Open Research course logo (CC-BY 4.0 OER Research Hub)

It’s now been a couple of weeks since we formally ended our four-week Open Research course on P2PU … And what a month it was! We had 139 people sign up to the course, which looked at the theory and practice of open research, how you can be ethical and open, how to disseminate in the open and open reflection. You can view the course materials here.

From the very first discussions about the course last fall with Jane Park at Creative Commons to the team brainstorming the course early in 2014, spending several months co-authoring the course and developing assets, going through School of Open’s community review, getting the course up on the P2PU platform, creating our badge, and running the course itself, it’s been a fascinating and rewarding process. Collaboration was central to building the course and as an earlier blog post shows continuous evaluation and input was essential to make Open Research possible.

As a team we’re still reflecting on the experience of creating and running the course, but would like to thank everyone who contributed, commented, reviewed materials and participated. The range of course participants, from all over the world and with all kinds of backgrounds and interests in open research, who joined us on the Hangouts and commented in the forums or used the course Twitter hashtag (#openresearch) was quite amazing and it was a privilege to work with so many people who were keen to share their ideas and experiences during the course.

We look forward to building on the success of this first iteration of Open Research, while also looking at where we can improve the material and course design. A post-course survey, forum comments and blog posts by participants as well as the team’s reflections will all feed into this review process. In addition, if you did not participate in the course but have suggestions or feedback, we would welcome your thoughts via this Hackpad. A second facilitated version of the course is planned for early 2015 and a stand-alone version will also be made available.

Thanks again to everyone who made the course possible!

You can access the full comments at http://schoolofopen.p2pu.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/P2PUSchoolofOpenNNReplyComments.pdf. It should be available on the FCC site soon. Here is the Executive Summary:

The Peer 2 Peer University (P2PU) and the School of Open leverage the Internet and open educational resources (OER) to create an innovative, peer-based learning model that anyone in the world can use, with or without an institution. The FCC’s proposal would undercut the efforts of P2PU and related organizations by relegating them to the “slow lane” on the Internet, discouraging millions of would-be learners from pursuing further education to improve their careers and local economies. Research conducted on these learning models would also be hampered, slowing progress and the growth of services that depend on efficient access to resources.

We therefore agree with the comments of the startup community, investors, nonprofits, and millions of Americans calling for rules against unreasonable discrimination and access fees under Title II, and we disagree with the comments by AT&T, Verizon, Comcast in favor of the Chairman’s fast-lane proposal.

Thanks to volunteer Lila Bailey for helping us file!

What is openness? What are the different kinds of openness? Why engage in open activities, and what potential problems or obstacles might there be to doing so? These are some of the questions we’ll discuss in a course called “Why Open?,” at the School of Open from August 10 – September 5, 2014. This is the second iteration of this course, the first having taken place in August 2013.

We are still working on a few details about the course, but you can get a good sense of what we’ll do by visiting the course page. The topics for the four weeks are:

1. What Does Open Mean? During this first week we’ll discuss what we think the various meanings of “open” are, and explore what others have said as well.
2. Open licenses, and “open” vs “free”: During the second week we’ll talk about open licenses (especially Creative Commons licenses) and similarities/differences between what is open and what is free. We’ll also start working on a group project to engage in a particular open practice.
3. Open practices: During the third week we’ll work in small groups on an open practice, chosen by the group, then write a reflection on that experience.
4. Openness: benefits and issues: In the last week we’ll finish off the course by trying to answer the question in the title: Why open? What are the benefits to openness, and what are some of the potential problems involved? How might we address those problems?

Two badges are available for participants:

• A badge for completing the open practice in Week 3.
• A final course badge for completing a portfolio of work in the course along with a final reflection.

We will also host at least two Google Hangouts with guest speakers who have expertise in the topics being discussed for a particular week (maybe three; we’re still finalizing these!), and at least one Twitter chat during the course (more if there is interest!). Participants will mostly be communicating and submitting assignments via Discourse (the tool used to host P2PU community discussion and School of Open community discussion), though we may also work together on some collaborative documents on Hackpad.

Registration is open now! We’d love for you to join us; please pass this information on to anyone you think might be interested!

To join the course, simply click the ‘Start Course’ button on the bottom left of the course page.