Open Source Education: Free for all, or freeforall?

Open Source Education

I was thinking about this in Statistics class recently, when our instructor was discussing the institution’s attempt to cut costs by moving away from expensive software and seeking out open source (in other words; FREE) materials. In a time of constrained budgets and expensive licensing agreements, this makes sense. In the case of that classroom, the specific effort is to move away from programs such as SPSS (and presumably SAS) which charge large amounts for licensing their software on a college campus and finding open source material that is free for the institution and the students.

In looking up this a little more, I found this organizations website: http://www.saylor.org/about/

The mission of Saylor.org as noted on their website:

"Our Vision, Our Mission, Our Strategy

We believe that everyone, everywhere should have access to a college education. This website will serve as a zero-cost alternative to those that lack the resources to attend traditional brick-and-mortar institutions and, if they are willing, a complement to mainstream education providers."

This is a radical notion that could change the idea of access to college education worldwide. At the moment, I can already think of ways that I can use it to help our low income students finish out their degrees. Routinely, I will tell students about completing some of their general ed requirements via the CLEP exam (http://clep.collegeboard.org/). It’s the fastest, cheapest way to get college credits. Go in, take an exam in the subject of your choice, and voila, college credits (fi your school accepts them, which we do). CLEP sells study guides fairly cheaply, but I can see students taking advantage of saylor.org and not even having to pay for the study guide. It may not get them all the way to a degree, but it can significantly reduce the time and expense if someone is willing to put in the time to learn what they can through this avenue.

The potential problem, as always, is “who will take advantage of this first, and to what degree?” One can only surmise that those who already have some wealth, and access to high speed internet will be the first to notice, and most likely to utilize this source. How do we get this information to the people who need it the most? Ahh, the great conundrum of higher education providers since the beginning of higher ed….