What is Open? and the Writing Commons

[Ken Ronkowitz]

Reading a post at http://cain.blogspot.com/2012/11/writing-commons-community-based-oe...
that may be of interest to the group.

It starts out:

I read a great posting at Writing Commons this morning entitled "Flat World Knowledge, Textbook Affordability, and a Call for More C..." that really echoes my thinking on this. Since Flat World Knowledge is no longer open (as defined by Hewlett and many other definitions of OER), it makes the community efforts around open textbooks all the more important. I have long been a proponent of community developed, vetted, and maintained OERs and open textbooks. Please note that I did not say "I am against business." I am for efforts that are truly open to make open textbooks and other OERs freely available to students. This is not some radical notion - it is a return to the original intent of textbooks which is to support student learning rather than to support "sustainable business models." If someone figures out how to do both, more power to them. In the meantime, we need to support Writing Commons, an online composition textbook...

[Jacky Hood]

Ken,

Thanks for posting. We applaud Writing Commons because good writing is fundamental to success in all subjects at all education levels.

Recently in an OER Forum, Cable Green of Creative Commons, wrote that a publisher can put up a cost barrier to CC licensed materials. Free of cost is not a condition of open licensing. Similarly Public Domain materials are usually not free of cost. What open can mean is affordable: a Flat World Knowledge book is $20, a public domain newly printed Jane Austin book sells for $5 at the local bookstore. To argue that this is due to the cost of paper, ink, and transportation is to forget that computers, ereaders, and internet access also have costs.

Writing Commons falls short of the definition of open by the standards of most OER thought leaders. The Writing Commons license CC BY NC ND is the least open of the CC licenses. Without the ability to create derivatives, instructors cannot freely use content in their learning management systems, on their websites, on their slides, etc.  ND means all or nothing. There is no ability to change the text to suit local culture, teaching style, etc., and no legal right to integrate the materials from Writing Commons with other open materials. 

If ND is removed, that still leaves the impediment of Non-Commercial. Teachers will be concerned about using the materials in commercial classes, on their websites if they subsidize those sites with advertising, etc.  Creating and selling a bound copy of Writing Commons (the format that most students still prefer for reasons of lack of constant access to a good computer and/or the internet) is forbidden by the NC license.

College Open Textbooks encourages all open licensed and even non-open materials if they are affordable.  Those materials need to be high-quality and up-to-date. We are not convinced that it is possible to do that at no cost nor that we will always be able to find donors and volunteers to absorb those costs. Perhaps 'sustainable business model' is not the right term; what is needed is 'sustainable scholarship'. Writing is not the fastest-changing subject but it does change as do teaching methods. We can reduce the cost of textbooks by 70% or more with open licensing; insisting on zero cost is likely to mean low quality and/or lack of currency. We do not insist that college buildings, lectures, and labs be free of cost; why textbooks? Affordability is an outstanding goal.

Regards,
Jacky Hood
Co-Director,
College Open Textbooks