OEGlobal 2021-2030 Draft Strategic Plan - Feedback Wanted

OEGlobal is pleased to release its new draft strategic plan during OE Week. We’re seeking your feedback. Here you can access, read, and comment on Open Education Global’s Open For Public Good 2021-2030 Strategic Plan.

Feedback welcome as comments on the GDoc or as a reply to this post.

OEGlobal has a number of job opportunities open. If you like what you see in our Strategic Plan come join us in making it happen. See Job Opportunities.

The strategic plan plan was developed by OEG staff and Board of Directors using a seven step virtual planning process that ran from September 2020 through February 2021. Every two weeks, one of the seven parts became the focus of deep examination with all board and staff independently completing a set of assignments and offering their input. That input was collected and reviewed by a strategic planning working group of staff, board members, and outside consultants. The working group distilled and synthesized the input and contributed their own expert analysis resulting in this draft plan.

Those of you involved in developing open education strategic plans may find the seven steps and their corresponding videos and hands on interactive activities a useful reference. Here are links (each link prompts you to make a copy of the instructions and template) to all seven steps:

  1. Open education goals and purpose
  2. Education ecosystem and integration of open education into ecosystem 2a & 2b
  3. Open Education Globals Role
  4. Structure and Composition of OEGlobal
  5. Open Education Global Offerings and Activities
  6. Open Education Global Sustainability
  7. Open Education Global Impact and Metrics

Paul, I just watched the video you made explaining your idea of Open Education Globals Role. (The note tells me your video was posted 11 months ago.)

I think we share all of the same goals, generally. I come at it, though, from the practical perspective of ‘what does a teacher in the classroom do?’ And since I’m in Minnesota, USA, I come at it from that perspective. My perspective is further sharpened or narrowed by a focus on K-12 or elementary and secondary.

I realize that because the name of you org is ‘Open Education,’ my assertion here will probably be met with a yawn. So be it.

Dan, thanks for checking out one of my OEGlobal strategic plan videos.

I’m actually really interested in how open education works in K-12. So I read your “Open Education is a Problem for OER in K-12” post with interest. I’m surprised you thought it would be a yawn for me - nothing of the sort.

I appreciate your list of barriers.
Reading them I’d say most are equally relevant in higher ed too.

I completely agree with your assertion that the higher ed model doesn’t work for K-12. Although from a global perspective I’d be saying there is no one higher ed open education model. Open education in Asia looks different than in NA. But nonetheless no argument from me about the applicability of a higher ed model to K12.

But it begs the question what might be a successful OER model for K-12?
You hint at it at the end of your assertion but I hope you write a followup post that fleshes that out and describes, in your view, what needs to happen for open education to work well in K-12.

Regardless of higher ed or K-12 it is clear that open education is a culture change. Changing education culture is hard work no matter which sector. But I’d assert hard work doesn’t mean it’s a bad idea and if the rewards merit the work, then let the work begin.

Thanks, Paul, for encouraging me to flesh out what I think might be a successful model for OER in K-12. First let me be clear - I’m only focused on K-12 in the U.S. K-12 is short for elementary and secondary education, and it is changing to PreK-12, and it will change to something else, soon. Elementary and secondary education is very different in other places in the world and what works in the U.S may not work in other places. I do think that more widespread use of OER in U.S. K-12 will have a significant impact on places beyond the U.S., though.

There’s a bit more flesh in this post, An OERtist, that was linked to in my post, Open Education is a Problem for OER in K-12;. In the earlier post, An OERtist, I say “That power seismically shifts what education is and does.” The power I’m referring to is the power that OER provides for teachers and students. I see a seismic shift without invoking the abstraction, “Open Education.” Promoting the abstraction, Open Education,” trying to make it into something real, something more than an abstraction is keeping OER from taking hold in K-12.

Open Education is about changing culture, as you assert. Using OER effectively in the classroom to make lessons more equitable and culturally relevant will change the culture, most definitely, but I’m saying go at it from the material. Stick with the text, as one of my Literature profs recommended. Don’t wander off into criticisms and comparisons, or the abstraction of ‘Open Education.’ What does the text say? Actually changing the text needs to be the focus.

You can’t change the text very easily if it’s printed on paper. You can’t change the text if you don’t know how to use a learning management system so you can easily refer student discussions back to the text. Keep the assessments, whatever model you want, as close to the text as possible so that students can share their thoughts with each other and get articulate feedback; an LMS works great for all manner of assessments. 'The text’ doesn’t need to be what is historically thought of as a text; it can be thoughts communicated in any medium. Keep all the learning close to the medium.

Put simply, why does the term ‘Open Education’ need to be used when OER would work just as well? What needs to happen for OER to work well in K-12 is to:

  1. not use the term ‘Open Education.’

  2. Use OER in an LMS, an LMS that makes modification of the OER as easy as possible.

I’ve continued to think about what needs to happen for OER to work in K-12. Something I’d like add to the two things above is: Governments need to get involved as sponsors of OER creation and curation.
I just read your book Made with Creative Commons which is excellent as far as it goes. Not included in the book is the idea that governments can and should get into the OER ‘business.’ Governments are currently the primary funders of educational resources. Even when individuals are responsible for payment governments frequently subsidize (probably not enough) those who can’t afford the cost. Governments will receive enormous benefits by getting into the OER business. It will quite likely save them money, but even more importantly it will enable them to significantly improve education for their citizens.
Again, my focus is on U.S. K-12 where the benefit of using OER in an LMS will be realized. As I’ve pointed out in other posts, the current Higher Ed model for OER usually leaves the affordances of an LMS to be provided by for-profit proprietary companies (assessment, reporting and standards alignment.) It’s not going to work for governments to pay for the creation and curation of OER that for-profit companies use in proprietary offerings of OER ancillary items that they sell to the government unless those for-profit companies can provide the OER ancillary items at a cost much cheaper than the government/schools/institutions.
When the provisioning of educational materials and ancillary items required a printing press and distribution system, private enterprise could often do it more economically than governmental institutions. That’s no longer true. Governments and educational institutions can now share the task of creating, curating, distributing, and revising educational materials of all kinds including the ancillary items.
The current problem is that governments and educational institutions don’t currently have the experience, tools and systems to produce OER and all of the (assessment, reporting and standards alignment.) For-profit companies have recognized this problem and are taking advantage of it. Millions of dollars have been invested by for-profit companies in developing assessment, reporting and standards alignment of Illustrative Mathematics curriculum that they are selling to the government/school systems. Governments and schools don’t need to continue to rely on for-profit companies; they could do it themselves, which would have the added benefit of giving them the ability to modify the OER as they need. It is wholly unrealistic to think that for-profit companies will be able to create culturally responsive equitable materials for all students and also create all of the necessary assessment, reporting and standards alignment. That job is best done by the teachers and schools. Developing the experience, tools and systems to produce OER and all of the assessment, reporting and standards alignment is possible and the smart thing to do.