GAPSA Proposal – Promoting Openness (Long Version)
The increasing need for a highly trained work force, together with the decreasing financial support for higher education by states governments across the country, encourages higher education institutions to search for new ways by which to break away from the iron triangle of higher education, or the difficult balance between cost, quality, and access to higher education (Immerwahr, Johnson, & Gasbarra, 2008; SHEEO, 2012). I believe that further “openness”, is one of the potential game changers to the future of higher education (Oblinger, 2012). EDUCAUSE, UNESCO, and COL, among other organizations have highlighted the potential of openness to greatly reduce the cost of education by encouraging the adoption of open access journals, open teaching, and open textbooks. Various institutions in the United States are currently using and testing the potential for open textbooks to help improve textbooks as well as reduce the cost of educational materials (Carpenter, 2010). The open access movement is of relevance to graduate students as libraries are increasingly unable to subscribe to many valuable journals (http://righttoresearch.org/). In recent years there has been a rapid rise in subscription costs of academic journals, increasing by 145% over the past six years, despite the decreased cost of production due to distribution and communication advances. Spending over $3.5 million a year in subscriptions, Harvard University libraries recently argued that “many large journal publishers have made the scholarly communication environment fiscally unsustainable and academically restrictive” (Harvard Library, 2012). They are not alone; thousands of educators have also joined to boycott Elsevier (Sample, 2012).
While the production of high quality products is and will likely continue to be expensive and it is important to pay content producers a competitive rate for the development of quality educational products, production models adopted by organizations such as Flat World Knowledge are able to do so while offering their textbooks for a fraction of the cost in its printed format. Spending an average of over $900 dollars on textbooks every year, textbooks are a major expense for college students (Wiley & Green, 2012; GAO, 2005). In contrast open textbooks are free to download digitally, and the faculty member gains the liberty to be legal able to modify the modules that are included within the e-book, and by adding, formatting or deleting, the specific content of any modules.
CEHD’s Open Textbook initiative promoted by CEHD’s Dean Jean Quam and David Ersnt, CEHD Director of Academic and Information Technology and Provost Karen Hansen, who state that “the University of Minnesota should be a leader in enabling faculty and students to benefit from open content and electronic textbook options” are hopeful about the potential for this new initiative to help improve higher education (Anderson, 2012). I support this statement and hope that more students, both within the University of Minnesota and outside of it, will increasingly benefit from open textbooks and other high quality open educational resources.
Open access to academic articles is another way in which the University of Minnesota could help to further reduce long term costs for students. With journal subscriptions costing millions of dollars to major universities, a lower cost to journal subscriptions would modify the financial requests of the University of Minnesota libraries, increasing their attention to improving other services. Open access journals does not detrimentally affect many researcher as research is regularly paid by grants or by the university as part of the researcher’s salary. As the recent reaction against Elsevier illustrates, there is support within parts of the academic community for a new equation that support greater access to high quality information. It is difficult for a young scholar to “stand in the shoulders of giants” without access to high quality resources and the most recent information. A recent study showed that 40% of researchers in the UK could not access the articles they needed on a daily or weekly basis (RIN, 2009).
Open teaching which includes the recent increase of large open online courses (also known as MOOCs) by MIT, Harvard, Stanford, Yale, and various other prestigious universities, has led to the increased sharing of high quality information and the increasingly the visibility of the university and its researchers (Masters, 2011; DeSantis, 2012). Other initiatives such as Khan’s Academy and educational resources in sites such as TED, YouTube EDU, iTunes U, or Sophia.org are examples of the possibilities for impact that an instructor can have not only statewide but across the world (Bonk, 2009).
The increased visibility provided by Open Teaching can benefit students and faculty members. Short segments of courses or speeches that are particularly captivating can help the career of a scholar while the diffusion of an innovation or a good idea. Recently the University of Minnesota had the opportunity to host a TEDx event, successful organized by a number of undergraduate students (http://tedxumn.com/). TED is a good example of the power of openness. While TED has been active since 1984, it lectures have only been available through the Internet since 2007. Since then, the best TED lectures have reached million viewers. Advocating for further openness, I believe it is important to support initiatives such as TEDxUMN to increase the impact of our best ideas and innovations. The university could also potentially host a similar initiative on a yearly basis to provide a platform for the diffusion of the best ideas and innovation by university scholars.
Unfortunately, openness is often criticized, as an agent of change. Yet while some may argue that the current system is working properly, students are increasingly leaving higher education indebted with lack of certainty about their financial future. Further openness can help to reduce the rising cost of education while increasing the sustainability of the system. Without changes it may be increasingly difficult for some students, particularly those of lower socio-economic standards to attend the University of Minnesota. As state funding decreases and other cost continue to rise, it is important to search for new and innovative ways by which to reduce the cost of schooling while maintaining a high level of quality and a level of access that is in accordance with the mission of the university as a land grant institution. “The land-grant university system is being built on behalf of the people, who have invested in these public universities their hopes, their support, and their confidence” President Abraham Lincoln upon signing the Morrill Act, July 2, 1862 (http://landgrant150.umn.edu/).
I believe that Open Textbooks can impact the overall cost of school for undergraduates, professional students and some graduate programs. I also believe that by promoting further openness through open access, open educational resources (in addition to open textbooks) and open teaching, the university community can contribute to the construction of a more affordable experience for students, the increased visibility of university projects, while also giving back to the state, the nation, and the world, moving forward in fulfilling a part of the mission of the University of Minnesota.
Works Cited
Anderson, K. (2012, April 23). U creates Open Academics textbook catalog to reduce student costs. Retrieved April 30, 2012, from University of Minnesota News Release: http://www1.umn.edu/news/news-releases/2012/UR_CONTENT_383497.html
Bonk, C. J. (2009). The World Is Open: How Web Technology Is Revolutionizing Education. New York: Jossey-Bass.
Carpenter, M. A. (2010). Flat World Knowledge: Creating a Global Revolution in College Textbooks! Irvington: Flat World Knowledge.
DeSantis, N. (2012, May 05). Harvard and MIT Put $60-Million Into New Platform for Free Online Courses. The Chronicle of Higher Education , pp. http://chronicle.com/blogs/wiredcampus/harvard-and-mit-put-60-million-into-new-platform-for-free-online-courses/36284.
GAO. (2005). College Textbooks – Enhance Offerings Appear to Drive Recent Price Increases. Washington DC: United States Government Accountability Office.
Harvard Library. (2012, April 17). Faculty Advisory Council Memorandum on Journal Pricing – Major Periodical Subscriptions Cannot Be Sustained. Retrieved April 29, 2012, from Harvard University: http://isites.harvard.edu/icb/icb.do?keyword=k77982&tabgroupid=icb.tabgroup143448
Immerwahr, J., Johnson, J., & Gasbarra, P. (2008). The Iron Triangle: College Presidents Talk about Costs, Access, and Quality. San Jose: The National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education and Public Agenda.
Masters, K. (2011). A Brief Guide To Understanding MOOCs. The Internet Journal of Medical Education , http://www.ispub.com/journal/the-internet-journal-of-medical-education/volume-1-number-2/a-brief-guide-to-understanding-moocs.html.
Oblinger, D. G. (2012). Game Changers: Education and Information Technologies. Louisville: EDUCAUSE.
RIN. (2009). Overcoming barriers: access to research information content. London: Research Information Network.
Sample, I. (2012, April 24). Harvard University says it can’t afford journal publishers’ prices. The Guardian , pp. http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2012/apr/24/harvard-university-journal-publishers-prices.
SHEEO. (2012). State Higher Education Finance FY 2011. Boulder: State Higher Education Executive Officers (SHEEO).
Wiley, D., & Green, C. (2012). Why Openness in Education? In D. G. Oblinger, Game Changers – Education and Information Technologies (pp. 81-89). Louisville: EDUCAUSE.
