Sharing isn't the number one trait that comes to mind when talking about education and academia. At least, not for me. Sure, I sat together with colleagues and discussed my ideas on research and teaching (general stuff on approaches and philosophy as well as specific assignments) with them and commented on their ideas on innumerous occasions. I have used ready course material made by previous teachers and later modified them to suit me better. This sharing has occurred in small closed circles. Of course, I have, as have many others, put the material up on the university network that can be accessed by students and staff, but this too is a closed network. If someone asked me permission to use the material, I never refused them. In fact, in the back of my mind, I thought that having put the material on the semi-open network I had given it for anyone to use. I'm sure this is true of many of my colleagues. I heard of Creative Commons, but I never bothered to delve to find out more. Now, having done so, I know how wrong I was.
Thinking about how I shared my material, I realise it was never a conscious decision that I was going to do so. I primarily wanted that the course material was available to the students, that it was logically presented, it was understandable, and that there were no factual errors. Knowing that the material was to be posted on the university network for the students to access, I put in a lot of time and effort to ensure that the material was up to the mark. For the material for one course that I built from scratch, I asked my immediate colleagues to first help me outline the course outcomes and contents and then, when I had made my slides, I asked them to comment on them. That was as open as collaboration on developing course material got.
Through deeper introspection on the issue of sharing study material, I am inclined to conclude that despite all the effort I had this niggling fear that the quality of the content might not be up to par. There was also the issue of copyright law: was I perhaps breaking the law? However, there was also this little capitalist within me who was worried that someone might exploit my work without permission, and we can't have that now, can we? These appear to be fears common to most academic teaching staff (Maloney et al). Additionally, I wasn't aware of where I could upload my material for the world to use, had I consciously wanted to do so. Again I am not alone on this point either (Anyangwe).
Now that we know, let us overcome these little self-imposed barriers to sharing and benefit from that something when we share... and the world will benefit too.
References
Anyangwe, E. Why don't more academics use open educational resources? Higher eductaion network blog. October 2011. Retrieved on 8.4.2017 from https://www.theguardian.com/higher-education-network/blog/2011/oct/05/open-educational-resources-academics
Bower, Bruce. Kids own up to ownership. ScienceNews May 2011. Available to members at https://www.sciencenews.org/article/kids-own-ownership. For a commentary, see Clabough, Raven. "Scientific evidence proves capitalist ideas may be innate," The New American. June 2011. https://www.thenewamerican.com/economy/commentary/item/4023-scientific-evidence-proves-capitalist-ideas-may-be-innate.
Maloney, S., Moss, A., Keating, J., Kotsanas, G.,and Morgan, P. Sharing teaching and learning resources: perceptions of a university's faculty members. Medical Education. July 2013. DOI:
10.1111/medu.12225.
Smith, Christian and Davidson, Hilary. The paradox of generosity. Oxford University Press, 2014.
Smith, Jordan Michael. "Want to be happy? Stop being so cheap." New Republic, September 2014. Retrieved on 31.3.2017 from https://newrepublic.com/article/119477/science-generosity-why-giving-makes-you-happy.
Hi Luis, what an insightful post, and I really like that you talk to our inner child. This post made me think of two things:
ReplyDelete1) That the need for incentives to become more sharing and caring seems to be increasing. Why is there no award for teachers who share their material?
2) As a Swedish person, fostered in a community where it was not considered as 'nice' to brag about your own accomplishment and share your success (you have probably heard of 'Jantelagen'?), I would have appreciated some training in being humble but correct in order to build up confidence to share my lecture material. It is not always easy to sit tall and proud when you see your own spelling mistakes being duplicated on servers world-wide.
Or, what do you think?
An ward for teachers that share their material, now that's a superb idea! I'm sure that would start a race to share, somewhat in the way that the Nobel prizes motivate a lot of scientists. :)
DeleteStrangely enough, I hadn't heard of Jantelagen until now (I looked it up). The same attitude prevails here in Finland too. There is a Finnish saying that goes something like "they who find happiness should hide it", which is in a sense a by-law of Jante's law.
I have learned not to worry too much about little errors since they do not matter, most people ignore them. Some years ago, primarily due to too much work and the resulting lack of time, I consciously decided not to prepare at all before my classes, just a glimpse at the topic of the day and off to class... During that semester I made lots of mistakes on the board, sometimes spoke utter rubbish---which I often realised when I heard myself speak or a sharp student questioned me---and I had to constantly correct myself. Surprising the experience was a positive one for me, it was a very rewarding semester, and the student feedback was overwhelmingly good. Since then I've let myself make mistakes without feeling awful about it.
Hi Luis! Thank you for a thoughtful post. I rather liked your connection to how we are fostered as children. It affects you more than you know even when you´ve reached adulthood which Sofie´s post also shows. It is a bit scary letting you material wander of hand in hand with someone else but it´s also kind of remarkable seeing your material transfer into a new idea. It´s kind of like sharing seeds. Depending on the soil the growth will vary.
ReplyDeleteI too think that we sometimes are too afraid to try due to copywrite laws and other regulations. But I´m happy that CreativeCommons have emerged allowing us to do this more easily. So to conclude - I´m with you - more sharing will create more benefits and more learning.
/ Viktoria, PBL7
Our material already wanders off in the form of printed handouts, the pdfs circulate far wider than we realise or know. Making the conscious decision to allow this to happen is what we need to do and not worry too much about errors in the material. You are absolutely right about how remarkable it is seeing your material evolve into new ideas.
DeleteYes, let's overcome the sharing threshold/ delningströskeln!
ReplyDeleteI think jantelagen, in this HE setting, is connected to the absence of incentives and award for sharing your teaching ideas or your teaching material. When publishing articles, you have a lot of biometrical scales and institutional and department rewards.