The suggestion to make the content viewable by all faculty members was made by another faculty member who was interested in learning from the online teaching and learning that was already occurring in the faculty. While I wholeheartedly supported the suggestion I think it helped that the suggestion did not originate with the IT staff. The Dean canvassed his academic heads of department and the faculty members using OurVLE and so far as I know the decision was democratically made and embraced by faculty members. That the faculty members using OurVLE at the time were the more adventurous and open staff members no doubt helped in the initial success of this policy. The decision was communicated by the usual faculty mechanisms, and it has more or less become a standard way of how we operate. The academic heads of department have smoothly managed the few objections that have been raised. Semesterly emails about our policy regarding OurVLE operations are sent to faculty and support staff so that the policy message is continuously reinforced.
In response to your question about whether I think this move is a first step in opening content more broadly, I would say that openness within the institution allows us to begin thinking about opening the content to an even wider audience. Limited openness gives faculty members and the management team time to realize some of the implications of openness, adapt and begin thinking about the implications of even greater openness. However, whether that wider openness will ever e realized will depend on a lot of other factors such as what other tertiary institutions are doing, how or whether this wider opening will benefit the institution and the individual faculty members, and the other usual questions about a viable business model. In other words, I think that it remains to be seen when open source learning-teaching will be realized.
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