Open Standards mean Open Possibilities
In the late 90’s I loved to do things differently when it came to computing. When everyone else wanted an Intel PC, I wanted AMD. Windows? Nope — Linux for me! I remember installing RedHat 6.0 (Kernel 2.2) on my brand new AMD powered computer and freaking out when I wiped the MBR and thought I’d broken my computer… but of course didn’t.
But this isn’t about the sale of Red Hat to IBM. This is about what Linux represented, and its application to the Education Technology industry today.
Linux has succeeded far beyond what Linus Torvalds probably ever envisioned because he made it open for contributions by anyone. Linux (really should be GNU-Linux as a system) succeeded because the work of the Free Software Foundation before it paved the way with licenses and procedures that established how to contribute to free software legally and for a productive end product. It’s worth noting that the most prevalent version of Linux for mobile devices (Android) was not even possible to be thought about in 1992.
In Education, academic standards of learning have not become quite as common as Common Core would have liked. The benefits of the same standards as an OER-loving educator are pretty huge — an educator in Boston should be able to share materials he/she is creating with an educator in Texas. Right now that may be possible based on topic, but not by standard. This means it’s harder to find and standardize the publishing of free materials for students and teachers. Even after adoption of CCSS, many states have now changed their standards and there are a few states that felt their strength was their difference — but at least there is a somewhat common base for the majority of States. Yet this is not enough. As Competency-Based education grows (not just grading/transcripts! Curriculum and assessment need to catch up!), keeping track of derivative frameworks and being able to correlate standards across municipalities with fidelity is only going to be more important. A competency based world for all students means better learning as students transfer schools, a better understanding of students understanding through formative assessment, and even perhaps eventually a more efficient way to link PK-12 to careers.
For 15 years Academic Benchmarks has done the hard work of taking the PDF and Word Documents States publish for free online and turned those documents into digital versions. Likewise, many large education companies have had to do the same work for their own needs. Because of the large effort to maintain versions and connections, AB keeps these digital identifiers (GUID’s) proprietary and charges a premium for any company to use them. Of course this makes sense from a business perspective — it took a lot of money to create them and maintain them so the intellectual property should be respected.
However, the correlation should be clear here. Microsoft in the 90’s was invincible with Windows taking over the computing world. Microsoft was also a big proponent in proprietary software and engaged in FUD campaign (Fear, Uncertainty, Distrust) to stop the growth of Free and open source software. An alternative to this is CASE standard by IMS Global. The GUID’s to the standards are free, so anyone can point to them as the established digital versions of the standard. CASE by its very nature is open and through Associations, is able to keep track of derivative versions as well as correlate standards in one state to another for a crosswalk of equivalent learning ideas. These learning standards in turn are able to be represented in Open Badges, Comprehensive Learner Record, and the LTI Resource Search specifications. Rather than a car with its proverbial hood welded shut, CASE shows itself easily integrated into a wide variety of interoperability solutions due to its openness and flexibility.
The best way to drive education forward is to follow the open source model. Let the standards be free and companies can distinguish themselves on the quality of their content, not on a foundation of proprietary standards. Just as making GNU-Linux open source created entirely new market segments beyond what was conceived, so opening up GUID’s for competencies will do for the PK-12-College-Career education continuum.
