OOER future scenarios for OER use

To explore the possible impact of JorumOpen the following ‘future scenarios’ pose relevant questions and issues for existing collaborations, as recommended by the project.

Scenario 1

Could widespread OER strategies for releasing resources more openly (making content unilaterally available) encourage uptake of existing or new collaborations/consortia?

·       Greater access to open resources could drive down the costs associated with the collaboration, thus making it more accessible to a wider membership. A collaboration might harvest content from JorumOpen into their local/shared repository to supplement local provision. The nature of the collaboration might change from development to facilitating the uptake/adaptation of OER resources, and development of expertise in this as a service (see scenario 2). It is possible that simply better marketing though national or international repositories might increase interest in those producing materials, and uptake, at least until the new partner was confident/had developed expertise in the approaches developed within the collaboration. JorumOpen, as a national repository, may not serve the branding and other needs of an international consortium.

·       There is a widely held view, with a sound basis in marketing, that releasing a sample of a product encourages uptake, otherwise known as a loss leader[1]. Contributions to OER from collaborations with an emphasis on developing high quality content may highlight the value of joining the consortia in terms of time savings on searching – high quality materials are already available. For example, if IVIMEDS made some exemplar materials available via JorumOpen or MedEdPORTAL then they might compare very favourably available with other content (a ‘shop window). There are some specific potential additional benefits such as cost saving to collaborations as they could move their hosting solution thus reducing the costs associated with managing a repository (and the service implications).

·       Cost savings potential would have to be offset against any possible loss of revenue from subscriptions. However, the purpose/focus of the consortium might change to one of service support to partners (helping them to use OER), access to networking opportunities or software provision. Also, peer-reviewing OER may provide a revenue stream (depending on costs/benefits).

·       Currently the UK OER policy is that deposits will be made by UK institutions however, should a collaboration deposit international materials into JorumOpen how are deposits going to be policed? Is it beneficial to include international material? Please see scenario 4 for elaboration of this question.

Scenario 2

What happens when a significant number of resources are available on JorumOpen? The following issues arise:

·       How do you find the most relevant and quality material for your needs?

·       Large numbers of resources will be available to do the same job, such as hand washing, whilst more specialist areas will be neglected – how do you to discriminate between different provision?

·       Will there be peer review via, for example, a long peer review by a content expert (cost implications as above) or a user ‘star’ system based on personal opinion generating in essence multiple reviews?

·       How will JorumOpen deal with version control of ER which have been updated (practically and technically)?

Scenario 3

What happens if collaborations/consortia cease to be financially viable?

·       Is the collaboration strong enough to defend its brand or not (or that of the individual partner institutions)? Would the weakest partners be asked to leave - survival of the fittest (who did the most work in the first place)?

·       How would the assets be divided? Who would be in a position to act as an agent?

·       Would the possibility of advertising content (see scenario 1 above) on JorumOpen generate sufficient revenue for depositors?  For example, the top performing download, the top reviewed download.

·       Could JorumOpen be adapted to manage financial transactions e.g. micropayments; on behalf of depositors?

Scenario 4

What affect is there on countries less well provided for?

·       Materials are primarily in English which may not be the first language of the user.

·       Developing countries could benefit greatly from OER as many are precluded from the costly subscription charges to journals and some collaborations/repositories. The open resources would provide them with current and up to date research and teaching materials for healthcare.

·       However, it should be noted that as only UK based resources will be deposited in JorumOpen many of these will potentially not be regionally relevant to developing countries which is something that is crucial in some instances[2].

Scenario 5

What if an international country whose local legislation ignores copyright mirrors all of the content from JorumOpen?

·       If they then give content away locally as their own (breaching CC IPR) who would sue?

Alternatively, an individual or collaboration could provide their own repository software thus selling value-added interface.  That is the content would still be freely available but the repository itself could be profitable.