Can OER impact Higher Education?
I believe it already has and the evidence comes from places like MIT's OCW (http://ocw.mit.edu/) and the success of initiatives like the open courseware consortium (http://www.ocwconsortium.org/). The amount of impact is greatest in countries outside of the “developed” world where they struggle with the costs of producing materials, wikibooks (http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/South_African_Curriculum ) is a good example of this. I believe these current offerings of OER have created much dialog, even among the most traditional and proprietary institutions of higher ed. I believe this dialog is having an impact. Do I believe OER will CHANGE the nature or structure of higher ed institutions in general? No. New “global” institutions may form that use OER extensively, some institutions, departments, faculty . . . may move toward an OER based model with there content. I believe that Higher Ed is about individuals (and the collective) connecting with knowledge and taking ownership of the knowledge to make it their own. Once owned, mastery can be achieved, (outside of research) this is the goal of higher ed. To make new researchers who have mastered the knowledge of a domain and then, in turn, create new knowledge. . . So it is not the OER that creates the mastery, it is the process, experience and intimacy with OER (or any educational resource) that creates the mastery. This will not change and this is the “mission” of higher education, mastery is about the process not the resource. This then leads into the second half of your question.
Can OER impact Human Development?
Yes. I believe that all things Open are having an impact on human development. There is a growing acceptance of all things Open and a move away from those that are proprietary. This is evidenced by the global acceptance (and success) of Open Source software, of blogging (which is open knowledge exchange), of file sharing, of wikis, of microfinance (I know that is a stretch, but I do see microfinance as the open sharing of financial resources). It is this openness (and altruism) that is changing development. So back to mastery. . . If individuals (or collectives) take ownership of knowledge, learn it, massage it, alter it, add to it, localize it and re-release it as OER and then another individual (or collective) does the same, all within a framework of a “borderless” OER supporting infrastructure then OER and related approaches has had a huge impact on human development. I do see our present focus upon the OER is only half the equation, it is also an OER infrastructure (that is more in its infancy) that will really push all this along. The ability to utilize OER, alter it, add to it, localize it and re-release it, takes infrastructure, a global infrastructure. An infrastructure that includes versioning, histories, branching (which is particularly important for localization), cross referencing, licensing, etc. . . I look forward to seeing what OER and its related infrastructure looks like 15 years from now.
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