Anne Schreiber Interview Notes - August 31, 2009
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Conducted with Carolina Rossini via telephone on August 31, 2009, concerning Curriki's view of the OER landscape.
Interviewee
- Anne Schreiber
- Chief Academic Officer, Curriki
- Email: aschreiber [at] curriki [dot] org
AND
- Peter Levy
- Strategic Partnerships, Curriki
- Email: plevy [at] curriki [dot] org
Notes
Partnerships with Traditional Publishers
Peter on Pearson
- Pearson had lots of conversations with Curriki
- Pearson did not release their textbook with an open license, but they just released it for free
- Pearson seems to be guarded and cautious.
- Thinks that they would to refine their business with their consumers.
- I see the value of them [Pearson] in the future to provide products that can be customized
- The value may not be in selling the same book for many in the future
- The relationship may be much more in a consultant position to built customized curriculum and informed by the state test results.
General Discussion
- Anne: Publishers still see their content as a “premium content”
- “We spent so millions of dollars to put together a certain content”
- Peter: I agree that they think that.
- But customers (ex. Georgia) with huge budget problems may decide to not buy even if the quality is not assured
- So they may spent some time taking a look at what is free and open
Adoption Process (Peter)
- Adoption process is clearly dying
- Differed until 2013 in California; now it is free textbooks, not open
- The adoption process is near a end
- The nature of what is possible with technologies really breaks the idea of an inflexible textbook
Positioning Curriki in OER and Publishing (Peter)
- We [Curriki] put ourselves as “thought leaders”
- And try to have them [partners?] come to us.
- I have been doing this for 3 years and it has changed a lot
- People in the publishing industry do not understand what OER or what CC is
- Publishers or teachers: Anything they find that is accessible is seen as "free"
- The issues in music made people more aware, but still not there
- So, publishers are “awaking” for it just now
- It may take years to see the market and business models change, since they have been doing the same for decade
- Even longer if they wait to see that it is still profitable, and they expect that this will go away.
- This may be very true mainly to the K-12, very young
Curriki's Future Development
Strategic Plan (Anne)
- We keep developing and changing; we are developing models as we go
- Big strategic plan process to move the product forward.
- Content repository: “innovation zone” and “core content area”
- Develop core content
- And charge for customization or similar
- Engage California teachers in the adaptation of books that Curriki is publishing
- But for that we need to see this as a “project”
- Peter: we are thinking about incentives
Curriki as Platform (Anne)
- We would like the districts to see us as a platform
- But what the district sees is another “vendor” with another “tool”.
- They do not see this as a “platform to capture the expertise of our teachers.
- DATA: Peter: 10% of teachers in the country (3010) cut their expenditure by 50% of average spent for teacher: we would save 700 millions dollars per year
- Unit-size: tremendous issue that we still did not figure out
- ”Core content” unit: 3 to 4 weeks of instruction = similar to the “uber” chapter (ex. “the planets”)
Innovation Zone (Anne)
- Planned 4 tiers of criteria
- File checker (“illegal or inappropriate” 24hr to 72hr)
- Peer review in 2 parts
- Members comment anything on the system (comment tab, start future, etc.)
- Now content can be searched by rating
- Allow volunteers to “become OER citizens"
- Curriki Review System
- (Hopefully will be volunteer): Currently part-time teachers w/ 10 years or more of experience
- They have 2 reviewers per subject
- They received a grant for their review system
- About 30% of the content gets review in this way
- It is a very rigorous path
- (Hopefully will be volunteer): Currently part-time teachers w/ 10 years or more of experience
- Members comment anything on the system (comment tab, start future, etc.)
- Peter: We need to meet/help districts in the level/state they are
- So quality is necessary before we have mass adoption
- We can let the “innovation zone” evolve
- But we can move things from the “innovation zone” to the “core content zone”.
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