions and research literatures. This would go some way to contributing to a reassessment of research funding met- rics, away from narrow citation towards a broader and richer research. This could, in the long term, help to over- come some of the limitations of peer review as a critical, competitive exercise, creating space for stifled intellectual innovations.

2. To establish the right and capacity for non-stu- dents and non-graduates to take the same exams as enrolled students, through the provision of open access exam sessions. i. The cost of open exam entrance would

be covered by a premium fee paid by the entrant. This would be small enough so as not to be prohibitive, and yet great enough to discourage abuse of the right, as well as cover the cost of printing, staging and marking the examination.

ii. An ‘open degree’ course qualification would be granted, designating the specif- ic content of the course papers taken, and would complement – rather than com- pete with – existing face-to-face course degrees. Guarantees would be in place to ensure open access exam entrants are tested to the same level as face-to-face stu- dents, are marked as stringently, and as part of the same invisible entrance sys- tem.

iii. Specific courses in which hands-on learn- ing is essential – towards professional licences, as in medical degrees, for exam- ple – would not be included in the sys- tem.

3. To pass an Open Access Act through Parliament, establishing a new class of open degree, achieved solely using open courseware. i. An open courseware/certification

enabling act would (following the recom- mendations of the Gowers Review of Intellectual Property [Gowers 2006]) extend copyright exemptions on all tax- payer-funded educational materials.

ii. To minimise interference in academic teaching and research, specialised open courseware publication teams would be put in place at each university to assem- ble and maintain their open courseware offerings.

iii. The Act would provide server capacity and other necessary infrastructure upgrades for managing open courseware content and for hosting its distribution of content online. Additional equipment would constitute video cameras, micro- phones, scanning equipment and auto- mated content management systems (as per the model being developed at UC Berkeley).

iv. It would provide pre-emptive regulation mechanisms for any subsequent support services that arise – essay feedback, supervision, exam practice, and so on – for those using a university’s open course- ware and pursuing its open degree.

v. It would provide for the functional inte- gration and adjustment of the various quango remits – the Learning and Skills Council, Office for Fair Access, Adult Learning Inspectorate, British Educational Communications and Technology Agency, Joint Information Systems Committee, and the Quality Assurance Agency.

vi. An explicit guarantee would be given that there be no deviation from or damp- ening of the current policy to expand access to enrolled face-to-face university learning.

4. To conduct a high-profile public information campaign, promoting the opportunities afforded by open courseware and open access examinations and degrees, targeted at adult learners, excluded minori- ties and students at pre-university age.

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The�value�of�a�‘proper’ education A successful implementation of the open access policies sketched above would enable any British citizen, at any point in life, to develop their knowledge, skills and capaci- ties, and have those capacities formally recognised in the work arena. The fear will be that this will devalue existing degrees. If anyone can obtain a degree online, might the distinction of the degree, and the inten- sity of workload and value of face-to-face learning involved in achieving it, be watered down?

In fact, the value of a ‘face-to-face’ over online educational experience would remain and be reinstated under an open access system. Making course materials freely available does not undermine the added value of the face-to-face benefits of education. An Open degree would be clear- ly signified as such, indicating the different experience and work involved in an organ- ised learning environment.

Moreover, open courseware elsewhere has created an online visibility in lecture teachings, encouraging the sharing of best practice in teaching and driving up stan- dards. This has helped establish a new

guarantee for the quality of teaching inter- action for enrolled students that would not be possible for online learners.2

This fear of inflation in the value of the degree – the more people have them, the fewer social and occupational positions one can ‘buy’ with them – is already real. As governments have attempted to widen uni- versity participation through the expansion of enrolled learning provision, so society becomes ever more saturated with certifi- cates, thus reducing their relative value (Collins 1979). The notion of a ‘credential crisis’ has never been more applicable to Britain than it is today. The effect of more people getting any level of qualification is simply to delay the drawbridge closing on social opportunity to Masters, internships and work experience.

But open access degrees could actually give new credibility to ‘the degree’, while simultaneously widening participation in higher learning. Instead of degrees being merely certificates to be bought, worked for, then deployed in the labour market, they would become a more consistent measure of an individual’s knowledge and learning capacity, wherever they are from, however old they may be.

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public�policy�research�–�March�2008-May�2008 39

COURSE PROVISION

Enrolled, structured time-scheduled learning experience with added benefits of an interactive face-to-face access to teachers. Social network and ritual benefits of university learning (+ open courseware Syllabi, reading lists with links to open access articles and out-of-copyright/copyright exempt materials, lecture/course notes, audio-synched slide-shows essay assignments, problem sets, past exam papers.)

Enrolled,

face-to-face learning

Independent, online

learning

HIGHER EDUCATION

Examination candidacy,

assessment and certification

2. The work of sociologist John Thompson has demonstrated the historical affect of visibility (1996, 2000), most notably in the political field, where the ‘new visibility’ brought about by new media not only introduced a new dimension to politi- cal accountability and to quality of governance, but also new attendant risks, in the potential for scandal. Such visibility in the field of scholarly education would carry no such risk, with the control of content provision and representation of self firmly in the hands of educators, providing a chance for reputation and trust to be established anew, to a new generation of students and stakeholders, and to a far wider audience.

Figure�1.�Routes�to�formal�accreditation�under�an�open�courseware/certification�system. Note:�this�process�would�not�apply�to�courses�involving�hands-on�kinesthetic�learning

The�value�of�the�public academic�� Concern from academics is likely to centre on the impact of open courseware on the potential to make a living from the private resale educational course materials. For those academics operating in departments subject to severe budgetary constraints, the right to offer research or ‘consultancy’ serv- ices elsewhere, confined to the sponsoring company or public agency, may seem sacro- sanct. However, with the establishment of any new common space – with a field of materials available for use, reuse and modi- fication – new business opportunities and societal benefits would inevitably arise.3

As the economists Shapiro and Varian have demonstrated, giving knowledge products away at no or marginal cost may not be incompatible with generating money from those products (Shapiro and Varian 1998). Indeed, this is the orthodoxy of the most successful web corporations – MySpace, Google, Facebook, and a range of open source providers – and is emerging as an organising principle of new business models within the music industry.

Moreover, as per the current drive to open up the use of public sector information, led by the Guardian’s ‘Free our data’ cam- paign4, the potential benefits for economic and social innovation following the open use, reuse and modification of a knowledge and data common are ample. Even the most recent Government-commissioned studies on taxpayer-funded data are pointing in this direction (Newberry et al 2008).

Implementing an open access higher education would let the civic and political role of universities flourish. Democracy demands that the public have an open, informed debate about a range of critical issues, affecting science, domestic and inter- national policy. But the real information, evidence and ideas on such topics remain

restricted to those in possession of the elu- sive, expensive keys to understanding: a university library pass or journal logins.

Furthermore, open source higher educa- tion could actually lessen the bureaucratic load on the academy. It has long been sup- posed that academic autonomy, free from state and corporate interests, is at odds with public accountability (Baert and Shipman 2005), but open courseware and open access research publication could in fact enhance both. Visible teaching and open access research publication would enable a more efficient mechanism of ‘distance auditing’ of academia, freeing up time and resources for actual teaching and research, going some way to attenuating the long-standing con- cerns of academics across the sector.5

Far from diminishing the prestige of an academic institution, the experience of MIT has shown that a system of open courseware can have profound positive effects on staff and student morale, and on alumni support. Further, by changing the nature of the teaching process itself, offering the prospect of an audience running potentially into the millions, open courseware could be a spur to high quality and innovative teaching practices; and enhance the public status of academics across society.

A�progressive�distinction� Open courseware has already delivered enormous and unexpected benefits to its users and its producers, and yet, its full emancipatory potential – of incentivising and empowering all citizens to demonstrate their actual ability – remains continually skirted around for fear of change, and a poverty of imagination. The presentation of such options allows for nothing short of a government litmus test on whether it pos- sesses the requisite ambition for the citizens it serves and on whether it is prepared to

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3. The Cambridge economist Rufus Pollock has argued convincingly that there exists a calculable opportunity cost to a wide range of restrictive intellectual monopolies; not merely to individuals, innovative firms, to jobs, consumers and to the wider economy, but, most crucially, to the providers of the ‘first copy’, the original content producers (Pollock 2006).

4. www.freeourdata.org.uk/ 5. For details of the opposition to the Research Assessment Exercise from the UCU, Britain’s largest union representing uni-

versity educators, see downloads at www.ucu.org.uk/index.cfm?articleid=1442

stand aside while so many individuals – of different age, background and constraint – find their development thwarted and their potential squandered to a system that does not always fit their learning styles, their pas- sions and their disposition.

The swift incorporation and implementa- tion of the open access policy programme would incur a number of distinct political advantages too. Britain’s standing as a bea- con of intellectual development and cultural collaboration would be affirmed and strengthened, and through our extensive diplomatic networks, the British Council, and Commonwealth links, the exercise of what Joseph Nye describes as ‘soft power’ would be enhanced considerably (Nye 2005).

On the domestic agenda, those voicing a hypocritical ‘commitment’ to social justice would be exposed as still wedded to pre-digi- tal notions of artificial scarcity and pre-digital notions of educational enclosure, with the limited skills, low productivity and spiritless work that goes with it. Moreover, Gordon Brown’s (perhaps well-earned) reputation as a tactical overlord, guarded in access and tentative in action, would be blown apart. To be seen making the case for open courseware and certification and resisting the inevitable protests of privileged voices fighting for their exclusivity would re-establish the link to a public not impartial to public services free at the point of use, and would become emblematic of the vision of the Britain for which Gordon Brown postponed a general election in order to articulate.

In the Open University (OU), Britain pioneered a new model of universal access to higher education, with degrees available to all citizens regardless of age or formal qualifications. In an open courseware and certification system, there exists the poten- tial to introduce a more effective and less hypocritical model of universal opportunity, in which ready Web access remains the final barrier to ambition, knowledge and attainment.

What would Michael Young, founder of the Open University, have said to present day Labour ministers, regarding the possibil-

ities of open courseware? What would Harold Wilson, who judged the formation of the OU as his greatest achievement as Prime Minister, have urged when seeing the chance for the OU principle to be extended, almost indefinitely? These leaders of the Labour movement took on those who dismissed open education as a ‘blithering nonsense’. Will the current Labour leaders, who may expect similar tenors of opposition, do so?

With the Confederation of British Industry and the Trades Union Congress both in fits over Britain’s skills gap, and all parties trying to demonstrate a substantive commitment to social mobility, the fact remains that with a little political courage our publicly funded educational resources can be made infinitely, digitally abundant, at a cost close to zero. Higher education, free at the point of use, and at the click of a button: what better way to truly ‘unlock the talents of the British people’?

Leo Pollak is a researcher and activist. To view the full copy of this analysis and advocacy, visit www.opentlc.org, or to offer feedback email [email protected]. The author would like to thank Sophie Moullin for editorial support on this article.

Baert P and Shipman A (2005) ‘Universities under siege? Accountability and Trust in the Contemporary Academy’, European Societies 7 (1) 2005: 157-185

Collins R (1979) Credential Society New York: Academic Press

Dearing R (1997) Higher Education in the Learning Society London: HMSO

Gowers A (2006) Gowers Review of Intellectual Property London: HMSO

Newberry D, Bently L and Pollock R (February 2008) Models of Public Sector Information Provision via Trading Funds. Available at: www.berr.gov.uk/files/file45136.pdf

Nye J (2005) Soft Power: the means to success in world pol- itics New York: Public Affairs

Pollock R (2006) The Value of the Public Domain London: Institute for Public Policy Research. Available at: www.ippr.org.uk/publicationsandreports/publication.as p?id=482

Shapiro C and Varian HR (1998) Information Rules: A Strategic Guide to the Network Economy Cambridge, MA: Harvard Business School Press

Thompson JB (1996) The Media and Modernity: A Social Theory of Media Cambridge: Polity Press

Thompson JB (2000) Political Scandal: Power and Visibility in the Media Cambridge: Polity Press

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