Putting the PUBLIC Back in Public Higher Education

All photos CC0 Alan Levine from Flickr

Keene State College@actualham

Presentation CCBY Robin DeRosaImages CC0 Alan Levine

How Open Education Can Work for Keene State

• Drive down the overall cost of college for students

• Improve throughputs and student success• Increase student engagement• Connect students with their fields, professions,

and communities• Reinvigorate faculty engagement with teaching• Build collaboratives with other public colleges

and universities• Build a case for public funding of higher

education

Book Costs Move Off the Charts

• 56% of students pay more than $300 per semester

• 20% pay more than $500 per semester (that’s equal to 9% of tuition at Keene State!)

• Students worry more about paying for books than they worry about paying for college.

Effects of Textbook Prices• 67% did not purchase

a required textbook• 38% earned a poor grade• 20% failed a course• 48% occasionally or

frequently took fewer courses

• 26% dropped a course• 21% withdrew from a course

2016 Survey of 22,000 students, Florida Virtual Campus, comprised of the

12 universities and 28 colleges in the Florida state system.

Creative C

omm

ons

OE

ROpenStax Books

Student Success“students who use OER perform significantly better on the course throughput rate than their peers who use traditional textbooks, in both face-to-face and online courses that use OER.” (2016)

Throughput Ratean aggregate of:drop rates, withdrawal rates, C or better rates.

Tidewater Community College

Quality

Tidewater Community College (2015 Report)

OER Open Pedagogy

Tidewater Community College (2015 Report)

“The classes with traditional published textbooks I study and memorize to pass tests. In this class I have a greater appreciation for the things I learned because I actually experienced the material and lesson as opposed to simply passing a test. This knowledge will last a lifetime.”

Where I Began

Collaboratively Built: Alums, Incoming Students, Professor

Constantly

Evolving:

Students &

Teachers Add,

Improve, Share

Multim

edia C

ontributions

Interactive and Public Annotation

An Open “Textbook”Can Be:• Interactive• Collaborative• Dialogic• Dynamic• Empowering• Contributory• Current• Accessible• Multimedia• Public• (Free)

Open Pedagogy

•Improves access to education.

•Stresses community and collaboration over content.

•Connects the college to the wider public.

CCBY Jonathan Brodsky https://flic.kr/p/37z2C2

Access, broadly writ.digital divide & redlining, accessibility, online safety &

harassment

Content ≠ King• Rhizomes• Networks• Communitie

s• Collaboratio

ns

Connect with Publics• Engaged Learning• Experiential Learning• Applied Learning• High-Impact Learning• Internships• Real World Problems• Hands-on Learning

What if we meant it?

Student-Centered

Learner Driven

PublicPorts of Call

• @gardnercampbell

• @anrikard• @audreywatter

s

Domain of One’s Own (#DoOO)

• Drag ’n Drop → Design• Digital consumer →

Digital creator• Data mining → Data

control• Audience of 1 → Public

impact• Web as broadcast

station → Web as open lab

• Work attached to course → Work attached to student

• ePortfolio → ePort

http://kayleighbennett.com/

Open Your Syllabus: Beyond OER• Class-source outcomes• Co-create policies• Empower students to build their

own LMS• Iterate open textbooks• Class-source curated content• Use student-designed assignments

and assessments• Publish student writing and projects

and data (with open licenses if desired!)

• Explore grading options

OPEN IN APREtrumpPOSTERA• What kind of data does your

university collect on students and how has it pledged to protect it?

• Are your domains protected? Can students work anonymously?

• How do you prepare students to handle trolling and online harassment?

• What access issues (hardware, broadband, accessibility, redlining, literacy) challenge your good intentions?

• How does your open pedagogy reinscribe unequal power dynamics?

• How is academic labor made visible & compensated in the production of OER?

Advocating for privacy is part of the open ethos; it is not contrary to it.

OER Open Pedagogy Open Access

Now what does this

mean for us as

SCHOLARS?

CC BY Cable Green: http://www.slideshare.net/cgreen

Learning at KSC

Access-Oriented

Connected

Learner-Driven

Public

Public Higher Education

We can’t save public higher education by privatizing it.

Instead, let’s focus on access, connected learning, student empowerment, and sharing our resources.

Instead of competitors and comparators, we will build a network of collaborators.

Open Education offers us real strategies

to increase student success and empowerment, engage learners with the world outside the college walls, and invite the public to share in the knowledge commons.

Workshop!

Tools/Techniques• Annotating Readings

with Hypothes.is• Building ePorts with

Domain of One’s Own• Building Personal

Learning Networks with Twitter

• Creating Open Textbooks with PressBooks

• “Opening” your syllabus