[Sharing is a challenge] #2 “My Precious”: Why Academics Guard Their Teaching Resources and Data (But Happily Share Their Articles) by Javiera Atenas and Leo Havemann

Open Education Week Share OE Week
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How about a The Lord of the Rings reference today?

Javiera Atenas (@Javiera) and Leo Havemann (@leohavemann) reflect on the challenge of “protection”. Like Gollum clinging to “his precious”, many educators feel reluctant to let go of their materials. @Javiera and @leohavemann examine what drives this hesitation. While changing mindsets matters, they argue that real progress will come from structural incentives and rewards that support openness.

“My Precious”: Why Academics Guard Their Teaching Resources and Data (But Happily Share Their Articles) by Javiera Atenas and Leo Havemann

Javiera Atenas and Leo Havemann (University of Suffolk and University College London, United Kingdom) note that while teacher-researchers readily agree to share the results of their research, the same is much less true when it comes to educational outcomes. Why does this difference exist? In their analysis, they also propose solutions.

Read the article:

Thank you @Javiera and @leohavemann!

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[Sharing is a challenge] #4 Open Educational Resources Under Siege: The Risk of Losing "My Precious" out of Fear of Plunder by Pierre-Antoine Gourraud
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I first commend Javiera and Leo for playing out the Gollum and Ring metaphor fully. Wrapped into reason #2 Skills, Confidence, Risk is also what comes up in a future article on this series I contributed a tiny bit to – Judgement. I do not want to give away too much.

But I also draw back to a short paper from a conference talk in Australia I came across in 2000 from Greg Webb who was with an organization called OTEN. I always remembered the title “Why Teachers Don’t Share Resources, and What We Can Do About It”

His suggested reasons were:

  • Lack of quality
  • Fear of being judged by peers
  • Loss of intellectual property
  • Inequity
  • Loss of power

The “paper” was interesting because it was set up in a tool called PageSeeder that allowed participants at the conference and later online to vote for the questions he outlined and I believe annotate.

It’s the second reason I expand on in that coming post on judgement, but that is still in the vein the authors argue against approaches based on altruism.

I’d wonder where places are that had in place the policies and practices suggested, and what outcomes or effects those had.

“It cannot be seen, cannot be felt, cannot be heard, cannot be smelt, It lies behind stars and under hills…”

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