Hi all,

It has been an interesting week with lots of new information that I was not previously acquainted with. To be honest have I never heard of any open courses before over the Internet even though I have participated in several different distance courses but that is not the same thing. I think there is a lot to say about this topic and we have as a group in group 6 brainstormed around this topic during our meeting. This is not the place to touch upon each of these different aspect. Instead, would I like to mention some of those general principles or criteras that was discussed in the book by Martin Weller, The Battle for Open (2014:35):

 

Open = accessible, ‘supported open learning’, interactive, dialogue. Accessibility was key.

Open = equal opportunity, unrestricted by barriers or impediments to education and educational resources.

Open = transparency, sharing educational aims and objectives with students, disclosing marking schemes and offering exam and tutorial advice.

Open = open entry, most important, no requirement for entrance qualifications. All that was needed were ambition and the will/motivation to learn.

 

I think that these criteria’s are self explicatory, which doesn’t mean that they are not in need of attention. On the contrary I think they sum up some important aspects that needs to be thought about when starting an open course over the Internet. Which will be the participants in such a course and how can I assure that by respecting some principal and guiding rules for openness thus avoiding any forms of biases in the admission process to the course.

 

Another interesting aspect is also to what extent one’s institution is willing to admit new forms of learning platforms and forms of teaching, such as Open courses. At the law faculty where I work we have several distance courses but that is not the same as Open Courses where anyone can participate. I have not heard of any such course at my faculty and I believe it will take quite some time before one such course will see the day of light. Thus, if I were to run an Open course it would have to happen on my spare time. I don’t know what my faculty would say about that, since teaching is one of my obligation within the faculty and the Open course could be seen as a sideline (bisyssla). I thought the article by Weller et al. Digital Resilience in Higher Education, was quite interesting in this regard.

 

All the best,

 

Anders