Original+Idea

Sent to participants at the Open Education Summit, 22 May 2012:   I enjoyed spending last Tuesday in SF, and especially the thinking it has provoked in me since.

In the first session block, some of you joined me in a conversation about the true goals and benefits of openness. This topic came out of my own self-reflection about what I'd really hoped that Open Source Software would do for education, much of which after many years of "evangelism" has unfortunately felt unrealized. It was a great conversation, but as we disbanded, Khalid Smith, our extraordinary "scribe," noted that he felt he needed a lexicon to decipher some of the different threads that had come up.

As I mulled that over, I increasingly wondered if what Khalid sensed and we actually might benefit from is a better definition and separation of the various aspects of openness in education. Open Source Software and Open Educational Resources and Open Data, for instance, share a common heritage and some overlap, but perhaps are arguably best treated separately for discussions of goals and benefits.

To that end I've brainstormed (way too casually) with Audrey Watters and Bryant Patten on some differentiation and categorization, which is below. It is surely inadequate and also suffers from a lack of full and devoted attention, but I'd love to get 1) your sense of the value of this line of thinking, 2) references if has someone done this work already I should be looking at instead, and/or 3) any immediate suggestions you'd have for this list. I'm glad to then combine responses and shoot back to the group just for further reference, and if it is merited, would be glad to post this for more collaborative work on a wiki or in a Google Doc.

Thanks,

Steve  Steve Hargadon steve@hargadon.com http://www.stevehargadon.com http://www.web20labs.com 916-283-7901 / stevehargadon on Skype & Twitter