Last week, the Open Education Track (or Tribe) at the iCommons iSummit, held in Sapporo, Japan, came up with the idea of a logo or mark to indicate open educational resources. The term we used in that discussion was “certification mark” but we might equally well refer to a “device”, a term used in heraldry to refer to a multi coloured emblem or logo , but which can also refer to the software which can produce and accompany a logo. In this post I’ll record our discussion at the iSummit, then I’ll share some of my thoughts in a subsequent post.
Complexity or simplicity? Any symbol must encounter a tension between a tendency towards increasing information richness with concomitant complexity, and a need for simplicity to clearly convey meaning. This tension showed up in the discussion in a number of different ways. Should the device indicate the openness of an educational resource in a binary YES/NO fashion, or should it indicate openness on a continuum?
The consensus that emerged in our discussion was that the symbolic representation of a degree of openness, although more complex, is desirable since it will tend to reduce conflict. If there is a single indication of whether a resource is open or closed then the determination of that question would attract successive attempts to alter or undermine the basis of such determinations.
If on the other hand openness is a matter of degree then there is a clear indication of preference but without excluding less open resources altogether. Of course there is still a point at which resources are not open at all, but the consensus on that point is likely to be far wider.
Openness is found in multiple dimensions, technological, legal, linguistic, conceptual, pedagogical. All of these dimensions are important. The discussion by the Education track participants suggested that two of these dimensions are regarded as more easily susceptible of determination, and in respect of which a device would be immediately useful. The two dimensions which should be indicated by a mark are legal, in which the primary issue is the licence or permission under which a resource may be used and technological, in which the primary issue is the format in which a resource is made available. If two dimensions determine the openness of a resource then should both be represented or should they be somehow summed. The emerging consensus during the Open Ed track suggested that both dimensions should be represented if possible, although this would be more complex it was suggested that it is important information, which if not represented would make it harder for creators and re-creators of educational resources to work to increase the openness of a resource. [I’m of the opinion that it would also be wise to avoid the problem of how one appropriately sums indicators from different dimensions.]
Who should evaluate a resource’s openness. Self certification is the lowest friction option, especially if it can be enabled by software. There was some discussion of the problems created by people self certifying incorrectly. This issue has apparently dogged the Public Domain declaration with some users mistakenly applying the declaration to work not their own, on which the copyright term has yet to expire.
This doesn’t seem a likely problem to me, most educational resource can be assessed by software which can ascertain both the licence, through the licensing metadata associated with the resource, the format, and the absence of Technical Protection measures. The same software can generate the appropriate indicators. Where this information isn’t automatically available then accurate description can be achieved through appropriate questions, answers to which would generate the indicators.
A certifying body would be considerably more resource intensive but also more rigorous and could assess not only how open resources are but also the quality of the resource. That seems to me to be a different project or series of projects altogether, aimed to assessing resources for a particular user group, such as teachers following a particular curriculum.
Elliot, drawing on his experience in design suggested a two colour logo with two wings, the colour on each wing to indicated the openness of either the legal or the technical aspect of the resource. There was general agreement that colour would be superior to numbers or letters in indicating information but that there should be a simple alternative for text only documents.
We had a great conversation about this at the iSummit, but now we’d like the everyone else in the OER community to join in.
