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$2 billion that could change online education
In a ‘historic step forward for open education,’ community colleges can apply for federal grants to create a library of web-based learning materials
The federal government could expand the open education model made popular by MIT.
It wasn’t the $12 billion in community college funding that officials hoped for in 2010, but a $2 billion federal grant program unveiled in January could encourage two-year schools to develop open education material that would be freely available online.
Officials from the federal departments of Education (ED) and Labor introduced the Trade Adjustment Assistance Community College and Career Training (TAACCCT) Grants Program on Jan. 20, inviting community colleges—and other two-year degree-granting institutions—to apply for up to $5 million per institution, or up to $20 million to applicants who apply for funds in a consortium of schools.
ED will dole out about $500 million in 2011, and $2 billion will be distributed in the next four years overall, according to the announcement.
The federal program is about one-sixth of what community colleges were hoping for under the American Graduation Initiative (AGI), a $12 billion program introduced by President Obama that would have constituted the largest-ever investment in two-year college funding.
Getting the AGI through Congress proved untenable, so the $2 billion jobs-training package was included in the federal health care bill. Advocates of open education resources said the reduced amount could be a critical step toward mainstreaming openly available college courses on the web.
Beth Noveck, a professor at New York Law School and former U.S. Deputy Chief Technology Officer and Director of the White House Open Government Initiative, said in a statement that the grant initiative is a “historic step forward for open education.”
In a Jan. 20 blog post, Noveck said that under the terms of the grant program, if a community college uses federal funds to make an educational video game, “everyone will have the benefit of that knowledge,” and “anyone can translate it into Spanish or Russian or use it as the basis to create a new game.”
2 Responses to $2 billion that could change online education
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cgreen@sbctc.edu
February 7, 2011 at 4:47 pm
Kudos to the Department of Labor (& Education) for requiring we share educational materials produced with public funding. They have set the bar for all other Federal grants:
Big idea:
Taxpayer-funded educational resources should be open educational resources. Information that is designed, developed and distributed through the generosity of public tax dollars should be accessible to the public that paid for it — without artificial restrictions and/or limits.
Slogan(s):
• You should get what you paid for.
• Public access to publicly funded educational materials.
Intellectual Property Rights (page 21 of the grant SGA)
In order to further the goal of career training and education and encourage innovation in the development of new learning materials, as a condition of the receipt of a Trade Adjustment Assistance Community College and Career Training Grant (“Grant”), the Grantee will be required to license to the public (not including the Federal Government) all work created with the support of the grant (“Work”) under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License (“License”). This License allows subsequent users to copy, distribute, transmit and adapt the copyrighted work and requires such users to attribute the work in the manner specified by the Grantee. Notice of the License shall be affixed to the Work. For more information on this License, please visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0
lehenderpa027
February 8, 2011 at 11:10 am
$2 billion in the healthcare bill that has nothing whatsoever to do with healthcare.