JISC

A new book has just been launched in eBook and hard copy format, entitled The Tower and the Cloud – Higher Education in the age of Cloud Computing. Edited by Richard N Katz, its themes include IT for higher education and the globalization of education, with a chapter on open educational content contributed by JISC Executive Secretary Dr Malcolm Read (cover image courtesy of Educause 2008). 

Editor Richard N Katz departs from the premise that the networked information economy ‘is reducing the individual's reliance on traditional brick-and-mortar institutions in favor [sic] of new and emerging virtual ones.’

Examining the impact of IT on higher education and on the IT organization within higher education – in harmony with JISC’s main areas of activity - Dr Read’s chapter explores the pros and cons of open access to educational resources, with the needs and rights of students, authors, publishers and copyright holders each needing serious consideration.

What does open access mean?

Open access is predicated on the argument that the results of publicly funded research should be made publicly (and usually freely) available. Dr Read’s chapter focuses on open access to course notes and handouts produced for use within higher education institutions. The main issues in making such resources openly available are synopsised below.   

Advantages of openly accessible course materials

Dr Read argues that open access offers numerous benefits to learners and institutions. On an individual level, students may judge an institution's teaching quality on the quality of its available materials and teachers may be recognised and rewarded for good teaching practice. Considering the bigger picture, universities can promote themselves through marketing efforts as well as their ethos or mission, encouraging distance learning for example. In being free, open access materials can also provide benefits to studets, society and the wider world.

Disadvantages

Critics of open access note that materials can be expensive and time consuming to produce in a quality fashion. They often have to be prepared for online dissemination and then print publication, designed to support a suitable pedagogic approach. Third-party rights must be cleared which can be a difficult and slow process, and cataloging this new data for ease of location can pose further challenges. Resources such as repositories, learning management systems and well-trained data professionals also need to be taken into consideration.

Though phrases such as open source, open standards, open science and open access feel relatively new, their concept is not; the public library of the 19th century was based on the open ethos. Delve into The Tower and the Cloud to explore some of the ways in which the current manifestation of open access may evolve into an information rich future.

Read more on JISC’s work in the Open Access arena and the related theme of keeping research data safe.
The Tower and the Cloud eBook - available to read in PDF format.