I was watching the Republic Day parade at Rajpath in New Delhi on
January 26, 2015 at Doordarshan, the public service television of India.
Doordarshan covers the public functions, particularly the Republic Day
and Independence Day in a sophisticated manner using lots of media
gadgets. After completion of about two hours programme, I could not
stop myself watching the news stories and their presentations at other
private television channels. I was feeling like watching same event
again and again, a sort of deja vu!. All those private channels were
using the same footages of Doordarshan (with of course attribution).
Immediately, a concept came into my mind. Whether these materials, means
the pictures, video footages can be considered as educational material
or informational material?
The concept of ‘Open Educational Resources (OER)’ has gained momentum
among the academia. We can easily comprehend the basic objectives of
OER. Defining OER perhaps is not a complex concern. These are simply
educational resources or materials available for public with a flexible
copyright protection or may be with the provisions of copyleft. Creative Commons defines
Open Educational Resources (OER) as the teaching, learning, and
research materials in any medium that reside in the public domain or
have been released under an open license that permits their free use and
re-purposing by others. Atkins, Brown, & Hammond (2007)
state that Open Educational Resources (OER) are teaching, learning, and
research resources that reside in the public domain or have been
released under an intellectual property license that permits their free
use or re-purposing by others. Downes
(2011) says that Open Educational Resources (OER) are materials used to
support education that may be freely accessed, reused, modified and
shared by anyone. Professor Asha Kanwar stated
in a blog that there has been a great deal of discussion regarding the
potential for open educational resources (OER) in higher education to
increase access, reduce costs and enhance educational quality in the
entire Globe.
The term "open educational resources" was first adopted at UNESCO's
2002 Forum on the Impact of Open Courseware for Higher Education in
developing countries. The Paris OER Declaration 2002 defines
the OER as “teaching, learning and research materials in any medium,
digital or otherwise, that reside in the public domain or have been
released under an open license that permits no-cost access, use,
adaptation and redistribution by others with no or limited restrictions.
Open licensing is built within the existing framework of intellectual
property rights as defined by relevant international conventions and
respects the authorship of the work.”
In all these definitions it can be prominently noted that the right
of access, adaptation, and republication of educational materials are
the characteristics of OER. Everywhere it is clear that such resources
as OER are used for educational purpose, research and development,
teaching-learning process. But if the materials are used only to
disseminate information or entertainment, then will they be considered
as educational material? As a media educator we often tell that
communication has three basic and distinct functions – providing
information, education, and entertainment. So, the question arises, for
information dissemination or any other communication functions, the open
resources should be termed as OER or it can be defined as either Open
Media Resources or Open Information Resources or Open Communication
Resources? Should we need another term to describe the open materials
with the objective not to educate, but to inform or entertain?
OERs can be reused, redistributed, re-purposed and retained for
educational, research and developmental purposes. But, the materials,
which are being used only for information dissemination and
entertainment, need to be characterised with another terminology. For
instance, a feature film or a song can be promoted under a creative
commons license. But it may not have educational value, any immediate
developmental or research value. Again, there is a small difference
between information and education. Education is a deliberate act or a
process of acquiring or providing knowledge. On the contrary,
information is an act or process of informing or the condition of being
informed which may not have any educational value or increase the
knowledge level of recipient. In such cases, can we include all the
materials with informational and entertainment value under the single
umbrella of OER? We can understand that these information and
entertainment materials under any creative commons license or in the
public domain with absolute copyleft policy can be available in any form
of media- virtual, print, audio, video through any mediated form of
communication.
I personally believe that for these materials, which do not have
educational content can be designated with a new term, such as Open
Media Resources or Open Information Resources or Open Communication
Resources. There is no need to elaborate on the words ‘open’ and
‘resources’. But, what will be the appropriate word to identify these
types of materials- ‘information’, ‘communication’ or ‘media’?
Information cannot be used to describe entertainment. Communication is
an act or an instance of sharing or exchanging thoughts, information,
ideas, or feelings. And, media are the tools of communication, such as
any print, audio, video. To define these materials, Open Media Resources
(OMR) may be more appropriate than Open Educational Resources (OER).
By
Dr. Ankuran Dutta
Associate Professor & Head
Department of Communication and Journalism
Gauhati University, Guwahati, Assam
