Three critiques of the Open Educational Resources movement (original) (raw)

Abstract

"This presentation will review existing literature on Open Educational Resources (OER), exploring the implications of institutional circumvention and the promotion of self-directed learning in a digitally-mediated higher education. Three critiques will be introduced: 1.) An under-theorisation of 'openness', in which the concepts of positive and negative liberty will be used to suggest a neglect of coherent theorisation concerning the practice of self-directed learning. The OER movement presents the most significant and wide-spread implementation of open access education on the web. However, the OER literature focuses predominantly on issues of access, and the practice of free and open education remains under-theorised. OER is often posited as the solution to an increasing demand for higher education that surpasses current provision, yet much of the literature neglects to adequately consider how self-directed learning might actually take place in the absence of educational structure and pedagogic expertise. 2.) Humanistic assumptions of unproblematic self-direction and autonomy. Where no regulations are prescribed about how learning should operate in practice, it will be suggested that the 'free' and 'open' learning proposed by OER cannot in principle be predicted or assumed to function according to predefined ideas. However, this view of undefined openness appears to contradict many of the aims expressed in the OER literature. The prognostications of rational progress, emancipation from ignorance, and increased provision for the intellectually needy, appear to sit uneasily with the idea of a decentralised system that avoids predefined aims. In the absence of directives it will be suggested that proponents of OER assume an innate human ability to self-direct. A Foucauldian interpretation of subjectivity will be outlined here to propose that the human being emerges from structure and organisation, rather than being foundational. 3.) An alignment with the needs of capital, in which the Foucauldian concept of governmentality will be suggested to offer an alternative perspective on the notions of power and emancipation in OER discourse. Rather than a rational improvement to education, or a more humane and naturalised form of learning, the use of OER will be proposed as a further refinement in the exercise of power. While the use of OER might circumvent the more overt practices of discipline exacted by the traditional institution - regulating, organising and categorising the bodies of its learners - it is problematic to assume that such a form of open education is emancipated from regimes of control and subjectification. OER literature neglects to consider its own discursive alignment with the marketisation and commodification of education, and the ways in which this technology constructs the learning subject as human capital. In claiming a model of open, free and de-institutionalised education, the OER movement conceals the ways in which the apparently self-directing learner is a product of its own discursive practices and permitted behaviours. This presentation is not intended to dismiss the OER movement per se, but rather to seek its refinement through a more rigorous theoretical examination. The three critiques introduced here are suggested to provide a coherent framework for future work in this area."

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