The Impact of Open Source

Open Yale Courses: A free open website offering a number of introductory courses taught by Yale University professors.

http://oyc.yale.edu/

This week's application is to evaluate an open source course available on the Internet, considering the standards and guidelines that should be use in distance learning courses. "Open source software is intend to be freely shared and be improved upon and redistributed to others." "Open source does not mean unlicensed. Open source software typically has a license, but the terms of the license should comply with the Open Source Initiative definition before the software is truly open source." (Simonson, M., Smaldino, S., Albright, M., & Zvacek, S., 2012, pp. 141)

Walden University provided some links from Open Course Websites to chose one and reflect about what I learned from this week. I will consider the fundamentals of teaching online shared by Simonson, et al., (2012) in our course text.

1. Avoid “Dumping” a Face-to-Face Course onto the Web
2. Organize the Course and Make the Organization and Requirements Clear to Students
3. Keep Students Informed Constantly
4. Think about Course Outcomes
5. Test Applications, Not Rote Memory
6. Integrate the Power of the Web into the Course
7. Apply Adult Learning Principles with Nontraditional Students
8. Extend Course Readings Beyond the Text
9. Train Students to Use the Course Website
(Simonson et al., 2012, pp.134-137)

The open course that I decided to evaluate is Open Yale Courses. This courses provide free and open access to a selection of introductory courses taught by distinguished teachers and scholars at Yale University. (Open Yale courses website, 2012). This open source was open to everyone, and it did not require a registration process in order to have access to the information. Learners are not going to acquire course credit, degree or certificate. This site provides several courses from 20 different departments. I decided to explore the astronomy department, which includes courses in astronomy, physics, and mathematics.

I had the opportunity to explore Frontiers and Controversies in Astrophysics. It is great to have access to this open source without registration, but the on this way the instructor does not know who are the learners. "Taking the time to learn about the learners in the class yields a more productive learning environment." (Simonson, et al., 2012, pp. 154). At the same time, this open source fails to meet the primary consideration to integrate the power of the web into the course. In other words, "no powerful opportunities for resource utilization, collaboration, and communication" (Simonson, et al., 2012, pp. 136) are offer on this open source course. It is clear that this course did not avoid "Dumping" a face-to-face course onto the web. (p. 134), the course was video-taped and shared to learners via you-tube. The open course is providing two ways to have access to the content with a link to view class sessions and downloading all course pages. The crucial problem is that it does not provide the "goals and objectives for instruction" (p. 158), and there is "no detailed assignment instruction" (p. 134), as well as no announcement tools to "keep students informed constantly" (p. 135), and "no training to students about how to use the course website" (p.137).

The course has two midterm exams, and the learners can have access to PDF examples and responses. This confirm that the course was design to be face-to-face and dumped to the web. "Student assessment must be designed to reflect the specific behaviors identified in the course outcomes" (p. 135). Again this course does not have interaction among learners and instructor, making it impossible to offer other forms of testing, and we are not sure if the learner is acquiring the information. The design of this course is not following the distance learning guidelines. There is no contemplation for learning styles, and learning environment.

In conclusion, there are many benefits of open source including the price "free". You can learn about one topic using the benefits of distance learning. However, no course credit, degree, or certificate is available. The course about Frontiers and Controversies in Astrophysics offered a full set of class lectures and other course materials. The lectures are available through PDFs and videos. This are some of the benefits that this open source provided, still the weaknesses that I found make this course does not fit to all learners. It seems to be a great face-to-face course with very experienced instructors, but "online activities for students should have specific pedagogical or course management purposes." (Simonson et al., 2012 p. 134).

References

Simonson, M., Smaldino, S., Albright, M., & Zvacek, S. (2012). Teaching and learning at a distance: Foundations of distance education (5th ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson.

http://oyc.yale.edu/astronomy