As some of you may have noticed I've been helping out AUK at their transition into fully legal territory regarding textbooks and supplementary material. After such a long time of silence I think I owe to some interested readers an explanation as to how far we've gotten.

Let me start off with a simple explanation of what I actually did (or at the point of posting this still do) . I was the "assistant on the digital textbook conversion". My main function was that of assisting as many professors as possible to find legally available material for their courses. However, I went some further than that. First, I conceived my own little strategy on what to push for in this transition. I thought of a three stage plan:

• 1st, is possible use open source material,

• 2nd if no or not enough open source material is available use the RIT Online Library,

• 3rd, use traditional textbooks and supplementary material which can at least in one form or another be available online (i.e. commercially or otherwise.).

Additionally I set up a wiki on Wikia so that people can connect more easily and, as I still hope, peak into other professors practices and selections and learn from them. I know that Wikieducator, Curriki and other similar sites are already doing this but as far as my experience goes these sites are really not suitable for wiki first-timers (or even Internet for educational purposes first-timers!). Considering that everything on our wiki is licensed under Creative Commons it should be possible to port the best documentation over to Wikieducator or similar sites in the future. The wiki should also make it possible to document practices, possibilities and resources for future faculty members which may not be fortunate enough to have me guide them personally through this process. As in all open source endeavors, documentation is key.

As of now I can proudly announce that we have for about 70% of the courses thought this year enough open source material available. 15-20% can be supplemented with RIT content, however, 10-15% still remain with the traditional model of proprietary licensed and distributed material.

Problems

As you may imagine we've had (and still have) some major difficulties to solve. The biggest issue is in my opinion the lack of digital and technological literacy of many of the faculty members. The second biggest issue is the attitude towards change some of the faculty members have shown. It appears, and I have talked to people who are involved in other Universities too (meaning this is not just our problem), that some professors are so used to teaching with the same books from the same publishers, with the same content and the same slides, that they simply are incapable of changing. Interestingly enough, and again this is not just our problem, teachers of scientific and language/writing courses are the fastest to adapt to new circumstances and are used to completely revamping their textbook policy. I don't know whether this is due to the fast changing nature of these domains of knowledge (e.g. basic scientific frameworks rarely see landslide changes but rather many and fast occurring small changes) or whether it is due to the "karma" or basic attitude of the people who are generally drawn to these domains of knowledge. It's probably a mix of both and much more. The best way to explain this issue to tell people to simply take a look at OER material available for each of these academic domains. You will find the most for the natural sciences, while gradually finding less and less the further you get from domains which require empiric research for their claims (e.g. economics, public policy, legal studies).

Once you get to legal studies you won't find much, most likely because the "legal experts" who are "authorities" in their field are pretty old (mostly 50+) and couldn't tell the difference between a computer and a toaster. ...and you wouldn't put a book in a toaster, would you...?

Another big issue, or at least an issue for me, was the lack of coherent OER platforms and standards. Most of what has gotten out onto the web has s far been driven by personal initiative of some open minded intellectuals. OCW is in my opinion more of a marketing campaign than a real strategy. Of course OCW is contributing greatly to the sum of the Commons, but again, the lack of platforms, interconnectivity, and quality standards is making it difficult for digital Robinson Crusoes to find anything useful. After all, on the first try most of our faculty turned despaired to me saying that Google didn't give them anything. Flat World Knowledge, cnx.org, Wikieducator, Curriki and OCW are certainly paving a better road towards the entire OER experience but the real deal is in my opinion still at least 2-3 years away. The faster the transition to eBooks/eReaders happens the faster and better this transition will happen.

Legal knowledge... Up to this day I have to see a professor who knows enough about Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) in order to be on the safe side. One might imagine that these highly educated, much traveling, upper middle class to higher class people know more about IPR than the average citizen of the world, but this is most certainly not the case. I know now that this is true everywhere, London, Prishtina, New York or Cairo, nobody has a clue about IPR. Most likely on the one hand because of the utter complexity of these laws and on the other hand because of their utter senselessness. Current IPR should have been completely rewritten 20 years ago, let alone now. While doing my research in the license agreements and EULAs of some of the non-OERs I felt like dealing with feudal lords.

Future Steps

I very much hope that I will be able to help AUK in some form in this transition. Not everything could be done in mere three months. We still need an official internal OER/content policy and a continuous office for IPR and OER assistance. As far as my experience goes I don't think that the digital natives will get into University-level academia in the next 20-25 years, and I don't think that the digital nomads (or even outsiders) will ever be able to understand this new world. Someone has to help them.

I will be presenting OER and my work at AUK at the international Software Freedom Conference in Kosovo this September (See more).

If you'd like to have any more information or simply stay in contact you can subscribe to this blog or contact me on Facebook (please identify yourself as a reader of my blog).

I also recomend reading my paper on IPR in Kosovo.