Maria said: Do you know of more good (non-evil) examples of using this economic model? >
Facilitating Online Communities<http://www.wikieducator.org/Facilitating_online_communities>follows this model. Participation is free, accreditation comes at a fee. This year we are aiming to offer accreditation free as well - running the course 100% on the small government subsidy we get, and offering the course and accreditation free to all. We will be testing this on the Flexible Learning<http://www.wikieducator.org/Designing_for_flexible_learning_practice>course starting in March. (NB, the page is getting an overhaul at the moment). On Sun, Feb 1, 2009 at 10:03 PM, Scott Newson <scott.g.new...@gmail.com>wrote: > Maria's comment about the 'price of entry' is very interesting, I never > thought about the non-monetary costs of access to educational resources. I > also agree with Maria in that there can be reasonable differentiation > between the free resources and the for-cost resources provided by a project. > The statements that the university will "not charge students to take > classes" and that there are examinations "for which students must pay a... > fee" do not seem contradictory to me. The resources that have per-use cost > (such as blocks of face-to-face instructional time, or graded > examinations), need that cost to be covered by someone, and I see no reason > why it shouldn't be those who benefit from the given resource. > As a counterpoint to what I have just said I would like to clearly voice my > support for open educational resources. Resources that are free to develop, > copy, and distribute should not have arbitrary limitations on their access. > > Having taken only a quick tour through cramster.com, I agree with the > previous comments that it seems to be a website with a single-minded focus > on providing correct solutions for homework problems at the expense of > explaining the answers and supporting learning. This is unfortunate, but I > wouldn't see it as proof that it's founder is just out to make a profit from > by supporting cheating. Optimistically it would just seem to be a well > minded project that got co-opted by the wrong users and ended up as a tool > to improve grades by collecting answers to questions. (I've heard of several > student clubs with that as their main goal. Some were even funded by student > union fees...) > > What about the theoretical idea of providing a completely open resouce > university or educational facility based solely on the internet? It seems at > first glance to be very much along the lines of what WikiEducator is aiming > for, but perhaps open education resouces would be better used as supporting > resources in real institutions with more traditional structure... > > Thanks for the varied thoughts and comments! > > Scott > > On Thu, Jan 29, 2009 at 4:57 AM, Maria Droujkova <droujk...@gmail.com>wrote: > >> I am thinking of an economic model where resources that don't require >> human support - lecture tapes, class notes, problems and solutions, software >> - are free, but there may be associated "human services" that are neither >> mandatory, nor free. Isn't it like MIT, though? You can get all their >> "stuff" online free, but services such as participatory learning with live >> students and professors, or being graded on your tests, are not free (nor >> easily accessible, for that matter - the "price of entry" is steep in time >> and effort). >> >> Do you know of more good (non-evil) examples of using this economic model? >> >> > > > > -- -- Leigh Blackall +64(0)21736539 skype - leigh_blackall SL - Leroy Goalpost http://learnonline.wordpress.com http://www.wikieducator.org/User:Leighblackall --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "WikiEducator" group. To visit wikieducator: http://www.wikieducator.org To visit the discussion forum: http://groups.google.com/group/wikieducator To post to this group, send email to wikieducator@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to wikieducator-unsubscr...@googlegroups.com -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
