We need Openness!

During this week, I spent a lot of time rereading the two readings, and I gained more understanding of the implementation of OER. While agreeing with the author, I also have some questions. 

In Dr. David Wiley's Foreword: Capability as a Value, Dr. David Wiley mentioned such a sentence let me feel a lot. "Like Newton, I recognize that if I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants. Should I then, from my heightened station, fight to prevent people from standing on my shoulders?" That's right! Do we want to stop people from standing on our shoulders? Should we be afraid of others standing taller than we? This is a question worth pondering. If I am going to answer these questions, I will think we should not stop and we should not be afraid. I think we can only progress if we dare to make our knowledge open. For example, the evolution of Chinese characters writing. The writing of Chinese characters in early times was very concrete, and the way the characters are written is very much like drawing. Later, through the opening and spreading of human beings, people constantly modified and improved the writing of Chinese characters, and finally emerged the simpler characters today. Imagine if the Chinese characters had not been open, Chinese characters may always be complicated and may disappear from history. Maybe Chinese history will be modified? From this, we can easily see the importance and influence of openness on knowledge. From this point, I think we should not prevent others from standing on our shoulders. Because only when we let others stand on our shoulders, our knowledge can progress and not be eliminated.

The picture above represents the change of the Chinese word for Fish

In David Wiley and Cable Green's Why Openness in Education? There are some data about the cost of the textbook. "According to U.S. PIRG,2 college textbook prices have increased at nearly four times the rate of inflation for all finished goods since 1994. College students spend an average of $900 per year on textbooks—26 percent of the cost of tuition at a public, four-year university." When I looked at the data, I could not believe it. However, it does exist. At least I feel it. I still remember the first time I bought a textbook in America, a book cost hundreds of dollars. At that time, I thought that textbook would be so important that it was so expensive. However, my teacher only used a small amount of knowledge from that textbook. At the same time, some courses need more than one textbook. The cost of buying all these textbooks required for the course will be a huge expense for a student. What about international students? We also have an exchange rate, so it will a bigger expense for international students. Here, I have wondered how many people will be prevented from acquiring knowledge by this huge expenditure. For a better future, I am urgent that OER can be widely implemented as soon as possible. In this way, the threshold for acquiring knowledge will be drastically reduced, making it easier for everyone to acquire and possess knowledge.

David Wiley and Cable Green also mention such an idea, "The researcher is responsible for the overwhelming majority of the effort that goes into conceiving, conducting, and reporting the research. The publisher is responsible for only the portion of effort that goes into publication. The publisher makes a much less significant intellectual contribution to the papers it publishes." What an unfair phenomenon it is! Researchers spend a lot of time and effort creating their results, should not they have the right to reproduce and distribute their results? Here I have reason to believe that publishers are paying a small amount of effort and getting a lot of money for it. In my opinion, if this imbalance between efforts and benefits cannot be changed, it may discourage some researchers from doing research. If researchers are not doing research, learners may lose the opportunity to acquire more new knowledge. It is a cycle of negative energy. From this point of view, the implementation of OER may bring about a positive effect on academics and make continuous progress in knowledge.

Watching! Here comes the readings!

• Wiley, D. (2016). Foreword: Openness as a Value. In Blessinger, P. & Bliss, TJ (Eds.), Open Education: International Perspectives in Higher Education. Cambridge, UK: OpenBook Publishers.
• Wiley, D. & Green, C. (2012). “Why Openness in Education?” In Oblinger, D. (Ed). Game Changers: Education and Information Technologies, p 81-90. EDUCAUSE.