Our Forum for ‘Open’ Dialogue
Posted on October 15, 2009 by Ken Udas
[Editor’s Note: It is my distinct pleasure to bring you this first post of many more to come from UMassOnline’s Chief Executive Officer Dr. Ken Udas who joined us in September. Dr. Udas has been an active blogger and advocate for social media and open knowledge for many years and is a leading contributor of ideas to the global dialogue on educational access, open educational resources, and the internationalization of education. (Jen Brady, UMassOnline Director of Marketing)]
A good place to start and perhaps one way to introduce myself best is to use some of the words I offered in this post in 2008 to capture my core educational interests:
Two of the things that I am passionate about are a) making accessible and high-quality educational services available principally to non-traditional learners and b) the use of Open Educational Resources (OER) toward that end. So, if you are a “full-time student” and spend more time at a destination campus or university library than at work, in prison, driving a cab, sitting in airports, gathering water, etc., you are probably not the student that I spend most of my time thinking about. But you probably will be someday — or your partners are, or your kids will be, because they and you will then fall into the category of “non-traditional learner,” along with the vast majority of learners in the world (who are, in fact, only “non-traditional” from the perspective of the higher education elite).
With that in mind, in my role as a participant in the dialogue here, I hope to contribute in at least a couple of ways. First, I welcome the chance to present my views and pose questions about our societal mission by which I mean our use of knowledge as the single most powerful way to improve the quality of life and people’s human rights worldwide. I believe the flow of information and ideas is the number one currency of the global economy and that by finding better and different and more affordable ways to deliver education to a diversity of people, cultures, and economies we can lift whole nations to a better, safer, more peaceful way of life. Clearly, I think Open Educational Resources and “Open Access” are critical components of establishing this reach, this affordability, and this ubiquity.
But I’m just one of many contributors in the community of thinkers who are deeply committed to knowledge-sharing and testing the edges of established practices and methods with new ideas that can upend barriers to educational access. Therefore a second contribution I hope to make is to invite some of the clearest and ardent voices available to join our discussion. These guests will be from our larger community, providing dissenting as well are harmonious voices. They will join us from within our institution as well as from external organizations, but all united by their pointed views on the general themes of OER, Open Access and educational internationalization in our service to society.
In the coming weeks, we will start building the dialogue and I will let you know who will be joining the forum as our first guest and will outline what the post will discuss. But I can imagine this much already: we ought to expect that some very provocative, edgy, sometimes radical, and even perhaps controversial views will be aired here (at least for some). But the presentation and open discussion of strong ideas and new concepts from all perspectives is, has been, and always will be the hallmark of the world class university experience. That said, without diversity the promise of higher education and this role of this forum will likely go unfulfilled, so, we invite recommendations for guest bloggers and suggestions of how to open the circle to include as many voices as possible. So, if you would like to blog here, know somebody who would, or just have an idea for an interesting topic, please feel free to share with us by emailing the team here at blog@UMassOnline.net. In addition, always feel free to comment, share your ideas, and mix it up a bit!
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