The Idea of an “Open Credit” System

Posted on 02. Mar, 2009 by Cap'n Ko in Education, Open Credit, Pillaging Education, eduPirate

opencredit

I was talking with Jon Bischke today on the telephone, and an idea came up regarding the concept of “open credits.” Call me an idealist. Tell me my cup is half full. Call me an education pirate (yarr). But I think I have something here. The idea is in its infant stages right now, but I’m going to tell you a bit about it anyways, to hopefully get a good discussion started. Really, that right there’s the spirit of “open.” Everyone helps by contributing, and the end product is something driven by the people!

What is an “Open Credit”

Everyone remember going to school and having to get credits so you could graduate? Only accredited institutions can give out credits (which makes sense, since you don’t want every Tom, Dick, and Jane getting degrees), and you take certain classes to receive these credits.

An Open Credit is like this, but credits wouldn’t have to come from “accredited institutions.” Individuals, schools, and groups could apply for “open credit” accreditation, and people who learn from these people can get open credits. Although these may not be as valuable as “normal credits” in a school, at least in normal society, I think as people adopt the open credit system, it will gain more and more authority in the educational and business worlds. Then again, that could be wishful thinking. Here are my thoughts in bullet form (or should I say cannonball format? Yohoho).

  • Anyone can apply: Any individual, group, or whatever could apply to get “accreditation.”  Private math tutors in Italy, baseball coaches in Canada, garage scientists, pirates, computer programmers… the list is really jaw-droppingly huge in its potential. There are so many educational opportunities out there that aren’t considered educational in the traditional “credit” sense. With the “open credit” people could get credit for the educational opportunities they took part in, and it would be shown on a website as some sort of “proof of completion.”
  • Approval Process: Right now, accreditation is dictated by a group of “old-boy” educational cronies. They go around and get the red carpet treatment at schools that are practically begging to get accepted or re-accredited so they can be a “real college,” or “real school.” This is fine for those institutions, and it (sort of) works. But what about private tutors, clubs, and groups? All of these will be able to apply for “open-credit” accreditation. Who would decide whether or not John Doe is good enough to teach something though? Who would decide how many credits each class would award? Who would decide if a class was indeed educational? The answer to that question, of course, is “the people.” Members of the Open Credit movement would be able to collaborate. Perhaps it would be simple as a thumbs up thumbs down. Perhaps it would take something a little more complicated, like scaling certain aspects of the lesson from 1-10. A group of 10, 100, 2000, etc., people would input their opinions, and after a certain amount of people have looked through the lesson plan that someone submitted, it would either get accepted or declined. I don’t like the idea of individuals approving or denying someone. One person’s opinion isn’t strong enough. Why do that when you could get a thousand people to decide instead?
  • The Website: I’ve purchased the domain opencredit.org – so yep, it would be a non-profit aimed at helping people accredit their lessons, classes, or whatever it is that they’re doing.
  • Big Institutions Could Join in Too! Surely it wouldn’t hurt big colleges and universities to join in the fun as well. People who finish classes at any of these places could receive “open-credit” along with their “closed-credit,” and everybody wins!
  • Integration with Online Learning Sites: I’m not talking about Phoenix University and other online colleges like that. I’m talking about sites like eduFire, WizIQ, LiveMocha, and Myngle (though Myngle’s getting less and less open every day). Allowing teachers of these learning communities to get accredited and award “open credits” could potentially be a positive things for the tutors on these sites (and the students, too!). Ideally, integration would be simple and easy, but not something I’ve put a lot of thought into, yet.

So what do you think? Like I said, this is really in the infant stages of thought and development. I think it’s a cool idea, and I think there’s a lot of potential there. Is it all just wishful thinking? I mean, really I don’t care if you think it is, because everything awesome in this world was wishful thinking at one time! If you’re as fascinated by this idea as I am, let’s keep the discussion going in the comments! I want to know how you think it could be better – where the pitfalls are – why it sucks – why it’s awesome! Looking forward to hearing from you.

Related posts:

  1. The CLEP Test: How to Get College Credit From Anywhere
  2. 6 Ways the Internet will Change Home Schooling Forever

Tags: , , , , , ,

  • Yokota
    There should also be a way to figure out how many "open credits" could equal a normal credit. Of course, if you graduate from a college with a broad range of classes that you took during college as well as a number of "open credit" classes (for languages or computers or whatever), that could actually be potentially appealing on the job market.

    But I don't know if allowing the people to decide if something is work accreditation is going to fly :/ Sure, the people vote for it, but those people could also be uneducated concerning the topic seeking accreditation. For example: Say a math tutor wanted accreditation. People who knew nothing about the subject (say, me, for example) could vote and say they should be accredited even though it's obvious, through the lesson planning and lack of teaching experience presented to me, the voter, that they shouldn't be accredited.

    ...yeah, the people vote for the President, but political information was shoved into our faces for most of the year before it. Education is a pickier subject, if you ask me, because nobody is good at everything and you shouldn't be accredited unless you've got the goods, so to speak.

    However, I think it would be a good idea to allow teachers to decide, if anybody. Like English teachers of the state can collectively look at a lesson plan and decide if it would be suitable or something. They would know (usually), right?
  • HopeMartin
    I like the concept. Will have to think on it some more to give more helpful feedback then that. :)

    Having teachers (traditional and non traditional) on the approval committee would be helpful as would taking into consideration how the students felt about the lesson. Of course if the teacher is new, he/she wouldn't have any students yet. Maybe the lesson would have to have been "field tested" before it could be approved. OR maybe it needs a "test teach" to a small group of SMEs ( subject matter experts). Might add to the complexity of the approval process though.

    Those are my early morning musings. Great article!
  • I think a good way to get it started would be to market it like a home-school style approach to higher education, since the ideas are pretty similar; but, of course, to point out the differences. I think that it has a lot of potential, but the hard part will be getting its reputation to the point where people will benefit "officially" from going through a class. That is to say, getting companies or what have you to recognize that "open credits" aren't just a bunch of nonsense.

    As for how to select teachers, I would have them do any number of sample classes/sample lectures, and the attendees (be they students or teachers) could decide. And, at any point in their career, if their rating drops low enough, they lose their accreditation, which would provide constant incentive to improve. Those with higher ratings would be more popular, etc. etc. You could eventually have a sort of teacher-celebrity thing going on.

    But, like I said, it'll be difficult as all hell getting it up and running, getting students and teachers to join, and, most of all, getting people (companies' hiring departments, school admission offices, etc) to open their minds and really understand what it means to have "open credits."

    Very interesting, and I agree that it has a lot of potential. But it absolutely must get off on the right foot.
  • I think the idea itself is brilliant. When I start thinking about I see lots and lots of opportunities.

    And there is the first problem. This is going to be huge. A full time job without payment, as you decided to offer it for free. Of course there are always ways to monetize it as we see in the open source sector.

    So you really have to be serious about this project. But as I said, it's brilliant and it has a huge potential.

    As HopeMartin said, will have to think more about it. But if there is a way I can help or participate, let me know ;)
  • It would definitely have to be a part-time on the side venture, and ideally, after it got started it would all be community driven (so I wouldn't have to do much work, haha). Finding partners (perhaps eduFire?) would be big as well. Thank you for your offer for help, too! I'm sure once this starts rolling I'll need all the help (or even an article about it) that I can get, hehe.
  • Hey Captain! Is this a ghost ship or are you still alive ;)
  • Still alive, but the Royal navy is keeping me really busy (?) - haha. Will
    be posting things up here again (and replying to comments!) soon, thank you
    for checking in, Kirsten!
  • Hi Koichi ~ I also like the idea, but agree with Kristin that the "teaching for free" part will be a hard sell, long-term! As I read this, it reminded me of CEUs (Continuing Education Units). Are you familiar with those? Many large universities have "Continuing Education" departments (sometimes called "extension") that offer classes (online and traditional) and certificates on a huge variety of topics, sort of like what is getting started on EduFire. They typically cost less and take less time that traditional degree programs. Here is a quick Wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuing_educati... Here is the UC Berkeley Extension: http://www.unex.berkeley.edu/ And, here is a link to a professional organization that has developed standards for organizations (and it appears you don't have to be a traditional accredited org to do so) wanting to grant CEUs: http://www.iacet.org/content/continuing-educati... You might want to look here for general ideas to morph into your Open Credit idea... Again, I like the idea, but finding the teachers to teach for free (on-going) and the students willing to commit time and energy to Open Credits that may or may not be accepted/approved by employers is the first hurdle.
  • The CEU is a really cool program, and definitely I could see some potential in morphing / combining. Or, if anything, just accepting a CEU credit as an OpenCredit, even if they don't do the other way around.

    As for free, it's just me who would be running it for free / not monetizing it, teachers could still charge money and get paid for their teaching and still use the OpenCredit model. I just want to make sure it's free for everyone to use, otherwise it's not a very open model!

    I agree that there will be many hurdles, but looking at Wikipedia I see a lot of similar hurdles in the way - even now they aren't completely accepted, but with more and more popularity, people are forced to accept them a little bit. Right before I graduated, I started seeing teachers move from "no wikipedia allowed for this paper to only one wikipedia source allowed" - we're moving along, haha.
  • YusukeT
    Love it (thumbs up)
  • That's a very useful article. I will be sure to send it around to my friends over at facebook and myspace.
  • The Association of Experiential Education might be able to disburse a grant towards the system.

    I am so on board with this. Currently pursuing my degree in Educational Psychology. I will volunteer as much of my time as humanly possible!
  • This is so interested! Where can I find more like this?
blog comments powered by Disqus