Tim Berners-Lee principles applied to an Open Education.

[Jose I. Icaza]

In a blog post titled "How can be make education as open as the open web"?

(http://new.hastac.org/blogs/cathy-davidson/how-can-we-make-education-open-open-web),

Cathy Davidson from [HASTAC]  asks readers to transform Tim Berners-Lee "Nine Principles for an Open Web" to same nine principles for an open education. Berners-Lee developed these principles while he was designing what would become the World Wide Web. I took the challenge using part of Ackoff''s Idealized Design process.  

I copy here my transformation of the first principle:

Berners-Lee: Remote Access Across Networks - being able to find information anywhere, anytime

Transformation:  Being able to find OERs from anyplace, anytime, just in time...

The ideal: I must be able to either pose a question, state a concern, define a problem, or specify a project I would like to undertake - and be directed to the best set of OERs that help me answer my question or concern, solve the problem or carry out the project, all of that either alone or with others. Of course I would also need to state the context in which that question, concern etc. are relevant. An OER may be a digital object, or another human being whose expertise is known to the system, including the evolving students or users of the system.

The real: Currently, OERs are distributed in myriad incompatible repositories, each using different metadata, and even within one repository OERs are not easily found given context, concern, question, problem or project - i.e., by what matters to the user. The titles of the objects or even the pretended Outcomes are not enough. Some OERs are either too big or too small for my current needs. Humans are not considered OERs and state their metadata in widely incompatible formats - how many personal Profiles do you have on the web?.  I must search myself the OER universe; nobody or no system directs me to the best set of OERs that satisfy my needs.

For the other principles and a brief descripion of Idealized Design, please see

"Berners-Lee principles applied to Open Education"

http://new.hastac.org/blogs/cathy-davidson/how-can-we-make-education-open-open-web#comment-18040

--jose