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In June 2012, Campus Technology interviewed some higher education leaders in the use of open educational resources (OER) to discuss the major challenges to more prevalent adoption of free and open …

You are here: Home / Ed Tech / Project Blue Sky: Big Boost to OER From . . . Pearson?Project Blue Sky: Big Boost to OER From . . . Pearson? Phil Hill · Nov 20, 2012 · In June 2012, Campus Technology interviewed some higher education leaders in the use of open educational resources (OER) to discuss the major challenges to more prevalent adoption of free and open resources. The top two challenges mentioned in the article were: discovering material efficiently due to the vast quantity of resources; and getting faculty to move beyond the “textbook is the course” mindset. In a move that could have a significant impact on higher education, Pearson announced just before EDUCAUSE the creation of Project Blue Sky, which directly addresses both of these challenges. From the article: There are too many resources to choose from. OER may be a new concept for some professors, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t enough resources to go around. In fact, Geoff Cain, director of distance education for Eureka, CA-based College of the Redwoods, said the number of resources is so vast that it can literally paralyze instructors. “Helping faculty find appropriate resources is a major issue,” said Cain, whose institution is a member of the Community College Consortium for Open Educational Resources.[snip] Cain said impressing upon the educators the fact that they already “adapt” coursework and textbooks to meet student needs is a good way to help break them out of the “textbook is the course” mindset. “Teachers skip chapters, incorporate current events, and drill down on specific student needs all the time,” said Cain. “OERs are really just an extension of that.” While anecdotal, the findings of this article (at least on discoverability) are backed up by an upcoming report from the Babson Survey Research Group that lists the barriers to adoption of OER from a faculty study. Pearson, Gooru and Project Blue Sky So what is this new service from Pearson and what is the partnership with Gooru? In the web site description: Project Blue Sky allows instructors to search, select, and seamlessly integrate Open Educational Resources with Pearson learning materials. Using text, video, simulations, Power Point and more, instructors can create the digital course materials that are just right for their courses and their students. Pearson’s Project Blue Sky is powered by Gooru Learning, a search engine for learning materials. Gooru Learning itself has a pedigree that is worth considering. Gooru is developed by Ednovo, the nonprofit education startup founded by Prasad Ram. Ram has a rich history in Silicon Valley, including work at Xerox PARC, Yahoo! and Google. While Director of Engineering for Google Research, Ram developed the concept for using search technology to discover educational content. Ram decided to leave Google in January 2011 and pursue this concept. Ram has started an education focused non-profit startup called Ednovo, which is going to build upon Gooru, a free web based education solution that was begun as a ’20% effort’ at Google, and piloted in India with 25 classrooms and 1000 students. Gooru allows teachers to use openly licensed web resources, find lesson plans on all subjects and topics and then customize it to their specific needs, with rich multimedia content including videos, slides, and simulations. In a sign of OER’s growing importance for higher education and for large corporations dealing in education, Pearson and Google are providing the resources and research inspiration to improve the discoverability of open resources. Of course the project is not all about OER, as it combines searchable content from 25 different open-license databases along with Pearson’s own content. The video below, from a preview of Blue Sky on their web site, shows the combination of both content types. Project Blue Sky is not the first system from a publisher to allow the combination of OER and paid content into custom course materials. Cengage’s MindTap has been a leader in this field for several years. What seems to be a first, however, is the combination of discoverability across such a broad base of OER in combination with publisher / OER integrated material. Move Towards Competition of Content Pearson seems to be taking a risk with Project Blue Sky by allowing their content to be more directly listed alongside OER content. From Steve Kolowich at Inside Higher Ed: Pearson says it is confident that facilitating OER discovery will not undermine the company’s own products. “We clearly believe our content is superior to OER content… but we recognize there is a place for OER in the current environment,” says Kilburn. “If we can’t compete effectively there, we have a bigger problem,” he says. Although not a major part of the discussions at EDUCAUSE, Pearson seems to be open to including other publisher content in the Blue Sky platform should their competitors be interested. In addition to OER content, Kilburn says the company may consider letting...