The Ed Techie

FlatWorld Knowledge - the publisher I've been waiting for?

David Wiley is part of a startup called FlatWorld Knowledge. Their aim is to release digital textbooks free of charge, with students paying for the print copy if they want. What is more interesting though is the way they take the notion of the text book and make it more of a social object. So the educator can edit the book for their class, the student can interact with other students around it, and people can sell related services and content. In fact, when you view their little cartoons it makes you realise just how limited the traditional text book model is in education. Why didn't we do this years ago?

From my point of view, I have a book proposal and want a publisher. I am currently with Routledge, but they have a traditional attitude to publishing, they wouldn't even let me put a couple of chapters up on this blog. So what I want is a publisher who will allow me to give away the digital version, but still charge for the print version. So I contacted FlatEarth, but it seems that at the moment they're just focusing on Business books, as they're in startup mode. Makes sense I suppose, but it means I'll either have to find another publisher or wait for them to open up their portfolio a bit. Does anyone know a publisher who isn't living in the dark ages?

With protection like this...

Just in case any of you haven't read David Wiley's reaction and follow up to the story that a publisher (Faulkner Press) and a lecturer are claiming that student lecture notes infringe his copyright, you should do so. Instead of just shaking his head in disbelief, as I would have done, David does some digging and finds this jaw-dropping quote on the publisher's page about the lawsuit (called, now get this 'The Future of Higher Ed'):

in this lawsuit Faulkner Press is proud to protect the rights of Professor Moulton and the rights of all professors.

Of course, the 'rights' of students aren't a concern here. David also enters into an email debate with the publishers, in which the publisher says:

I’m not familiar with your views on IP in general,

It's David Wiley!

but if you hold that a professor’s lecture is in the public domain, such that any third party may make as much money on that IP as the market will yield, then we disagree.

Well, a professor's lecture can be in the public domain, but that doesn't mean a third party can make money from it - here's a thought, maybe they could use a Creative Commons Non-Commercial licence? It's the being in the public domain that really bothers the publishers, because for this read 'then the reason to buy his books will be diminished and we will make less money.'

It's clear that these publishers, who are no different from any others I suspect, simply don't get it. Actually they don't get lots of its: they don't get that as an educator you want students to have as much access to your stuff as possible because it helps them learn; they don't get that books come off the back of our subject knowledge which is funded by students to start with, not the other way round; and they don't even get that by putting stuff out there you might actually sell more books.

It seems clear that in claiming to defend our rights, publishers really do think we educators just don't understand IP. The idea that you might want to give stuff away just does not make any sense to them. I am reminded of Clay Shirky's phrase when talking about open source support to AT&T guys, 'it was if we said we get our Thursdays from a banana'. Increasingly publishers and educators are talking different languages here, and the real danger for publishers is that one day all educators will realise that they don't really need them. If they think that taking strong legal action like this is the way to protect their business, then they should bear in mind it's exactly what record companies did when they first hit the download problem. And look where they are now...

In defence of openlearn

Donald Clark weighs in with some heavy criticism of the Open University's openlearn project. Some of his criticism is valid, but a lot isn't.

It’s really no more than a repository of old OU print documents with some tools on top.

This is a naive view of just how much effort it takes to convert existing material. These aren't simply PDFs of existing units. The trouble is with taking legacy material and converting it - often there are cross references that don't make sense, outdated historical references, and mention of the overall course context (e.g. 'In your assignment'). The openlearn team thus needed to create a system for 'scrubbing' material to make it contextually independent and then putting it online.

To be honest I think I could have published this lot using free software in less than a week or two.

Believe me Donald, you couldn't, for all the reasons I've mentioned above.

Moodle is famously free, but dwell on the fact that the OU have spent a cool million in development time for this ONE implementation. Perhaps the most expensive free lunch on record.

Here he is confusing the spend on adapting, implementing and improving Moodle as the OU's central VLE, ie for use on our courses, and not for the openlearn project, which is just a side project. Is it just me or is there some anti-open source sentiment underlying this?

As I sampled many of the courses it struck me how weak much of the content was in terms of academic credibility. Like many course notes written from within an institution, rather than published text, it has the feel of being cobbled together by good experts, but not the best.

Here we are coming from different backgrounds. The material was written for independent studiers, who are isolated and at a distance. It may not be exciting, but it does work academically. This is why people study rather than just reading airport business books.

Interestingly, not a single lecture online.

Here he is showing his ignorance of the OU. We don't do lectures. We're a distance education university.

It’s only 5% of the OU output but the course choices do seem a little odd.

The choices have been made in order to give a coverage across all subject areas, and sometimes expediency has won out - e.g. which courses can be converted quickly. Much of the project has been about establishing a set of systems so that future content can be delivered.

The levels of interaction are abysmal and there’s no real assessment

The aim of openlearn was always to take existing OU material and make it freely available, NOT to develop new material specifically for the project. But this is where I begin to agree with him, interaction is low and informal assessment could be better.

I still love the OU and all it stands for, even if it is dragged down by the desire of its academics to mimic every other university.

I simply don't understand this catty comment. In what way are OU academics trying to mimic every other university?

Seb Schmoller takes a more reasoned response:

The impression you get is that there was internal pressure from those saying "but we depend on people to pay for our courses, we cannot risk putting some of the 'top sellers' into Open Learn".

I was involved in the initial phase of openlearn, and why I can understand Seb saying this, it isn't actually the case. We were quite keen to explore the business implications and not make it just a 'taster' site. I think the choices have been driven more by which academics have come forward with courses, what are available, what can be converted, etc.

I think that if the OU does not use OpenLearn to showcase its best stuff, the OpenLearn initiative risks being judged as some rather pedestrian content sitting in a (possibly) innovative environment. That would be a major missed opportunity.

I think there is something in this, openlearn is worthy, and useful, but it could be more. The team have focused hard on getting some of the boring stuff done which isn't sexy, but does set the framework for a sustainable model of opening up content. Now the challenge is to do more with it. In case he is too modest to do it I would point to the work Tony Hirst has done in taking openlearn content and mashing it around as a good model.

I think overall openlearn has been guilty of veering into a traditional, university type model (top down, quality assured, proper processes, etc) rather than a more radical 2.0 approach, but in both content and intent it represents a huge step forward for both the OU and UK Higher education. After all, I don't see Epic releasing all their courses for free.

Downes vs Wiley - Cato and Cicero revisited

The official launch of the Cape Town Declaration getting a good bit of attention. I'm not going to critique the declaration specifically, but rather come at it from the perspective of the debate between two main protagonists, namely Stephen Downes and David Wiley. I hope neither takes offence as I like and admire both of them, but I think there is a means of understanding the issues around the declaration by exploring their differences over this. And I'm going to do this by revisiting a previous analogy, namely that of Roman senators Cato and Cicero.

For the purposes of this post, Cato = Stephen and Cicero = Wiley. Cato and Cicero both believed passionately in the same higher level goal, ie the establishment of the Roman Republic. Yet they frequently clashed about what was the best way to achieve it. In the same way I think Stephen and David both believe passionately in the overall aim of open education, but have differing views as to how it should be realised.

Cato was the purist, unbending and uncompromising. Cicero was the pragmatist, willing to compromise and work with a range of people to advance the republic. Cato often thought Cicero compromised too much, thus rendering his beliefs invalid. Cicero was often infuriated that Cato wouldn't compromise and through this played in to the hands of the anti-republicans. Taking our modern day counterparts, it seems to me that most of Stephen's objection comes down to the inclusion of commercial entities in the CTD, e.g. from this post

"And goodness, the internet is already awash with really vile and intrusive commercial activity, do we have to export it too? We have the opportunity to do something really special in the world; why do we have to carve into every declaration of principle a paean to Things As They Are (and Those Who Profit From Them)?"

It is not just the presence of commercial entities in the declaration that is at stake here, but the question of whether any educational services can be charged for. David Wiley makes the distinction between nonrivalrous goods (content basically) and rivalrous ones (support). For open education to be sustainable he sees that monetising the latter is probably essential:

If you believe that rivalrous services are a critical part of learning and of education, then you have two choices: (1) either welcome those who are willing to create sustainable ways of providing these services into our community, or (2) continue to try to drive the evil companies away, simultaneously guaranteeing that a critical part of the support infrastructure never comes into being.

His option 1) is pure Cicero, and 2) pure Cicero criticism of Cato. Now, a lot of learning can be done informally, peer supported, community based, as seen for example when we analyse the type of learning that takes place in open source communities. But Wiley argues that this can't be all of it, and if you want teachers, experts, or maybe even accreditation and tech support, then in a capitalist world someone there need to be models of sustaining this.

So, if we take our Cato and Cicero model, let's look at the options:

1. You don't believe in the republic anyway
2. You'd like to believe in it, but don't think it will ever happen (there will always be a Caesar who comes along)
3. You believe in it and are willing to work within the existing structures to achieve it
4. You believe in it but think the existing structures need a revolutionary change

Most publishers and related companies sit at 1) A lot of institutions reside at 2). Wiley is at 3) and Downes at 4).

Me? I'm actually interested in the business models that arise from a disaggregated education system, I don't have any problem working with commercial entities and I compromise at the drop of a hat, so I'm a 3) kinda guy, although I always have an admiration for those who stick to their principles around 4).

The Cape Town declaration - some thoughts and suggestions

A group of experts, charities, commercial organisations and interested parties got together in Cape Town to look at the issue of openness in education. The output is this declaration. Before coming on to criticism of it, here are some of the key points:

Educators worldwide are developing a vast pool of educational resources on the Internet, open and free for all to use. These educators are creating a world where each and every person on earth can access and contribute to the sum of all human knowledge.

We could argue that, but they're right to bring attention to the growing OER movement.

They are also planting the seeds of a new pedagogy where educators and learners create, shape and evolve knowledge together, deepening their skills and understanding as they go.

Hooray! Good to see pedagogy get a mention, ie it's not all content. Indeed you could argue that all of the OER effort has been a bit disappointing thus far in its impact on higher education. Maybe that's because the pedagogy angle isn't there.

It then goes a bit content-centric again:

These resources include openly licensed course materials, lesson plans, textbooks, games, software and other materials that support teaching and learning.

But you feel some on the committee argued strongly for the next point:

However, open education is not limited to just open educational resources. It also draws upon open technologies that facilitate collaborative, flexible learning and the open sharing of teaching practices that empower educators to benefit from the best ideas of their colleagues. It may also grow to include new approaches to assessment, accreditation and collaborative learning.

This is at least as, if not more, important than the content. Having technologies that shape the way we communicate and collaborate will have an influence back into education. And as for assessment and accreditation - these are absolutely key to changes in educational practice.

They then propose three strategies:

1. Educators and learners - get involved, so a bottom up drive.
2. Open educational resources - individuals and institutions to release their content. I'm all for this, but again it's a bit content-centric for my liking - 'release the content and they will come' hasn't been shown to be a particularly effective strategy.
3. Open educational policy - governments, school boards etc should make open education a high priority, so the top down balance to 1)

I wouldn't argue with any of these necessarily, although I would have worded the declaration differently. In a thoughtful piece Stephen Downes is very critical. His main point is that it is a closed document, rather foisted on the rest of us from a group of experts. This is hardly in keeping with the spirit of the venture. He puts it thus:

I find myself at odds with the declaration written by a group of mostly American academics and advocates invited by a foundation to a private meeting in South Africa to author a "fixed and final" declaration on open educational resources...

I do not believe that a panel of hand-picked representatives representating overwhelmingly a certain commercial perspective is qualified or able to speak on behalf of the rest of us. The very people they name - "learners, educators, trainers, authors, schools, colleges, universities, publishers, unions, professional societies, policymakers, governments, foundations and others" - are mostly nowhere present in these deliberations.

As he says, why not put it in a wiki?

He also goes on to argue that it is rooted in the education system, and there is little about empowering self-learning, or peer learning. I'd agree with him here. I'm not sure that was their intention, they mention collaborative learning, so maybe they'd argue it is implicit in their statement. But I would have foregrounded it more, something along the lines of

New technologies, open content and an opening up of opportunities to participate means that radically new models of learning are now possible. These can be based around rich content discovery, social networks, informal learning, commons based peer production, loosely coupled systems, democratic communities and a long tail of interests. Addressing these challenges will require new models of pedagogy, accreditation, guidance, support, licensing and content production.

So will I sign up for it? Yes, there are more people aligned against open education than behind it, so the last thing we need to do is factionalise within our own camp. But, next time, let's eat our own dog food eh? 

Why 'will Radiohead make money?' is the wrong question

Ed Felten has a good piece on how the Radiohead experiment can mean they make more money by selling more at a lower price. While I agree with his analysis I think this focus on how the  'you choose the price' model will work misses the point. This is a step along the path to free content so all those who think it's a failure if some people don't pay are looking at it the wrong way - some might pay this time, but next time? Or the time after? Radiohead have a reasonably devoted fanbase who will opt to pay, but for lots of artists that isn't the case - they'll make the choice between fame over fortune. Better to have 1000 people download it for free and generate some buzz than 10 people pay for it.

So the question isn't will Radiohead make money from this release, but rather 'how else might Radiohead make money?' They are offering a proper CD release box set for around £40. This is one model - release for free something that 90% of people will take, and something special for the remaining 10%. This is the sort of thing Gran can buy them for Christmas - 'What does Kevin like?' 'Radiohead' 'Okay, I'll get him the special release'. I would expect to see lots of variations on this - most of an album free and then some special DRM locked bonus tracks you pay for, bundled with some video, interviews, etc. People will crack these and release them free, but for the fan who really wants them they'll be prepared to pay and the rest of us will just take the free stuff.

PS - you may be thinking I am contractually obliged to mention Radiohead in every post at the moment. This is the last one. Probably.

Kindle inches towards the free content scenario

Amazon's Kindle received a lot of positive and negative attention this week. The positives seem to be that people like the device, it goes some way to capturing the tactile and emotional element of book reading, and the connectivity adds another dimension. The negatives seem to be that the DRM and pricing model.

To me though it represents another small step towards the scenario of digital content becoming free. Quoting yourself is bad form I know, but in my post on the Future of content I said

"let us consider what would happen if digital paper really arrived (despite several proclamations digital ink and paper have been stubbornly difficult to realise, but that isn’t the point of my argument). It felt like real paper, you could have it bound in books like real paper, you could write on it like real paper. But crucially the content it displayed could change, you could search it, and it could record all those annotations you made.

Even as something of a bibliophile, this begins to look tempting to me. I like having books as objects on my shelves, but I used to like having vinyl albums and CDs also, but now I only have MP3s (and clear shelves). If digital paper were so good it overcame the 3 benefits of books above, then it would have significant advantages over real paper. "

Kindle isn't there yet, but it's another step along the path. And what we will see happen now is the disintermediation of publishers. As an author I can now publish direct to Kindle. And as Clay Shirky argues, when it comes to a face off between fame vs fortune, fame wins.

Last month Radiohead, this month the Kindle, perhaps the future of content will be with us sooner than even I anticipated.

The best compliment

Dora/Silenciosa has translated my Future of content post into Brazilian Portugese. That someone would be bothered to do so without payment is flattering, so thankyou, but also speaks of the value in giving your stuff away to start with - in fact, it's a perfect example of the fame vs fortune argument that the post discusses.

Radiohead explore pricing models

Almost as if they've been reading the Future of content debate here (hey, it's a nice thought), one of my favourite miserable groups (okay, all my favourite groups are miserable), Radiohead have announced they are releasing their new album next week. It will be available for download direct from their own website and the price box is left blank for the purchaser to enter an amount.

Assuming it's not another hoax, this is further evidence of record companies being disintermediated and content shuffling towards the freedom it so achingly longs for.

Future of content - Conclusions

This is the conclusion to the Future of Content distributed article:

In Part 1 I argued that content would move towards being free and widely available, from an economic and quality argument.

In Part 2, Ray Corrigan argued that in fact online content gave new types power and control to large institutions and they would have the weight of the law behind them to prevent the open access I outlined.

In Part 3 Patrick McAndrew focused on education, and the openlearn project specifically and examined the motivations for universities to give away content, and what this meant for the university business model. He also warned that free, open content may generally be thought of as a desirable aim but it might mean we lose some things we cherish currently.

In Part 4  Will Woods takes a technical perspective and argues that there are nine influencing trends now which will see a move towards more, but not necessarily all, content being free.

(There is also my response to Ray's post, Ray's response to me, my response to Patrick, and Ray's response to Patrick - phew!)

In conclusion then, the changes wrought by the digitisation of content and its distribution via the net are the biggest challenge facing those who work in content industries now. They are faced with two choices essentially:

i) Find ways of maintaining the publisher model, by managing the rights and use of content through a combination of technological and legal controls.

ii) Find new business models that give away content but build and sell services around it.

The struggle between these two modes of operating will define content industries over the next five years I would suggest.

Let us take an example of broadcast content. Making high quality content is not easy or cheap, so although the web 2.0 world sees everyone become a broadcaster and the mass become the media, the type of content that can be produced is limited to an extent. Wikipedia has demonstrated that mass distribution of process can work with content as it has with software, but it is difficult to imagine how a high quality television series (think historical drama such as Rome) could be produced for free, by distributed individuals. It might therefore be argued that high quality content will become more valuable, not less. If the first option is chosen then a few television providers have the quality content, which is paid for on a subscription basis.

However, although the web 2.0 content cannot compete on quality it can compete on diversity and quantity. This sets up competition for user/viewer time and attention. The viewer has a choice - do I spend the next half an hour watching Rome or do I listen to a podcast about a subject I am really interested in, watch a couple of inventive YouTube clips and read a blog posting by Stephen Fry (actually the last one will take all of the thirty minutes)? If watching Rome costs me money then the second option becomes more attractive. So, if the second option is chosen, the broadcasters decide to make their content freely available (now you can watch it on YouTube while reading the Stephen Fry post), and they make their money through advertising, sponsorship, or through providing the broadband you are using to watch it.

It seems that there are competing pressures in society currently, which Stewart Brand identified all those years ago:

"On the one hand information wants to be expensive, because it's so valuable. The right information in the right place just changes your life. On the other hand, information wants to be free, because the cost of getting it out is getting lower and lower all the time. So you have these two fighting against each other."

In content businesses now we see this conflict in the development of increasing control through the legal and technical frameworks that Ray has set out, and at the same time there is a massive movement to widely distributed, freely available content. It may be that this is a struggle that is never finally resolved, but instead revisited regularly.