I was talking the other day to a fairly senior administrator in academic affairs about OpenLearning18. This administrator has been very supportive of our institution’s open initiative, and so I was just bringing him/her up to date on things open.
I made a comment about his/her boss only seeming interested in OER, but not the other “opens.” The admin looked chagrinned and said, “I’m not sure I understand any of the opens besides OER.” I was, in a word, surprised. I have been talking with this admin for years about the various aspects of open that I’ve been involved with, and I just assumed he/she understood what I was talking about. Though in retrospect, I guess most of what I’d talked about in detail was OER.
I wonder how many academic leaders, that each of us interact with, do we think understand the various dimensions of open, but who really don’t. Could that be a reason it’s been difficult to get traction? How can we best address these wrong expectations, or more precisely, how can we better educate our leaders on the range of opens?
Something to think about!
