Lecture Notes in Educational Technology Daniel Burgos Editor Radical Solutions and Open Science An Open Approach to Boost Higher Education Lecture Notes in Educational Technology Series Editors Ronghuai Huang, Smart Learning Institute, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China Kinshuk, College of Information, University of North Texas, Denton, TX, USA Mohamed Jemni, University of Tunis, Tunis, Tunisia Nian-Shing Chen, National Yunlin University of Science and Technology, Douliu, Taiwan J. Michael Spector, University of North Texas, Denton, TX, USA The series Lecture Notes in Educational Technology (LNET), has established itself as a medium for the publication of new developments in the research and practice of educational policy, pedagogy, learning science, learning environment, learning resources etc. in information and knowledge age, – quickly, informally, and at a high level. Abstracted/Indexed in: Scopus, Web of Science Book Citation Index More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/11777 Daniel Burgos Editor Radical Solutions and Open Science An Open Approach to Boost Higher Education Editor Daniel Burgos Research Institute for Innovation & Technology in Education (UNIR iTED) Universidad Internacional de La Rioja (UNIR) Logroño, La Rioja, Spain ISSN 2196-4963 ISSN 2196-4971 (electronic) Lecture Notes in Educational Technology ISBN 978-981-15-4275-6 ISBN 978-981-15-4276-3 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-4276-3 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2020. This book is an open access publication. 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The registered company address is: 152 Beach Road, #21-01/04 Gateway East, Singapore 189721, Singapore Foreword by Rory McGreal Open science is a new concept arising out of the exponential growth in access to abundant scientific knowledge via the Internet and the World Wide Web in par- ticular. This book is about openness and radical change. Daniel Burgos, the Editor, has a well-respected track record in supporting openness, and so is well positioned to ensure the relevance of the contributions in this volume. It is often said that the only people who are desirous of change are wet babies. So, for educators living in this rapidly changing twenty-first century, acceptance of the realities of change may come with difficulty. In this book, the writers are not only desirous of change, but are also active proponents of openness, trusting that it will radically disrupt the established order in education, much to the chagrin of comfortable traditionalist instructors. Such rapid change in education has not always been the case. The roots of science and science education are planted in the reality of knowledge scarcity rather than openness. When Hero of Alexandria, a mathematician, physicist and engineer, worked in the great library in the first century, other scientists and students could not access his knowledge without meeting directly with him in a room in the library (possibly the first classroom). His works later became available on scrolls, which were laboriously and expensively reproduced. They could then be distributed to other centres in a very limited way. This limited access to knowledge was improved somewhat with the printing press and other developments, but real openness has only become possible now with the cornucopia of accessible knowledge available online to anyone anywhere who has an Internet connexion. Today, anyone with a mobile phone can access the Internet at a reasonable price in most countries. More than 90% of the world’s population reside in communities with mobile access and most people have access to a mobile device. Of course there are limitations of language, culture and prior education; nevertheless, this represents an explosion in scientific openness. Open Science is now supported by many if not most governments. Today researchers who receive grants from government agencies must place their papers online and have them accessible to the public. This has disrupted the educational publishing industry which has for long been highly profitable because they were the v vi Foreword by Rory McGreal only gateway to knowledge and so charged institutions and individuals heavily for the privilege. These commercial publishers are guilty of ‘openwashing’ or claiming to support openness in order to maintain their closed commercial practices. They are deliberately closing off access to knowledge in order to create a false scarcity. This collection of chapters on openness introduces the reader to relevant views on openness and its affordances for disruption of the academy and society. Chapter themes include investigations ranging from ethical issues in learning analytics to open educational resources, to prosumerism and its effect on disabled learners, as well as issues related to intellectual property rights. The challenges to openness as presented by the authors are disturbing, whilst at the same time intriguing. The authors are approaching the problems associated with openness suggesting possible solutions to support the transition to more open educational access. Open science is rapidly becoming the norm opening up access to knowledge, despite the efforts of commercial interests hoping to forestall it. The chapters in this volume point the way to preserve and expand openness with up-to-date research that points the reader in a positive direction. Prof. Rory McGreal Co-Editor IRRODL UNESCO/ICDE Chair in OER Athabasca University, Canada e-mail: [email protected] Foreword by Colin de la Higuera Openness: Why Quality Matters The very recent decision by the general assembly of the UNESCO to recommend the use of open educational resources (OER) is great news and will certainly contribute to a better understanding of these questions and to their adoption by more and more countries. It should encourage players at all levels to build and share courseware, distribute and redistribute OER. Of course, open educational resources represent just one aspect of open knowledge. Open source, open access and open data all contribute to the same ideals. But, because of the specific nature of education, of the huge numbers involved, this is an important move. We should keep in mind that it is estimated that about 258 million children and youth are out of school today: all what allows a better distribution of knowledge is the right approach. Yet if we can see many positive signs, many problems are still to be tackled. These are, of course, being looked into by NGOs, Universities, researchers and activists. Let us mention the cost model to be better thought out: is it necessary to remind that open doesn’t mean free and that the costs should be met in such a way as not to create new barriers? But, in my view, the most complex issue may be the one of handling quality questions. 1. This may not appear at first to be that essential, but it is. When discussing the matter of replacing traditional textbooks by access to open educational resources with local and national authorities, it is the elephant in the room! ‘Who will control the quality?’ is the question raised, or—worse—not raised but under- lying all the decisions which are going to be taken on the matter. There have, of course, been occasions whether a severe blunder or even an unacceptable pseudo-scientific fact has crept into a textbook published by some well-known publishers, but the general feeling is that these are rare and, since there is a publisher, an origin can be found, responsibilities can be taken, errors can be traced and the problem can be dealt with. And, most importantly, the vii viii Foreword by Colin de la Higuera responsibility of the authorities is not questioned. And understandably—in my opinion—they need to be reassured when it comes to OER. 2. A quality slip is something authorities are fearful of. And when actively pro- moting the use of OER we should have our answers ready. Here are some possible answers: A. We can argue that the type of control proposed in the context of traditional publishing doesn’t really exist. The editorial boards are made up mostly by people who all have some form of hidden (or not hidden) bias. B. We can argue that quality control can’t be done because quality is essentially a subjective matter and that from an open point of view we should not reject an open textbook just because we don’t like it.