Taking my lead from Wayne, Martin, and Cole, it seems to me the question:
Are there things that we can do that will change the way we think about resourcing content (workprocesses, licensing, the nature of education & education providers, our identities as educators,etc.)?
It is pretty reasonable. That is, there is a cultural mindset that that needs to develop on campuses that will enable and promote the development and distribution of free content. Eventually, one way or the next, the “cultural mindset” would pervade the organization, influencing not only the commitment of faculty and learning designers, but also technology managers, marketers, legal counselors, academic administrators, managers, etc.
The level to which the “cultural mind set” needs to pervade the organization (community) will of course vary from university to university depending on a lot of things. It seems to me that one cultural norm that could be pretty debilitating is the assumption of competition over community. I have noted a feeling in higher education (not limited to the US) that we are competing with each other at an institutional level. If this is an organizational orientation, there is an understandable impulse to treat internally generated learning resources as either private goods or toll goods (see Wayne's comment above).
If my assumptions, assertions, or conclusions are spurious, please question or correct them. Until then I am left asking myself two questions:
- Is it possible to harness the competitive impulse to promote free and open content?
- What are some of the differences between institutions that have adopted free and open educational resources as part of their identity and those that have not?
As a final note, I have a feeling that organizations that engage in free and open educational resource development principally (or solely) to 1) gain some sort of competitive advantage, or 2) raise institutional profile, are starting on an unsteady foundation in the long-run.
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