# 2809CWhy I Deserve an OpenEd 2008 Scholarship.2809D


*Since I kind of “began” my journey in open education through David
Wiley’s course, attending [COSL](http://cosl.usu.edu/)’s [Open Education
Conference 2008](http://cosl.usu.edu/events/opened2008/scholarships)in
Utah is almost like coming full circle for me. Since I also think it’s
extremely important to get more students involved in this movement, and
conversation, I was very excited to see that the [Hewlett
Foundation](http://www.hewlett.org) had provided for four student
scholarships, to be determined by an essay. And now I have just been
told that I am one of the winners, which is a real honor. After spending
my own money attending the conference in Dalian, and iCommons last year,
it feels like a wonderful recognition. I was encouraged by a friend to
post my essay online, so here is what I submitted. I am hoping to see a
lot of you in Logan, and I am also excited to meet the three others that
won the scholarships.*

—

A few days ago, I was visiting the university library of the Banaras
Hindu University (BHU) in Varanasi, India, one of the most well known
universities in India. Although it is housed in a grand building, I was
struck by the extremely bad condition of the books, and the almost
complete lack of any recent literature. In the section on libraries, the
most recent book was from 1980, and books about library automatization
from 1965 were prominently displayed. While seeing this, I tried to
imagine studying or conducting research in such an atmosphere.

The various open movements carry the promise of broadening access to
learning and research to much larger parts of the world, and to enable
the students at BHU not only to receive a top-class education, but also
later to conduct cutting-edge research, and to share their research with
the rest of the world. Open access to research is crucially important
for researchers, but also for students. Open educational resources
introduce students to a field, and at higher levels, provide the
contextual and pedagogical glue between pieces of research. New models
of open and collaborative learning and teaching, such as the “Wiley
wikis”, provide models of the process through which open learning can
happen.

Although a participant in the North-American and worldwide
English-speaking community of educators and thinkers, I come to the
field with a number of perspectives. My mother tongue is Norwegian,
spoken by only five million people, and this, together with my childhood
experiences with Esperanto, incalculated in me an understanding of
inequality in linguistic issues, and a deep passion for supporting
national and regional languages. My educational background is in
development studies, and spending more than 1,5 years in China, 1 year
in Indonesia and several months each in Mexico, Russia and India, as
well as speaking fluently eight languages has allowed me begin to see
things from a multitude of national and cultural perspectives.

Having a background as a technology tinkerer, I am fascinated by the
different new platforms offered for online teaching and learning. Having
been active in political and social groups, I am extremely curious about
ways of online cooperation and equitable governance that we can develop
(especially across language barriers). I am also participating in a
long-ranging conversation about “the future of the university”, or the
peer2peer university - which includes thinking about factors that
support informal learning, as well as accreditation, and rethinking the
structure of “courses” or “degrees”. I got involved in this conversation
at iCommons in 2007, and it resurfaced at the Open Learning conference
in Dalian, and will be discussed both at the iCommons 2008 and the Open
Education conference in Utah (if our proposal is accepted).

Two of the most interesting research (and advocacy) topics for me are
how open educational resources are being used - whether by
self-learners, or by educators who adapt them, as well as the issue of
translation and cultural adaptation. I bring these two topics together
in my MA thesis proposal, where I plan to do a qualitative study of the
adaptation and use of MIT OCW materials in Chinese university courses.
China is perhaps the country after the USA that has most aggressively
both adapted foreign OCW, and began producing their own (Chinese Quality
OCW, CQOCW), supported by organizations like CORE. Statistics show that
several hundred Chinese courses are currently based partially on
translated MIT OCW materials, but we know very little about what part of
the material they use, how they adapt it, and what the pedagogical and
non-pedagogical outcomes of this is.

Participating in the Dalian Open Learning conference was a wonderful
experience for me, meeting many of the people active in the open
learning community in person. At the same time, it made me sad to see
the great divide between the Chinese researchers (almost 50% of the
participants), and the rest. Both because of linguistic and cultural
differences, there was sadly far too little exchange and mutual learning
going on - and the non-Chinese participants probably lost out the most.

The different open movements are ideally leading to a “flatter” world,
which can highlight the best quality material no matter where in the
world it is produced. Yet so far, the spread of materials has been very
one-sided, with material being produced in the US and translated into
other languages. The Indian IIT’s, which some say are on par with or
better than MIT, have began publishing lectures on Youtube, and
English-speaking students can now choose if they want physics explained
by an MIT professor, or one from IIT. But I have yet to hear a single US
university or organization announce that they will begin translating
Chinese courses (of which there are over a thousand available online
currently) into English.

I expect to learn a huge amount from the conference, and come home with
my mind swirling with new ideas. I hope to make new connections - people
from around the world with whom I can collaborate and learn from long
after the conference has ended. Hopefully I will hear about great
intiatives that I can emulate through the Open & Free @ University of
Toronto network, which I will try to revitalize this fall. But I also
hope to be injecting my own perspectives into the debates - perspectives
of multilingualism, of developing countries, of end-users, and of
undergraduate students - having just graduated from an undergraduate
degree myself. And of course, I will spread what I learn - through my
blog (syndicated at oerblogs.org), lectures and activities at the
University of Toronto School of Education, and in other ways.

Thank you for considering my application.\
 Stian Haklev