When the Office of Educational Technology launched #GoOpen, representatives held an information session at ISTE. After the presentation, I spent some time with the representative expressing my concerns with the assumptions of the initiative. Among other issues I asked about MERLOT (an existing educational resource site which provides access to resource site). My questions pretty much asked why we needed another access site (when existing ones had not been that successful) and whether free resources were really the answer (If government funds were available, why not fund projects to generate resources). I wrote about this issue previously.
I understand that the GoOpen initiative has been implemented, but I still have similar concerns. How many online resource directories do we need? Who will put some money and time into the resources these sites want to vet and provide? Are the resources shared even carefully evaluated to see that the copyright assumptions of the content creators are met?
A recent report on Amazon’s effort in this category rekindled my interest in this topic. Amazon’s Inspire site is pretty much redundant with the GoOpen initiative. This and other commercial contributions can be spun in a couple of ways. First, why does the government need to be involved (at taxpayer expense), if private corporations are willing to fill this niche. Second, does the public want corporations with business interests at heart to offer free services likely to bring more attention to their more general resources and services.
The story on Amazon’s program raises some of the issues I originally considered. For example, immediately Amazon was providing access to educational resources submitted by educators that violated the copyrights of the original developers. Were those willing to provide access also willing to support the development of quality content?
I understand that educational institutions lack resources and some have been willing to sell things like naming rights and other ways to provide brand and product exposure as a way to meet these needs for revenue. I guess I see this as an issue the public gets to evaluate, but I do think greater public awareness is necessary for informed decisions. I think the notion of “free” is misunderstood and we all sell something – our attention, information, or money – for our online experiences. When we are providing such experiences to juveniles, we should be clear on which it is?