Humanist Discussion Group, Vol. 17, No. 227.
Centre for Computing in the Humanities, King's College London
www.kcl.ac.uk/humanities/cch/humanist/
www.princeton.edu/humanist/
Submit to: humanist@princeton.edu
[1] From: pwillett@indiana.edu (24)
Subject: re 17.222 questions on courseware
[2] From: Alexandre Enkerli <aenkerli@indiana.edu> (47)
Subject: Opening Courseware, Textbooks
--[1]------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Sat, 06 Sep 2003 06:05:44 +0100
From: pwillett@indiana.edu
Subject: re 17.222 questions on courseware
The US Department of Defence is leading an effort to create
an open standard for courseware objects called the "Shareable
Content Object Reference Model" (SCORM) Initiative. You can
read about it on the XML Cover Pages at
<http://xml.coverpages.org/scorm.html>. Most of this is for
migration of courseware objects between systems, but it includes
the hope of sharing them as well.
Perry Willett
Main Library
Indiana University
pwillett@indiana.edu
> Date: Fri, 05 Sep 2003 09:38:36 +0100
> From: Heather Ward <hward@uoregon.edu>
> >
> [...] As universities move to proprietary course
> software (such as Blackboard or Web CT) it will be more difficult to share
> with each other or to browse the web to find out how others have approached
> a topic. I fear we'll be constantly reinventing the wheel.
> [...]
> Heather Ward
> Humanities Librarian (541)346-3047
> University of Oregon Libraries (541)346-3485 Fax
> Eugene, OR 97403-1299 http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~hward/
>
--[2]------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Sat, 06 Sep 2003 06:07:38 +0100
From: Alexandre Enkerli <aenkerli@indiana.edu>
Subject: Opening Courseware, Textbooks
Heather Ward shared her worries:
>As universities move to proprietary course software (such as Blackboard or
>Web CT) it will be more difficult to share with each other or to browse
>the web to find out how others have approached a topic.
Good point and we should all be aware of these issues. But I'm more
optimistic about what might happen.
For one thing, there are recommendations for open standards for Course
Management Software (CMS). Developers might eventually build open-source
CMS programs using these standards and, possibly, import/export
proprietary formats. Also, these proprietary CMS packages might open up as
ease of transition is a major selling point. In fact, for their own sake,
they could facilitate the use of open-source solutions by adopting XML
formats for files that a course developer can transfer directly, at least
for public material. At the same time, instructors are free to publish
their material outside the scope of CMS.
There are several initiatives for open content and we should see an
increased amount of course material available publicly.
One important thing to understand is that "courseware" such as MIT's, isn't
the same thing as CMS. CMS usually has a lot of features for managing the
class itself (including grades, etc.) which shouldn't be made public. MIT
itself might be using a CMS system independently of its "courseware," which
is basically, at this point, a repository for PDF and media files.
Thus there's hope that course material will remain open despite the move
toward CMS. Granted, several (most?) instructors only post their notes to
the CMS. The advent of courseware repositories will need to address this by
providing easy ways to repost the same material.
One idea I've been toying with is that of open content textbooks. One
source of this idea was my frustration with commercial textbooks.
Unsurprisingly, textbooks are usually meant to cater at least minimally for
the needs of the greatest number. The negative impact on education is
obvious and acknowledged but usually seen as the unavoidable result of a
necessary compromise. The current context of increased communication among
scholars provides for better solutions.
A major advantage of an open textbook would be that the instructor could
tailor the course readings on the specific needs of the class. If done
carefully, an open textbook could complement, supplement, and eventually
replace commercial solutions.
I know there are several initiatives in this direction. A common problem,
though, is the same as open-source software project, namely lack of
activity despite great interest. Time constraints, bureaucratic issues, and
disagreement among contributions may all hinder such a project. But with
the current costs of textbooks and visible frustration from instructors and
students alike, such projects should find their way to the front-burner.
Alexandre Enkerli
Ph.D. Candidate
Department of Folklore and Ethnomusicology
Indiana University
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Sat Sep 06 2003 - 01:21:00 EDT