I like the term open teaching (OpenTeach?) because it helps distinguish one kind of open education goal– provision of open materials (though, as I discussed earlier, that goal can and does stem from widely divergent motivations)– from the necessarily (?) related objective of teaching an open class. Of course an open learner might be taking part in or making use of open materials in any of the three major ways: as a guided learner whose guide is using open materials in a closed course, as a student in an open course, or as an independent learner.
"Open Education" is a vast area with many different territories. "Open Learning" encompasses a diverse group with some strikingly dissimilar needs. An "Open Course" might refer to a list of readings, a "complete" course without instructor, or a guided course. And then at some point a course becomes large enough or guided enough or at least some kind of schedule is suggested and it becomes a "Massively Online Open Course".
Then there are those labels and titles of initiatives that seem to cut various slices of the open education pie: OCW, OER, OpenEd…
It’s a bewildering array of options that makes discussion about accreditation (amongst other topics) difficult because I, at least, am unsure what kind of open education is being discussed at any given time. If "Open Accreditation" is referring to ways in which to confer some kind of material value to the learner who has succeeded in an "Open Teaching" environment, the road to accreditation hacking Shangri-La is a bit less hazy– a slightly smaller step– than providing the same service to the independent learner. The biggest problem is that of assessment. In an open teaching class, there is at least someone who could conceivably perform, facilitate, or coordinate assessment activities… in the independent learning scenario there is no one in that role.
[...] about openness is who accredits the accrediting agencies. Thought you might be interested in this post that addresses the idea of open [...]
Chris, I really like how you’re driving this topic and want to join in. Not much time or energy for full-engagement, but let me take a step down one path:
You state that the biggest problem is assessment. Accurate assessment. I believe accurate assessment may be possible without a formal instructor, however it would require academic honesty on the part of the participants. Academic honesty is a key component of this discussion, and it will revisit this open-accreditation dialogue over and over again.
But setting that aside for a moment, let’s think about how assessments could be done without a formal instructor/assessor. There are online quizzes/exams, which are not negligible candidates for comprehensive assessment measures.
But what about other assessment methods that are meticulously set up by faculty/instructional designer and put in the hands of others? A good example: rubric-based peer-assessment. A one-to-one peer assessment may not give reliable results, but a many-to-one peer assessment will give more accurate results, for an individual student may overlook at failed criteria whereas three individuals are less likely to.
I’ve done peer- and self-assessments as a complement to my assessment of projects in both the online classes I teach, and the student assessments usually mirror my own assessments pretty closely. I will grant you that they earn points for doing accurate assessments, and so there may be a behaviorist explanation to the accuracy of their assessments, but it would be worth exploring more.
And what about fee-based comprehensive assessment services provided by a formal “instructor”/assessor? Dave Wiley’s been the focus of examples, so let’s see if he can bear one more: I engage in Dave’s un-facilitated open teaching (open content, resources, activities, project/paper prompts); as part of a self-organized learning community I post my final paper with Dave’s rubric for peer-assessment. They give me feedback, which I incorporate and resubmit to the group until I am ready to submit to the formal assessor–in this case Dave. When I submit it I pay Dave a fee for his time. Maybe $25 US depending on the length of the paper. He then gives his assessment and feedback, which may be certified.
My emphasis on the self-organized learning community is based on my experience in self-organized online writing communities, and listservs, and Web dev/oss discussion forums–there are plenty of people ready to give you their two cents–especially if you can make it easy for them to give it to you (i.e. a rubric). You and many others can probably attest to this.