Abstracts
Abstract
This paper examines the pervasive discourse of disruption in OER literature by recounting a facilitated conversation hosted at the 2023 Open Education Global conference held in Edmonton, Alberta. This dialogue used Bacchi’s “what is the problem represented to be” (WPR) approach to structure the conversation in four movements. The first movement problematized the concept of OER by discussing the educational challenges OER supposedly addresses, such as the high cost of textbooks. The second movement considered the genealogy, historical development, and philosophical underpinnings of OER. The third movement accounted for the disruptors within the OER movement, exploring what OER have disrupted and discussing if disruption is even a legitimate goal of OER. The fourth and final movement pivoted to examine resistors and forms of resistance to OER, including the protection of intellectual property rights, copyright concerns, and Marcuse’s idea of repressive tolerance. This single conversation generated a small but important piece of social intelligence within a much larger dialogue about open education, open pedagogy, and OER during a time of flux (characterized by intense politicization, the relentless progression of educational technology, the intensification of marketization, and the growing popularity of all-inclusive textbooks). This social intelligence can be used to guide the next transition phase for OER development. While the conversation does not offer tidy solutions or even clear recommendations, it does suggest that the next wave of OER practitioners would always do well to focus on the goals OER can achieve, not what they hope to disrupt.
Keywords:
- open educational resources,
- OER,
- Carol Bacchi,
- disruption,
- textbooks
Appendices
Bibliography
- Anderson, T., & McGreal, R. (2012). Disruptive pedagogies and technologies in universities. Educational Technology & Society, 15(4), 380–389. https://www.jstor.org/stable/jeductechsoci.15.4.380
- Bacchi, C. (2009). Analysing policy: What’s the problem represented to be? Pearson.
- Bates, T. (2011, February 6). OERs: The good, the bad and the ugly. Online Learning and Distance Education Resources. https://www.tonybates.ca/2011/02/06/oers-the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly/
- Bliss, T. J., Robinson, T. J., Hilton, J. & Wiley, D. A. (2013). An OER COUP: College teacher and student perceptions of open educational resources. Journal of Interactive Media in Education. 2013(1), art. 4. https://jime.open.ac.uk/articles/10.5334/2013-04
- Bliss, T. J., & Smith, M. (2017). A brief history of open educational resources. In R. S. Jhangiani and R. Biswas-Diener (Eds.), Open: The philosophy and practices that are revolutionizing education and science (pp. 9–27). Ubiquity Press. https://doi.org/10.5334/bbc.b
- Bower, J. L., & Christensen, C. M. (1995). Disruptive technologies: Catching the wave. Harvard Business Review. https://hbr.org/1995/01/disruptive-technologies-catching-the-wave
- Bretag, T., Harper, R., Burton, M., Ellis, C., Newton, P., Rozenberg, P., Saddiqui, S., & van Haeringen, K. (2019). Contract cheating: A survey of Australian university students. Studies in Higher Education, 44(11), 1837–1856. https://doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2018.1462788
- Casserly, C. M. (2007). The economics of open educational resources. Educational Technology, 47(6), 14–19. https://www.jstor.org/stable/44429521
- Curcic, D. (2023, June 9). Educational book sales statistics. WordsRated. https://wordsrated.com/educational-book-sales-statistics/
- den Hond, F., & de Bakker, F. G. A. (2007). Ideologically motivated activism: How activist groups influence corporate social change activities. Academy of Management Review 32(3), 901–924. https://www.jstor.org/stable/20159341
- Falk, J. (2021, August 31). OpenStax surpasses $1 billion in textbook savings. Rice News. https://news.rice.edu/news/2021/openstax-surpasses-1-billion-textbook-savings
- Jhangiani, R., & Jhangiani, S. (2017). Investigating the perceptions, use, and impact of open textbooks: A survey of post-secondary students in British Columbia. International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning 18(4), 172–192. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1146242.pdf
- Kadlec, A. (2006). Reconstructing Dewey: The philosophy of critical pragmatism. Polity, 38(4), 519–542. https://doi.org/10.1057/palgrave.polity.2300067
- Kadlec, A. (2008). Critical pragmatism and deliberative democracy. Theoria: A Journal of Social and Political Theory, 117, 54–80. https://www.jstor.org/stable/41802414
- Lederman, D. (2021, March 17). Awareness of open educational resources grows, but adoption doesn’t. Inside Higher Ed. https://www.insidehighered.com/digital-learning/article/2021/03/18/pandemic-didnt-speed-adoption-open-educational-resources-outlook
- Lent, J. (2021). The web of meaning: Integrating science and traditional wisdom to find our place in the universe. New Society Publishers.
- Marcuse, H. (1969). Repressive tolerance. In R.P. Wolff, B. Moore Jr., & H. Marcuse (Eds.), A critique of pure tolerance (pp. 95-137). Beacon Press. https://www.marcuse.org/herbert/publications/1960s/1965-repressive-tolerance-fulltext.html
- Nagle, C., & Vitez, K. (2021, February). Fixing the broken textbook market. US PIRG Education Fund. https://pirg.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Fixing-the-Broken-Textbook-Market-3e-February-2021.pdf
- Open Education Global. (n.d.). What we do. https://www.oeglobal.org/about-us/what-we-do/
- Seaman, J. E., & Seaman, J. (2023). Digitally established: Educational resources in US higher education, 2023. Bay View Analytics. https://www.bayviewanalytics.com/reports/digitallyestablished-2023.pdf
- Selwyn, N. (2014). Distrusting educational technology: Critical questions for changing times. Routledge.
- Tawell, A., & McCluskey, G. (2022). Utilising Bacchi’s what’s the problem represented to be? (WPR) approach to analyse national school exclusion policy in England and Scotland: A worked example. International Journal of Research & Method in Education, 45(2), 137–149. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/epdf/10.1080/1743727X.2021.1976750
- Weller, M. (2014). The battle for open: How openness won and why it doesn’t feel like victory. Ubiquity Press. https://doi.org/10.5334/bam
- Wiley, D. (2006). A brief history of OER. Hewlett Foundation. https://hewlett.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/HistoryofOER.pdf