Hal Plotkin Interview Notes - August 10, 2009

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Conducted with Erhardt Graeff and Carolina Rossini via telephone on August 10, 2009, concerning California's 2009 Free Digital Textbook Initiative and Obama's American Graduation Initiative

Interviewee

Notes

Hal's Background w/ OER Movement

  • Approached OER as a journalist seeing large gaps in educational materials and cooperation
    • In touch with Hal Abelson at MIT OCW and the early OER proponents at the Hewlett Foundation
    • 'We weren't taking advantage of tracking students' paths through available educational materials and thus relying on potentially inferior products' (paraphrased)
  • Blogged about what he called “public domain learning materials” prior to OER movement
  • Was introduced to Creative Commons when sitting at a coffee shop in Palo Alto talking about public domain learning materials while a woman helping Larry Lessig with his first grant application for CC was working at an adjacent table
    • Wrote first published article about Creative Commons
  • Instrumental in proposing legislation allowing state funding of community college OER projects in California (3 years before latest K-12 initiative)

History of Textbook Publishing Policy

  • Public Agencies were/are like arms of traditional publishing houses through the campaign donations and powerful lobbyists
  • Cost as a central argument for OER adoption is partially Hal's fault
    • When he first was writing on the topic, Cost was the only demonstrably true case for OER
    • ”We only later discovered all of the peer collaboration and quality of materials arguments for OER development” (paraphrased)
    • ”Facilitating student and faculty collaboration on these projects and other such benefits were not apparent 10 years ago” (paraphrased)

American Graduation Initiative

  • Grants will be given to individual projects, ideally directly to educators passionate about OER, to develop free online course materials
    • Process will be competitive
    • Resources would likely be housed at one or more community colleges and nothing will stop colleges from forming consortium to apply for these grants (like CCCOER)
    • There will be no requirement that states participate though some may
    • For-profit companies are welcome to submit proposals to develop these as well
  • The process will involve a public comment period and regulation laid down to govern distribution of funds
    • Maintenance of any effort and mechanisms to provide for their ongoing improvement will be part of the evaluation process
  • CC-BY licenses for the free online community college courses are planned as an explicit requirement
  • Will require full compliance with the American Disabilities Act (ADA)
    • ”Regretably,” the OER movement has mostly ignored ADA and adoption has suffered as a result, with colleges wary of the string of high-profile suits regarding ADA and educational access (although Under Secretary of Education Martha Kanter's husband led a movement for ADA compliance at California community colleges)
    • Goal of ADA compliance is not only for access but to make better materials that are “more permanently useful to students” (in the same way that closed captioning has made video searchable)
    • If successful, AGI will be largest investment in accessible learning materials in the history of the world at $500 million for course generation

QUESTION: Is empowerment of teachers a part of OER's role?

  • ”As a former collegiate governance official...” it's important to understand that learning materials are the responsibility of the individual educators in their classrooms
  • To encourage OER adoption, we need to avoid anything that appears to be coercive to faculty
  • ”I found a lot of teachers are eager to adopt OER and push for school approval for the materials” (paraphrase)
  • The question is: How do we support faculty that are interested in OER?
    • Faculty members have no one to go to if they want to request the ability to use OER (a disincentive), unlike the well documented and easy process of repairing the school's football field
    • Need to define: What steps are involved in seeking approval? Where can the funds come from? In general, what institutional resources are available to me?
    • Foothill-De Anza Community College District was the first to address how to support faculty wanting to engage in OER with a formal policy
      • STORY: we had a math professor who thanked community college board for supporting OER
      • He said not only does it save students money and is more current than what is available on the market and relevant to peers in the field. But this also builds trust with the students. Students are recognizing that I have taken steps to find the best materials for the least cost for my students!
    • No mandatory training for faculty, simply encourage those that want to use OER

K-12 and the California Free Digital Textbook Initiative

  • Hopefully, as K-12 governance officials see Higher Education going in an OER direction they will be encouraged to follow suit
  • Certain government procedures like adoption policies are impediments
  • Gov. Schwarzenegger's leadership has been inconsistent on this issue
  • California has not been coordinating with Creative Commons/ccLearn or other OER groups

Political Background of the California Initiative

  • About three years ago Hal worked with then-Chancellor Kanter and Assemblymember Ira Ruskin to draft Bill 2261 on Free Online College Course Materials
    • Intention of the bill was to fund one or more OER production projects
    • Original bill died in the democratic legislature
    • Shortly thereafter publisher associations made significant contributions to legislators
    • Unsurprisingly, legislators became reluctant to invest money in OER
  • Non-Monetary Reasons for the OER Funding Policy
    • Establish policy framework that made open source EM equivalent to traditional textbooks
      • Transferability of credits in school is based on required textbooks being used—OER was left out of this equation
        • OER had no one to be approved as intersegmental learning materials
  • Governor ended up putting forward a different bill which actually proposed a multi-year funding BAN on OER for community colleges in California—couldn't divert funds to OER projects
    • Through negotiations, the ban was lowered to only two years with the allowance that community colleges could still develop and adopt OER with non-public funds
    • Concessions on regulatory matters allowed for CCCOER to be funded by the Hewlett Foundation

QUESTION: How do you think publishers are reacting to government policies on this?

  • QOOP and Barnes and Noble are moving forward on publishing public domain materials at low-cost
  • There is an ”historical alliance of publishers who have benefited from traditional practices for whom this may appear to be more of a threat than an opportunity” (direct quote)
    • "I think this is misreading the situation" (paraphrase)
    • Some publishers look at this as “a public option for their field” similar to the health insurance issue
  • Publishers that want to innovate will find a way to make this part of their offerings
  • Whether preexisting publishing houses will adopt OER ideas or move in that direction is still an open question (see e-mail comment)

Follow-up

  • REQUEST POLICY FOR COMMUNITY COLLEGE
  • ASK FOR STATISTICS ON OER ADOPTION AT COMMUNITY COLLEGE

Follow-up E-mail Links and Comments

In no particular order…please see:

Historical Alliance of Publishers and Progressive Democrats

"One other thing I’d add on the legislative front, which is a historical perspective. Years (decades) ago there developed a strong alliance between textbook publishers and progressive democrats as the publishers battled issues such as attempts to ban certain books, to restrict the books that public libraries could purchase, to dictate content of certain textbooks in the sciences, etc. - all of which led to a tight alliance between textbook publishers, their lobbyists and the democratic party. This historic alliance is in many ways and in many places still in place and its effect on the outcome of legislative proposals to advance OER is uncertain."

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