Monday, March 1

Open Content in Workplace Learning?

One of my Top 10 eLearning Predictions for 2010 was around Open Content for Workplace Learning:

I’m not sure why this already hasn’t had a bigger impact, but workplace learning is going to start to catch up on the value of OCW and OER.

Just visit the OER Commons and Open Courseware Consortium. Do a search on something like “instructional design”. Drill down a bit and there are some incredible resources.

Thus, the March question is:


How do we leverage Open Content in Workplace Learning?


There are quite a few different aspects to this question and I would love to get some different perspectives to weigh in around these different aspects:
  • There were earlier attempts at consortia aimed at creating common content, but these have had different results. Can someone weigh in with what's happened around that? Particularly, what are some of the challenges there?
  • Where does existing open content fit into workplace learning needs?
  • What are some of the bigger challenges?
  • What are the issues around rights with the materials and using it in different situations?
Basically, is there opportunity here. If so, where and how.

How to Respond:

Option 1 - Simply put your thoughts in a comment below. This may be hard given the complexity of the topic.

Option 2 -

Step 1 - Post in your blog (please link to this post).
Step 2 - Put a comment in this blog with an HTML ready link that I can simply copy and paste (an HTML anchor tag). I will only copy and past, thus, I would also recommend you include your NAME immediately before your link. So, it should look like:

Tony Karrer - e-Learning 2.0

or you could also include your blog name with something like:

Tony Karrer - e-Learning 2.0 : eLearningTechnology

Posts so far (and read comments as well):

8 comments:

Jeff Goldman said...

Jeff - My Response to March's Big Question

Paul Angileri said...

Open Content and the Workplace

Anonymous said...

I haven't looked at these sources of open content, but tend to talk about slideshare, TED talks, youtube.edu with corporate clients, as the subject matter is more relevant, and the types of things that are generic enough to be of use are in the "soft skills" (I cringe as I write this) area. Project management, presentation skills. Does that fit the open conent model or am I missing the point?

Tony Karrer said...

Holly that's a great question. I don't specifically think of that when I say Open Content and I believe the rules are different for leveraging content from those sites. Still, I probably should have included that in the mix.

Anonymous said...

I got to thinking a bit more about this after posting a comment and it ended up as a blog post: http://sparkyourinterest.wordpress.com/2010/03/07/how-can-open-education-resources-deliver-value/

Peter Casebow said...

I think it's a really interesting question and my response is about how to maximise the usage of any open content in the workplace. http://goodpractice.com/blog/open-content-in-workplace-learning/

Karl Kapp said...

Interesting question, some thoughts on why it isn't taking off.

Kapp Notes: Why Open Content is Not Yet Adopted in the Workplace

Dan O'Connor said...

Dan O'Connor http://www.powerdiversity.com I use open content with all of my clients, and provide it on the website in podcasts, blogs, and training resources. If the material is good, it's always a win-win. People can learn from it, and turn into paid clients if you offer quality content.
It's also a great way to offer follow-up support.