Commons-based Cases in EM-K12

Research Questions

• Commons based cases (the cases that we know will appear in the right part of the quadrants)
  • Identify cases
  • Correlate them with their main outputs (Data. Narratives. Tools)
  • How and in what extent they are “experimenting” or “adopting” commons-based approach? Are there sustainability issues?
  • Identify these cases and treat them as entities that will also be placed in our mapping device (the quadrants)
  • Identify what actors are participating on this and what actors are just observers (Use the questionnaire to guide your research when appropriate - Carol will select specific relevant and helpful questions)

OER

See Commons-based Cases in EM#Definition for definition.

Cases

• California Open Source Textbook Project

  Started in 2002, "the California Open Source Textbook Project (COSTP) [...] aimed to produce a digital K-12 history textbook under an open license in collaboration with the Wikibooks project. COSTP claimed that it could help California save over $200 million per year. The program never gained traction and failed to produce a complete textbook" (Paul 2009).

• CK-12

  The CK-12 Foundation is a non-profit organization offering "an open-content, web-based collaborative model" called "Flexbook", aimed at distributing "high quality educational content that will serve both as core text as well as provide an adaptive environment for learning" (CK-12 Foundation). Initial OER content focuses on K-12 level STEM books commissioned "through a combination of author donations, licensing partnerships, incentives for community-based authorship, and university collaborations" (ibid.). Future content is planned to be commons-based peer-produced and moderated by CK-12 to align with "an expanding base of learning standards like McREL Compendium" (ibid.). Content will be available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike licenses with any on-demand printing costs born by users (print on home computer or through on-demand company). Users are encouraged to customize the downloadable content as well, i.e. "Rip, mix and burn".

  Recently, CK-12 earned the opportunity to author a Physics Flexbook for use in the Commonwealth of Virginia. Thirteen scientists, teachers, and professors volunteered to write the book with CK-12's support. The book was written in 2.5 months, including diagrams in high resolution (added to the CK-12 reposition, "keeping in line with the philosophy of open content"), "with another two weeks for quality assurance". (Park 2008)

• National Repository of Online Courses (NROC)

  NROC is a non-profit OER project of the Monterey Institute for Technology and Education to build a library of "high-quality online course content for students and faculty in higher education, high school and Advanced Placement", sponsored by The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation ('What is NROC?'). Courses in the repository are contributed by developers at academic institutions across the country and are Creative Commons non-commercial licensed. Individual educators and institutions serving underprivileged children can access the content in the NROC Network commons for free, while other institutions are asked to pay a membership fee. Users can access complete courses through the flash-based HippoCampus website.

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