Over the last couple of years, I've played with - and reviewed - several different styles of online course. Some have been based around Flash presentations (animated slideshows with an audio track essentially); some have been lists of links to PDFs; some have been HTML content. Most have been delivered via some sort of website and viewed using a web browser.
A couple of approaches I'm interested in exploring relate to the delivery of course material through other means - online using web feeds (such as RSS); offline using portable devices, such as USB memory sticks. I'll post about RSS/web feed delivery and Portable Study Sticks in the next week or two, but here are some thoughts about some of the current issues (as I see them) relating to some of the ways I believe we currently deliver electronic course materials and electronic copies of printed course materials.
At the current time, student access to OU online course materials tends to be cut-off a few short weeks after the end of the course. Students can, of course, save their own copies of each course page (e.g. see the hints on how to do this relatively easily using the Scrapbook browser extension). I am unclear as to why physical/offline copies of courses are not provided as a matter of course at them moment - maybe it's a rights thing?
There have been one or two exceptions. A couple of Relevant Knowledge short courses (which combine HTML teaching materials and PDF practical guides) have been delivered on the relevant course CD-ROM and at least one other course with a large online/HTML course material component was made available as compressed HTML (using the chm format).
But as far as I know, providing a convenient downloadable version of our online courses has not been the norm. That said, some of these courses are becoming available now via OpenLearn (although it's interesting to note that - along with LabSpace - OpenLearn doesn't make easily usable, exportable/downloadable offline versions of the material available, although you can get an XML version of each course from the LabSpace site)).
One possible argument for not distributing HTML course materials is the fear that copies will get out into the wild and become obtainable outside the course registration (and payment ;-) loop? Another possibility is the well made one that online course materials can rot quite badly, and may as a result reduce the perceived quality of unsupported HTML materials (where the expectation may still be that th elinks will work). This is particularly true in respect of deep links (which we are not allowed to use, of course ;-) Or the allowable use of top/domain-level links with instructions on how to get to the deep page you want the student to visit (go to URL x, take the third link on the right, enter y in the search box and follow the link to z which was the third result when I tried...;-)
The availability of electronic course materials presenting a threat to the sale of courses is worth considering in a little more detail ("are we giving away our crown jewels?") and comparing with the situation that arises in the case of print materials...
...because it's worth reminding ourselves that copies of OU materials can be found in many reference libraries, as well as OU Study Centres; (and how about University Book Search, the third party OU second-hand course material website?)
The differences between the lifetime and cost of duplication of print materials compared to electronic materials is often brought out at this point - it's easy to pass on a copy of an electronic document, but harder to do the same for a physical one. But the availability of digital scanners with OCR capabilities means that the cost can be reduced, particularly if a community works together to scan a particular publication....
There is an interesting aside I would like to make here. One course I know of made use of a third party book that suffered from accessibility issues in terms of layout and typography that typically made it difficult to read by one or two students on each presentation of the course. In one presentation, the story goes that the students gathered together and retyped the whole book for the needy student(s) and presented it in a series of installments as accessible PDF. A flagrant breach of copyright, maybe, but a fine demonstration of a community working together to serve one of its less fortunate members ;-)
Whilst on the subject of stories, rumour also has it that talks are afoot about whether or not the OU should get involved with one of the online booksearch projects (such as Google Books or the Open Content Alliance) in getting OU legacy content scanned and made searchable. If this were to happen, then print materials would be available in two electronic formats (many of the OU's printed course materials are already made available to students in ebook/pdf format).
It is worth noting at this point that (as far as I know, and at least until a month or two ago, so I have been told) the course material ebooks are not currently available as a matter of course for preview/browsing by current OU students. In particular, requests from students for electronic copies of course materials from courses they are considering taking cannot - apparently - be satisfied. This reticence presumably follows from the assumption that if the materials are available, students won't study the course.
[Note to self - check this is still the case, e.g. by checking the Library catalogue and VLE for electronic versions of electronic OU Study Guides and course units).]
Anyway, back to the point: the fear that making content freely available would reduce the number of people registering for our courses was one of the concerns raised regarding the release of materials on OpenLearn under a Creative Commons license; but the OpenLearn considerations is actually different in kind. Firstly, because only a very small fraction of OU materials are being released to OpenLearn; and secondly, many of the materials being released are taken from courses that are no longer in presentation.
Even so, the argument that the access to materials if they are made available in electronic form will reduce the likelihood that people will buy the course those materials are provided in is not a strong one. Firstly, the OU is not just a content producer. The course package is an altogether different proposition, including as it does software packages, tutor support and face-to-face tutorials, moderated, course specific online communities, assessment, formal educational credit, and so on, all value adding services delivered in addition to the actual course materials. Secondly, 'free access to materials' is a loaded phrase. More accurate in this case would be 'the ability to preview course materials'.
That print course materials are made available in electronic form (which support search using desktop search tools, for example) whilst access to pure electronic content after the end of the course is not guaranteed seems a bit odd to me. If I take a traditional course, I leave with physical and electronic copies of the course materials. If I take an electronic course, I leave with nothing that I don;t copy myself. (Related to this are the lack of course related derivative products, such as course related link collections and search engines.)
Hmm.. one for the Library, I think... preview copies through the library catalogue of all course units, at least for users (students and/or staff) with a SAMS cookie set (i.e. OU authenticated users).
Posted by ajh59 at November 26, 2006 09:20 PM