thinkingshop.com – The idea space

Since I’ve previously written about open source publishing and open access for scholarly resources,  I thought it would be interesting to follow a thread discussing open source curricula in the K-12 arena.  In an NYT article Ashlee Vance chronicles the slow adoption of open source resources explaining the trend as multi-faceted, and yet again, held up by the ridiculous preeminence of the California and Texas text approval processes.¹ Since those processes are motivated purely by economic and political concerns rather than those having to do with sound pedagogical practices or the highest educational standards,  the California and Texas systems have warped the publishing of educational materials for the worse.  Nevertheless,  publishers and powerful school boards are loathe to cede ground and open source adoption in the U.S.  is moving at a snail’s pace.    The other components working against rapid development and deployment are:

1. A lack of funding for infrastructure and expertise,
2. Traditional publishers who have a tight grip on this $8-15 billion/year industry,
3. Few assessment tools to measure the effectiveness of open source materials

Curriki is a company committed to addressing these concerns and linking the constituencies that have something to offer: open source content developers (e.g., retired teachers who write curricula), teachers willing to try open source materials in their classes to meet state standards for NCLB, and assessment developers who can create metrics and KPIs that will compare the performance of students who have used open source versus proprietary resources to master subject material.

I support the open source movement because it provides  access to materials for students who languish in classrooms that haven’t had the money for texts in the last 10-20 years.  It allows for rapid innovation of materials and an exchange between professionals to create a quality pool of  “best practices”  and  ready resources for teachers struggling to teach ever larger classes to perform on standardized evaluations.  Whether the last goal is desirable, is entirely beside the point insofar as legislation mandates that schools meet standards or else. The reality on the ground is that teachers are compelled to guarantee AYP (adequate yearly progress) and are often saddled with dated, inadequate curricula and resources that haven’t kept up with standards in technology.   Finally, K-12 open source delivers on one of the great promises of the Internet,  to democratize knowledge.

The significance of opening access to quality resources cannot be understated.  States with limited budgets are not  upgrading hardware, software or text resources during this recession.  Open source contributions provide a low-cost alternative with a constantly evolving pipeline of resources that can be accessed by anyone at any time.  Organizing the material is another matter, but the situation also offers  an advantage because instead of mandating lesson plans sequenced to the NCLB standards, teachers can exercise autonomy and tailor lesson plans/presentations to meet the needs of their students.   While  meeting NCLB standards and being creative should not be mutually exclusive, some low performing schools have been forced to adopt straightjacket approaches in order to satisfy policy makers, school boards, etc.  Teachers can often assess the needs of their students in weeks, but the curricula they have access to is  dated, ineffective,  and full of unresponsive presentations via texts that are bloated and wordy.  While some open source materials may share these undesirble attributes, the proliferation of open source resources should also provide lesson plans that are creative and engaging.

Finally, open source materials allow for the possibility of open exchange between educators and the organic establishment of  new materials arising from a best practices, expert rated community.  Materials submitted to Curriki are rated by professionals who teach the subjects in question.  Teachers know what works; those who have extensive experience are often in a good position to evaluate the design of curricula and its possibilities for delivering on the educational objectives identified.  Open source presentations can also be reverse engineered to specify pedagogic methods that either help/hinder student learning with the aim of refining the beneficial techniques.

For all of the above reasons and more,  I say three cheers for open source.

¹ For the full NYT article, see Vance, Ashlee. $200 Textbook vs. Free. You Do the Math. New York Times, Sunday Edition.  2 August 2010, accessed @ http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/01/technology/01ping.html?ref=technology on 8/2/2010.

For those intrigued by the integration of the digital world and RL (real life), Pranav Mistry has released a new video highlighting his innovative Sixth Sense technology. Since the technology is designed to augment lived experience, it is also prudent to note a few interesting phenomenological implications arising from the generation of layered realities.

For the last five years as a recent post-doc, I have consistently encountered a stark choice with regards to journal submissions. The accepted process requires that I send articles to prestigious first tier, peer-reviewed journals that will likely take 12-18 months to recognize the submission, and if I am very fortunate, request R & R (another 12-24 months). Then, if fortune still prevails, the article may be published within another 12-24 months. At a minimum turnaround schedule this requires 3-5 years between submission and publication, a seemingly unacceptable delay. During that time, for proprietary reasons, the work may not be presented or published elsewhere.

The alternative is to reject the accepted process and submit to open access journals with solid peer review processes. This path is fraught with danger insofar as hiring and tenure decisions in most philosophy departments require one to choose the traditional path as a precondition for consideration. Thus, it may seem reckless, but I am committed to the later open access path for the following reasons.

First, my research discusses technological changes in communication strategies and the effects on lived experience.  I am working on a phenomenology of being-in-the-web that considers the simultaneity of being both digital and physical in multiple modalities.  The pace of technological change demands that my research be both directed and dynamic, able to incorporate new modalities of being as they arise in lived experience.  The 3-5 year window required for traditional publishing cycles would cause insights on emerging technologies to appear dated at the time of publication.  A more nimble publication process in online journals or alternate publication streams provide the only answer for this problem.

Second, the pace of change and resultant styles of journal publication are changing rapidly in the direction of open access and increased efficiency in other academic disciplines.  These changes benefit scholars and those who might be interested in their research in myriad ways.  For a detailed argument in this direction see the following Hackthestate blog entry. It seems odd that philosophy, usually a pioneer in new ideas, is staunchly reluctant to consider open access publishing a legitimate resource for evaluating the quality of scholarly work.

Third, this new younger generation of scholars will be willing to pay their dues for only so long before abandoning traditional organizational structures.  Younger scholars are increasingly frustrated and horrified to learn that philosophy alone remains committed to antiquated procedures for journal submission/publication.  Discussions amongst younger scholars often focus on ways to change or subvert the current commercial models. This is a generation that grew up on the Internet, regularly abandoning dated domains for new territories.   We move on to new social networking sites or adopt cool tools for our iPhones shortly after launch.  The choice to abandon commercial for open access models will definitely happen in philosophy as it already has in many other academic disciplines.   The sciences are far ahead with tools such as OpenWetWare.org and arXiv.org at Cornell University  . Libraries are going open access at an increasing rate and it will not be long before scholars begin to follow.

Last,  young scholars also reflect the values of the millenial, web-literate generation. We want to use new collaborative tools for research/publication that allow for quick peer commenting, feedback and review.  From this generation’s point of view waiting more than 24 hours for an email reply is a delay. Waiting 24 months for acknowledgment and comments on a journal article submission is untenable.  Young scholars in philosophy, like their peers in other humanities disciplines, want their work to be available to a wider audience for comment and critique.  Greater readership encourages rich dialogues that transcend traditional disciplinary boundaries and also expose ideas to the public much earlier than otherwise possible.

There are a number of excellent arguments and resources circulating in our field that successfully refute the idea that only first tier peer reviewed journals are legitimate places to publish.

• The argument for making scholarly sources available to everyone is well made by Rick Grush @ Commercial Free Philosophy.
• The Free Our Books campaign makes a similar moral argument from the standpoint that most academic research is supported by public funds, and therefore, ought to be accessible.
• Peter Suber provides an excellent resource site for those interested in open access publication models.
• Tomkow.com provides yet another excellent discussion with many links to open access resources.
• The Leiter Report has also covered open access and open publishing; again there are many interesting links here as well.
• Scholarship In the Open distinguishes open access from open process publishing in an attempt to clarify how each model might benefit academics and the communities they serve.
• A recent (2-19-2010) article from The Chronicle’s web site, Open Access to Research Is Inevitable, Libraries Are Told, summarizes panel discussions on the future of open access.(Howard)
• Directory of Open Access Journals DOAJ: This service covers free, full text, quality controlled scientific and scholarly journals. We aim to cover all subjects and languages. As of February 2010, there are now 4755 journals in the directory. Currently 1880 journals are searchable at article level. As of today (2-20-2010) 357188 articles are included in the DOAJ service.

In my humble opinion, the time for both open access and open publishing is now.  What do you think?