Going open in a cannibalistic world (#OMDE)

It was one of those conversations that left me uneasy and disturbed. The point of discussion was to what extent opening resources in distance education is viable, achievable and desirable in a highly competitive higher education landscape. To what extent can we open up our materials under a Creative Commons Licence without losing our market advantage or our distinct value? How do we prevent private and for-profit higher education institutions from cannibalizing our open materials and “stealing” our market share? One proposal was to open some courses as a major PR exercise while defending our intellectual property rights and market share more than ever before.

I was left perturbed and sad.  What made my unease even more uncomfortable was the fact that I did not necessarily have the answers… Since the conversation I pondered, fretted, and struggled to make sense of, one the one hand, our dream and commitment to serve social justice by repositioning knowledge as a common good, and on the other hand, the perceived need to defend our turf and futures as knowledge producers/providers.

Let me start at the beginning (or not quite…).

Knowledge production and sharing had never been open. Since time immemorial knowledge was shared only to those on the “inside”, whether it was the tribe, the craft association, or the initiated in a particular religious setting.  “Having knowledge” gave you a unique opportunity (above other individuals or tribes) of survival, or the after-life (if your were lucky). “Having knowledge” furthermore brought you power, respect and social standing in the community. (For a thought-provoking article on the functioning of literacy as social capital, see Carrington and Luke, 1997). With the advent of modern institutions such as universities and craft guilds, access to knowledge and expertise was defended and protected by means of strict admission requirements. Not only did these organisations protect various canons of knowledge, they also had the power to accredit, validate, or discredit new claims of knowledge. [Sounds familiar doesn’t it?]

Craft associations and guilds, whether the mask carvers in Benin or weavers in India, all had the same basis, namely the celebration and acknowledgement of expertise; exercising the monopoly on their craft in a particular geographical area; and regulating and sanctioning access to these specific expertise bases. Davenport and Prusak (2000), in discussing the measures taken to protect expertise, note that: “Guilds protected their special knowledge; governments prohibited the export of economically important skills. France, for instance, made exporting lace-making expertise a capital crime: Anyone caught teaching the skill to foreigners could be put to death.” (Also see Belfanti, 2004.)

The history of “academic” scholastic inquiry and teaching shares many of the characteristics of knowledge production and control in the context of guilds. We often romanticize Greek and Roman communities of inquiry and academia, forgetting that admittance to these circles was based mainly on gender (one had to be male), being classified as indigenous (one had to be Greek) and citizenship (whether on the basis of property ownership or other criteria). (See the discussion of the development of education in Longstreet & Shane 1993:4–7.)

There is no evidence or examples of instances where the production and dissemination of knowledge were not controlled, regulated and legitimized, whether in the early Academy of Plato (385 BCE), the Buddhist Nalada University in Bihar, India (fifth century BCE), the University of Constantinople, established in 425 BCE, or the medieval madrasahs founded in the ninth century CE. Although the specific purpose and scope of these institutions differed and changed through the centuries, the definition of knowledge and the regulation of access to expertise were always controlled and in the service of the metanarratives of the time.

So why would knowledge production in the 21^st century be different? How much chance does opening up knowledge sharing and accreditation have when for-profit education is dramatically on the increase? John Aubrey Douglas, in a post yesterday, 15 July, in the University World News, states that “… the 11 largest for-profit higher education companies,… experienced an increase in enrolments of over 30% between 2008 and 2010”. He continues: “From 2000-10, the sector [for-profits] grew by some 235% in enrolment, increasing its market share from 3% to 9.1% of all tertiary enrolled students”.  The number of new for-profit higher education institutions also grew – “In the five-year period beginning in 2005, a total of 483 new colleges and universities gained regional or national accreditation in the US. Of those new institutions, some 77% were for-profits, compared to only 4% public and 19% independent non-profit institutions” (Douglas, 2012). In the United States, while the for-profit sector still only represent “less than 10% of all enrolments, the for-profit sector currently accounts for 26.2% of all the post-secondary institutions” (Douglas, 2012).

So where does this leave opening up knowledge sharing in an increasingly competitive world?

The above illustrates the immense need to open up knowledge sharing to those who will never be able to enrol in these for-profit institutions, or even public higher education institutions. Never before has the need to open education been greater. Higher education (both public and private) will increasingly fail those who were born poor and will stay poor (see Will Hutton in the Observer, 15 July), forever excluded from the hallowed halls of higher education.

While it is relatively easy (and good for PR and brand building) for brick-and-mortar institutions to share knowledge in open forums, where does this leave distance education institutions whose value proposition, since its early days as correspondence education, was to make content available to students excluded from traditional education?  If the value proposition of distance education will no longer lie in “making content available”, what will be their value contribution? Where does opening up content leave distance education providers in developing countries when private higher education institutions already cannibalize copyrighted materials?

One option is to open some courses, and not even all of a course, as a PR exercise. In sustainability discourses many corporations are practising “green washing” – where the public face of the corporation is one of green and sustainable practices, but beyond Boardroom doors, the hard figures of market share dictate. How many distance education providers will opt for an “open washing” – enticing learners with so-called open courses and making some content freely available, but, behind  closed doors, vigorously protect intellectual property rights and market share?

 In closing:

Knowledge production has always served the powerful and dominant interest in society. Knowledge production and accreditation has never before in history been open.  But never before in history has there been so many that have been (permanently) excluded from education. Distance education has a choice – we can “open wash” and be quoted in the PR wars, or we can realise that content production and sharing will no longer be a value proposition in the 21^st century, whether we protect it or not. It is time to think differently (and courageously) about the value we add…

[Image retrieved from http://worldbetweenme.blogspot.com/2010/11/world-between-me-news_18.html, 16 July 2012]

Acknowledgement

Some parts of this blog were included in an article that was rejected but waiting to be revived…

References

Belfanti, C.M. (2004). Guilds, patents, and the circulation of technical knowledge. Northern Italy during the early modern age. Technology and Culture, 45(3), 569–589.

Carrington, V. & Luke, A. (1997). Literacy and Bourdieu’s sociological theory: a reframing. Language and Education, 11(2), 96–112.

Davenport, T.H. & Prusak, L. (2000). Working knowledge: how organisations manage what they know. Retrieved from http://wang.ist.psu.edu/course/05/IST597/papers/Davenport_know.pdf.

Longstreet, W.S. & Shane, H.G. (1993). Curriculum for a new millennium. Boston, Mass: Allyn and Bacon.