The Impact of Open Source:

The ability of a distance learning experience to be valuable is dependent upon several factors. Perhaps one of the most crucial aspects of providing a quality educational experience, as pointed out by Dr Piskurich, is the design of the learning environment. It must be must be carefully planned and prepared. If a learning experience is designed to follow the cyclical evolution, as described by Zemsky and Massy, the designer must first look to first enhance the current course/program’s configuration.  Faculty does this by introducing basic-level technologies into their course (Simonson & Smaldino).  Before beginning the second cycle where the designer will begin to shift resources to an online format, the instructional designer will have to choose a CMS.  This is a crucial point in which a designer may choose to develop the course in a for-profit CMS such as Blackboard, or in an Open source CMS like Moodle.  

Of course a for-profit CMS like Blackboard will be able to provide more support because of the income they are receiving allows them to employ a tech support staff. This may seem like an easy choice when considering that fact; however, there are drawbacks associated with choosing a for profit CMS as the delivery system.  Past precedents of questionable business ethics have to be considered as well by the designer when choosing a CMS/LMS.

“During the 2004-2006 period, Blackboard itself through a series of actions largely viewed by the educational community as arrogant, may have driven some if not many of its current and potential customers to reconsider open source CMS products.  Blackboard first purchased and absorbed its primary rival, WebCT, then it secured a ‘prior art’, then it sued its next most prominent competitor, Desire2Learn, for patent infringement. These moves infuriated Blackboard’s main customer base, with the long-term fallout yet to be assessed.” (Simonson 2012)

Perhaps not entirely in response to the action Blackboard took the Sakai project was developed.  Sakai is a an open source CMS collaboration between the University of Michigan, Indiana University, MIT, Stanford, OKI, and the Uportal Consortium. On October 21st 2004 an organizational PDF was published in where issues of converging trends of data standards, technical standards, institution mobilization, and foundation investments played a major role in developing this Institutional Partnership (Amitava ‘Babi’ Mitra 2004). It also makes a distinction between the services it will provide juxtaposed to the traditional concept of CMS/LMS. The institutions that are members of the project “Have decided to integrate and synchronize their considerable educational software into a pre-integrated collection of open source tools termed Collaborative Learning Environment, (CLE)” (Amitava ‘Babi’ Mitra 2004)  

The analysis conducted by the members of this project into what future student needs will be, and how to most effectively meet them is in depth. Issues addressing the CLE’s Architecture, framework requirements, user interface, features, options, choices, and potential future developments are all covered along with many other important factors related to the overall learning experience.

The design of the CLE that has been developed by the Sakai group is very effective. The visual layout of the website makes it extremely easy to navigate.  Accessing information and courses in a specific field or area of interest is extremely easy.  Once at the page for a particular course the Syllabus is the first tab below the course home page.  Within the syllabus a simple course description and how the learner will be assessed is listed.  Below the link to the course Syllabus are other tabs with links to; readings, assignments, projects, related resources, download for course materials.  With each of these subsequent links are pages with the same level of clarity and ease of use. This provides a structure for the learner that is very intuitive and easy to navigate even for people who maybe technophobes.

The development and addition of resources and classes in this open source distance learning environment is continuous.  It appears to be a closed loop system in which the ADDIE model is being applied to create more effective and efficient learning experiences for the end users. Currently the latest patch for the Sakai CLE is 2.9.2 which indicates the constant development implementation and evaluation that has be occurring since 2004.  As of the beginning of this year the Open Course service Sakai has just merged with Jasig (a consortium of educational institutions and commercial affiliates sponsoring open source software projects for higher education ( http://www.jasig.org/). This development is currently underway and board members are actively being sought as this merger continues to develop.

Although the Open courses provided by these institutions of higher education seem fantastical it is not the preferred form of a learning environment.  According to Dr. Piskurich this form of delivery would be his last of five possible choices. This learning environment can be defined as an asynchronous student lead. This type of distance learning could be further classified as student-program instruction because it, “...uses extremely loose structure where only the framework of the content is provided to online learners who are expected to provide the structure, outcomes, and sequence of learning.”(Simonson and Smaldino 2012)

Overall as a learning environment and experience is the Open Course format provided by Sakai the best possible way to learn? No it is not. Face-to-face and one-on-one interaction has throughout human evolution has been the best way for people to learn.  However, when considering the efficiency of this learning design is is horribly inefficient.  Is Open Course offerings then the solution to all efficiency problems of education? No. If it is used in a proper setting there is a good chance it provide a valuable learning experience for the student

As Professor Eric Klopfer puts it, “Learning is about experiencing not lecturing”, and in the correct setting Open Sources classes can do that for learners.  I think that most professionals in the field of education would agree with that statement.

Work Cited

Knoop,Peter.“WhatisSakai”retrievedfromhttps://confluence.sakaiproject.org/display/CONF/Welcome+to+the+Sakai+wiki(retrieved June 10^th 2013)

Jasig News http://www.jasig.org/(retrieved June 10^th 2013)

Welcome to Apereo.http://www.apereo.org/ (retrieved June 10^th 2013)

Planning and Designing Online Courses"

Dr. George Piskurich and instructional technologist Jacqueline Chauser discuss the process and considerations for building an online course.(Retrieved June 10^th  2013)

Simonson, M., Smaldino, S., Albright, M., & Zvacek, S. (2012). Teaching and Learning at a Distance: foundations of Distance Education. Boston: Pearson Education, Inc.