# Very exciting new initiative to organize research around open education 


I came across an initiative that made me very excited last night. Linked
from a number of blog posts, the [Open University of the
UK](http://www.open.ac.uk/), long a pioneer in the field of open
education in both meanings of the word, and [Carnegie Mellon
University](http://www.cmu.edu/), which has some extremely innovative
[open learning modules](http://www.cmu.edu/oli/), are partnering to
propose a [very ambitious research
project](http://iet-public-wiki.open.ac.uk/index.php/OPLRN_proposal) to
“*develop infrastructure, community and activity to help share research
findings on the design and use of OERs”.* It aims to “*be a global
network of OER producers and users as participatory researchers who
share designs, methodologies and evidence for evaluating the
effectiveness of OERs in increasing and equitably distributing
knowledge.*”

I really liked one of their analogies, that of the cancer research
portal: *“**Cancer Research portal.** In more established fields such as
cancer research (or we might take the Human Genome Project) there is a
consensus map of the structure of the field, the major research
questions, and the different sub-communities and associated
methodologies. It is possible to place oneself on the map, and to
coordinate effort in a well understood way. What is the OER research
map? What is the OER design process? What does it mean to validate an
OER? What are the central challenges that all agree on? The OPLRN seeks
to create a structured ‘place’ where questions such as these can be
debated, and hopefully, enabling more effective coordination of action
around issues and OERs of common interest.”*

I can identify with this because I have felt the same lack in the field
of development and libraries. I wrote my BA thesis (I will post about it
here very soon, when the translation is done) about community libraries
in Indonesia, and throughout I struggled with orienting myself in a
field that didn’t really exist. What were the typologies of community
libraries? Methodologies for investigating them? Theories about their
function in different contexts? Lists of case studies already conducted,
commonly shared variables, suggestions for criteria for success? I was
trying to do a gap-analysis to see where my research could fit in - but
indeed I could not even find the entire field of research.

As I go into what will hopefully be a career of creating, advocating
for, and researching ways of open learning and teaching, but also more
specifically my MA research project, which will probably center on reuse
and adaptation of Western educational resources by Chinese universities,
such a resource will be invaluable. It will mean that not only will my
own research be considerable strengthened, being able to draw upon all
the studies that have already been conducted, use shared frames of
understanding, and theories that others have found useful, but when it
is finished, it will not just be another MA thesis in the library, but
it will (ideally) make a small but significant contribution to a dynamic
body of scholarship.

The ideal is to “*build an epistemic community — a reflective community
of practice dedicated specifically to advancing understanding not only
of its field, but of what can/should count as “knowledge” in the field.
Educational technology, and OERs specifically, are young,
interdisciplinary design fields lacking widely adopted design methods,
patterns, or evaluation criteria. The infrastructure must therefore
foster appropriate forms of**discourse and memory: structures for
sharing, indexing, recovering and debating the community’s**collective
intelligence on the relative merits of different OER design and
evaluation approaches. Nor can the infrastructure fossilize as soon as
the project’s startup funding ends: it must be a**sustainable* *social
and conceptual network that can evolve through the contributions of many
people.*”

In addition to the research projects, they also plan to develop several
tools to further the actual processes of academic discourse online.

“*An epistemic community is interested in claims and supporting
evidence, but also in counter-claims and differing interpretations of
the same evidence. While many projects are engaged in building
collective intelligence, few know how to deal well with contested
knowledge — other than by enabling comments, threaded fora, blogs and
wikis.*

*[…] The software deliverable from this project will enable learners,
educators, researchers, analysts and other decision makers to ask
questions such as,**What evidence is there that this OER is effective?,
but equally important,**Does the community agree with the claims made?
What counter-examples are there? In addition, as a socio-technical
infrastructure, it will be architected to support diverse forms of
evidence, with an architecture of participation that sets a low
threshold for contribution, and community structures to help those who
want, to move from the periphery to become more active, central
players*.”

I am also proud to see someone from [OISE](http://www.oise.utoronto.ca/)
prominently involved; professor [Marlene
Scardamalia](http://www.ikit.org/people/scardamalia.html).

Looking forward to following their progress, wish the project the best
of luck, and hope to perhaps get involved at some stage.

Stian