#UOSM2008 Topic 5 – Reflective Summary

Openness: to be or not to be free ?

The last topic from UOSM2008 course has discussed the reasons and consequences of the most modern way of learning: making online content freely. Having online content which does not require payment is still a disputable subject both for researches and users. Thus, on the one hand, the topic tried to points out the set of advantages which can be drawn but also to highlight the main potential risks of the openness. We had to read online articles regarding this subject, to interact with our colleges and finally to concrete our ideas by using blog’s posts.

Firstly, for me the most significant aspect arose from the big number of articles regarding the different slights of the openness. Initially, I felt this concept of making available the content on the Internet that can has no negative effects. I noticed surprisingly that there are still many researches that do not let their work to be involved in this process. This attitude might be explained by an irrational concept called ‘endowment effect‘ as Dan Ariely (2008) pointed out. In the same manner, according to STEPHEN LEPITAK the online content from these websites will be hidden. This is similar to the limited research area, but it relies on economic reasons.  I knew the pros of online courses, due to the fact I have emphasized very much the massive open online coursers (or MOOCs as they are known). Thus my positive view regarding the content of this topic is perhaps explained by my experience with the openness concept.

Having read both required articles but also the ones which my peers suggested to me, I now feel stronger in understanding the power of free content in the online world. In this topic, I have learned that there are very strong tends for restricting the online content (STEPHEN LEPITAK  (2013)), ,but hopefully there is in same time a strong influence of the openness concept. I understood that the positive view about openness has been promoted by the big providers of online courses, such as Coursera, Edx or Udacity. I have significantly improved my knowledge in recognizing the different angles and thus to understand that for me the most important professional aspect is that the online content should be free (as this blog is being an example of this).