The Impact of Open Source

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URL: http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/sloan-school-of- management/15-568a-practical-information-technology-management-spring-2005/projects/

Open source courses are for free, for anyone with internet access and can be shared freely all over the globe (Simonson et al, 2012).  With the open courseware, a person can study at no cost in one of the well-known and highly recognized institutions and/or use the learning material to build their own teaching material with no strings attached.  

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) http://ocw.mit.edu/index.htm was the website I selected after exploring a number of them on the internet. My search began with courses that are relevant to my personal needs and interest as suggested by Andragogy-Malcolm Knowles theory (Simonson et al, 2012).  On this basis, I finally opted to take Practical Information Technology Management at MIT and use it for my analysis.

The course appeared to be well designed and is organized with different tabs in the website to help access of the learning material in a structured environment. Accessing the learning material and navigating through each component of the course such as the syllabus, calendars, readings, lecture notes and projects was relatively easy. The learning environment of the course had the statement “As Taught In Spring 2005” (MIT website, 2005). I suspected that the course was designed for a face-to-face class eight years ago and has not been adapted for distance learning. The course design is a “shovelware” of a traditional face-to-face classroom setting without addressing important elements of a distance learning environment such as knowing the distance learners who will access the class (Simonson, et al, 2012).

            There was no registration process required for me to be part of the class. There seems to be no way for the instructor to know who is in the class and how many learners have logged in at any particular time. According to Simonson, et al (2012), knowing the “learners in the class yields a more productive learning environment and aids in overcoming separation of instructor and students"(p.154). This recommendation does not appear to have been considered at all with open courseware of MIT as there was no communication tool where students could introduce themselves and share their background information. The physical distance between the learner and the instructor is clearly a big challenge in the course as I observed.

            The course also did not offer the opportunity for the learner to interact with the instructor, with other learners or with the content itself in order to practice what has been learned throughout the course. Sorensen & Baylen (2009) argue that “students need to do more than take lecture notes and memorize facts” (p.71) to be successful in a course. Effective learning involves engaging students in various learning activities within the course. In the example course from MIT, there was a project activity that a student could perform independently, and observe work done by previous students but there is no opportunity for submission in order for the instructor to give feedback. How will the student know whether their performance meets the requirements if there is no assessment?

How useful is a course that provides for no interaction, no communication, no assessment and no token for completion?  Hannum (2008) argues that “quality in distance learning is built through strong instructional design and appropriate pedagogy, not by simply posting existing content over the internet for delivery” (p237). The free availability of the course material does not compensate for the problems of quality when compared to fee paying courses that are well developed and operate within the instructional design principles and distance learning theories.

References:

Hannum, W. (2008). Distance learning. In R.M. Diamond, Designing and assessing courses and curricula: a practical guide (3^rd ed.) pp237-255. John Wiley &Sons, San Francisco.

MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) Open Courseware website, (Spring 2005). Practical Information Technology Management. Retrieved 05 October, 2013 from, http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/sloan-school-of- management/15-568a-practical-information-technology-management-spring-2005/projects/

Morrison, G. R., Ross, S. M., Kalman, H. K., & Kemp, J. E. (2011). Designing effective instruction (6th ed.). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Simonson, M., Smaldino, S., Albright, M., & Zvacek, S. (2012). Teaching and learning at a distance: Foundations of distance education (5th Ed.) Boston, MA: Pearson.

Sorensen, C. K.  & Baylen, D.M. (2009). Learning online: Adapting the seven principles of good practice to a web-based instructional environment. In A.Orellana, T.L. Hudgins, & M. Simonson (Eds.), The Perfect On-line Course: Best Practices for designing and teaching. IAP-Information Age Publishing, Inc.