The Impact of Open Source

Introduction

“Open Yale Courses provides free and open access to a selection of introductory courses taught by distinguished teachers and scholars at Yale University.  The aim of the project is to expand access to educational materials for all who wish to learn.  All lectures were recorded in Yale College classroom and are available in video, audio, and text transcripts formats.  Registration is not required. No course credit, degree, or certificate is available.” (Open Yale Courses).  Open Yale is funded and supported by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation.  I also observed that the courses that are offered are not of a wide variety.

Does the course appear to be carefully pre-planned and designed for a distance learning environment? How so?

The course does not seem as if it was carefully pre-planned and designed for a distance learning environment.  I explored some of the courses offered by the Open Yale.  Firstly, the course seems as if it was designed for the face-to-face learning environment and recorded to be uploaded to the open source environment.  In a successful distance learning environment, “online learning courses commonly contain synchronous and asynchronous elements all occurring at the same time” (Chauser, J. & Piskurich, G). The learners and facilitator can log in at their own convenient to participate. The planning process should utilize the ADDIE (analysis, design, development, implementation, evaluation) model.  In this open source course it is evident that many critical factors that ensure success are omitted. This method of delivery does not support the blend of synchronous and asynchronous communication among students and facilitator. Students who decide to take these open source courses have to be highly motivated and disciplined to go through these courses successful. The course syllabus is available and the course material is structured into different sessions by topics.  The content for each topic is available in video, audio and text transcripts format. Other course text materials are offered for a price.  However, the communication is one way only, and no interaction is involved. Evaluation and feedback is clearly not considered.

Does the course follow the recommendations for online instruction as listed in your course textbook?

In every type of learning environment there are guidelines that should be followed when designing the course or engaging in the course.  The needs of the distance learner must be taken into consideration when designing an open source course.

Moore (2006) posits “those needs, ‘what all distant learners want, and deserve’ include:

• Content that they feel is relevant to their needs
• Clear directions for what they should do at every stage of the course
• As much control of the pace of learning as possible
• A means of drawing attention to individual concerns
• A way of testing their progress and getting feedback from their instructors
• Materials that are useful, active and interesting” (as cited in Simonson, Smaldino, Albright, & Zvacek, 2009, p. 151).

In addition, there are several “fundamentals of teaching online” (Simonson et al., 2009, p. 248):

       * Avoid ‘dumping’ a face-to-face course onto the web;

• Organize the course and make the organization and requirements clear to students;
• Keep students informed constantly;
• Think about course outcomes;
• Test applications, not rote memory;
• Integrate the power of the web into the course;
• Apply adult learning principles with nontraditional students;
• Extend course readings beyond the text (or to replace the text);
• Train students to use the course website” (Simonson et al., 2009, p. 248-251).

The learner can choose to go through the sessions sequentially, or jump to a specific session, there is no control over the order in which the learner follows the course.  There is no teacher to learner or learner to learner interaction.  There is no control of the pace of the learning. Assignments are given but there seem to be no form of feedback for the students to know if they are on the right track.  I did not see any link to submit assignments for feedback.  No discussion forum is available.  In my opinion, open source courses can be useful to access information, which can also be accessed on a number of other search engines. Since there is no certification or credits at the completion of these courses, students may not follow the entire course, only parts that, apply to their needs.

Did the course designer implement course activities that maximize active learning for the students?

“Strategies for active learning range from giving students opportunities to think about a topic and respond to actual hands-on manipulation of learning objects” (Sorensen & Baylen, 2004). “In a video-based distance education setting, active learning experiences can include such things as small group discussions, hands-on experiences with materials available in advance of the class period, presentations, or similar types of classroom strategies.” (Simonson et al.). “Engaged learning involves collaboration among the members of the learning community. (Conrad & Donaldson, 2004).  After reviewing some of the courses that are offered on Open Yale, it is in my opinion that active learning was not maximized.  Some basic elements of active learning are talking and listening, writing, reading and reflection, many of which were not allowed in these courses.  There are four broad categories of learning strategies that might use in an active learning classroom, individual activities, paired activities, informal small groups, and cooperative student projects.  The learning strategies of Open Yale are limited to individual activities.  Collaboration among learners is not emphasized.

Conclusion

The impact of Yale Open Course will remain minimum, if the needs of the distance learners are not catered for entirely.  Persons who want to gain knowledge for personal gains will continue to utilize it, but those who want to obtain a qualification for professional development will not utilize this facility.

References

Open Yale Courses.  Retreived on March 29, 2012, from http://oyc.yale.edu/

Simonson, M., Smaldino, S., Albright, M., & Zvacek, S. (2009). Teaching and Learning at a Distance: Foundations of Distance Education. (4th ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc.

The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation.  Retrieved on March 29, 2012, from http://www.hewlett.org/

What Is Active Learning?  Retrieved on March 29, 2012,  http://www1.umn.edu/ohr/teachlearn/tutorials/active/what/index.html