Social and Institutional Interoperability

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Discussion

Leslie Chan:

"The term interoperability is generally understood to be a technical practice of ensuring that different computing systems can communicate and that diverse digital objects could be easily exchanged and retrieved through a common protocol. In the open access environment, the Open Archive Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (OAI-PMH) has become the de facto standard for ensuring discovery and retrieval of OA objects. Interoperability is particularly important, as common-based production has been spreading rapidly across the various knowledge domains, from software to scholarly publications to educational materials. The Open Educational Resources (OER) movement is now a significant force in education and it also has great potential for transforming the nature of access to knowledge not only in the industrialized world, but also in fostering endogenous development and South–South collaboration.

The OA movement and the OER movements have been developing somewhat independently, with different agendas, institutional affiliations, strategies, technical tools and standards. Both movements, however, are also supported by the development of open source tools, reflecting the common philosophy of knowledge sharing and community building. These independent developments reflect to some extent the separation between teaching and research in most higher education institutions, where research tends to be more highly regarded and rewarded. It is time for a more coordinated effort between the two movements, and more emphasis on ensuring interoperability between open access scholarly repositories, learning management systems and learning objects repositories. The convergence of the two movements is natural given the deep interconnection between teaching, learning and research and it is surprising that little dialogue has taken place across the communities until recently.

While it is important to ensure technical interoperability, it is just as crucial to ensure social and institutional interoperability because ‘the institutional framework we use to manage the stock of existing information and knowledge around the world – can have significant impact on human development’ (Benkler, p. 310). In this regard, it is likely that developments such as the Creative Commons and Science Commons will play a key role in ensuring institutional interoperability.

In addition to technical and institutional interoperability, there is also social or organizational interoperability that needs attention. Even though the OA and OER communities are distinct, they are relatively permeable, as interest in the development of learning resources and the dissemination of knowledge is seldom driven by political or monetary concerns. This is not the case with many development-related initiatives, which are often dictated by the interest of public–private partnerships.

As an example, there are currently over 100 such partnerships operating in the ‘research for health’ arena, including MMV (Medicines for Malaria Venture), the Stop TB Partnership, IAVI (International AIDS Vaccine Initiative) and many more. They have undoubtedly boosted research activity in providing medicines for neglected diseases in recent years, and have created effective channels for joint international, philanthropic and private funding efforts. There are, however, serious questions with regard to the governance of these multiple initiatives, and the ways in which the partnerships are structured. There is often a duplication of efforts, as knowledge created is often kept in silos that are inaccessible. Indeed, the problem of reinventing the wheel is all too common in the development arena and an open and transparent environment would ensure a more efficient funding and knowledge building environment.

As commons-based production becomes more widespread across various knowledge and cultural domains and as more organizations (both public and private) begin to ride the wave, the issues of technical, institutional and organizational interoperability and governance will become increasingly important. Will international governing bodies for OA and OER be necessary? Or should these initiatives be left on their own, to grow and to perish, depending on the demands and usage by the creators and the users? When would institutional policies be necessary and how would they affect participants’ behaviour? The network information economy is ripe with interesting research questions with practical and policy consequences. Benkler’s book will keep students and scholars of the new economy busy for years to come."


Source

URL = http://dx.doi.org/10.2304/pfie.2008.6.2.152

Also reproduced as chapter 11 of the book: Education in the Creative Economy