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Read the George Veletsianos and Royce Kimmons paper Assumptions and Challenges of Open Scholarship [Tip: hold Ctrl and click a link to open it in a new tab. (Hide tip)] . In the article the authors set out a number of common assumptions and challenges (see their Table 1).

Examine their assumptions and your own, and state the extent to which you agree with the four statements of assumptions.

Assumption #1 Open scholarship has a strong ideological basis rooted in an ethical pursuit for  Democratization, Human Rights, Equality and Justice

There are certainly examples of OER developed with a view to improving access for those who may struggle to afford more conventional education. On H800, we had a debate on whether OER reduces the digital divide, and some of my coursemates found some good examples of such initiatives. Tom Cheek (2015), described the project "Digital Study Hall" as follows:

"The aim was to mprove education for slum and rural schools in India by the distribution of recorded live lessons by leading grass route professionals. This was then combined with local teachers who ‘mediated’ the video lesson.   I think it demonstrated the power of sharing and over time revising use of the educational resources to meet the need and in particular it demonstrates an example of where technological infrastructure has a direct impact on potential learning options."

Kate Lister (2015) also explained the ethos of the U.S. "University of the People":

"[it is] a "free" open, online, university. Students of this university are given the opportunity to gain a USA-accredited degree with no tuition or cost of living fees, which means that people without the money to attend a full-time university can now compete with campus-based graduates in the job market."

These worthy projects seem to be very much in line with ideals of social justice. With the course of the time, these ideals have become rather muddied, though. MIT has a fine tradition of Open Access, but you'd have to be positively Panglossian to believe that the OpenCourseWare initiative was not motivated in any way by the desire to enhance the reputation of the university. It's probably rather cheeky to say so, but, much as I enjoyed the offerings on the Open University's own OpenLearn site, some do look rather like taster courses, designed to lure in some (paying) punters.

I do not think, though, that it is vital for the pioneers of OER to be free from commercial motivation. What is far more concerning is that MOOCS are not being used by those who could most benefit from them: the disenfranchised and underpriveleged. (I hope readers will excuse me quoting myself, again from the same forum discussion!):

"One study I found (admittedly limited to the Netherlands), found that the unemployed and poorly educated were actually more likely to spend longer periods of time online than the better educated (Van Dearson and Van Dijk, 2014). The authors  pondered whether this meant that the digital divide had been bridged. Further analysis, however, revealed that those with lower education levels were more likely to be going online to send short messages, or for entertainment and passive consumption, rather than more enriching research or educational activities. I think this is important, Just because people are going online more often, we cannot assume that they are leaping on any educational opportunity available."

This failure of outreach, I think, has nothing to do with the the motivation of OER pioneers, and everything to do with poor early education provision and opportunities. The OER movement should retain the inspiring ideals mentioned above, but we shouldn't be under the illusion that MOOCs will equalize the international playing field of education all on their own.

Assumption #2 Open Scholarship emphasizes the importance of digital participation for enhanced scholarly outcomes

Yes, I agree wtih this. in order to truly immerse yourself in open scholarship, you need to be aware of how to exploit SNS and to present yourself online. I've noticed on my Twitterfeed that there is a lot of attention being paid to 'Digital Literacy', and I think that reflects the growing importance of the area. Certainly, during my previous module, I found that I learned a great deal by participating in Cloudworks, Twitter, SlideShare and other sites. It took me some time to learn how to make connnections with people and build up my own presence. It's a process of enculturation.

Assumption # 3 Open scholarship is treated as an emergent scholarly pheonmenon that is co-evolutionary with technological advancements in the larger culture

 I would mostly agree with this. We need to ensure that we don't fall into the mind trap of technological determinism. I do think that social networks, in some circumstances, have truly disruptive power, though. If Twitter, for example, is used sensitively in a Higher Education context, it has the power to overturn the one speaker model and to give students a greater say in the direction and content of their courses, as well as granting them access to contacts outside their institution.

It's true, though, that social networks reflect culture, as well as influencing it. Despite the egalitarian ethos, it is very clear that there is a certain 'hierarchy' which surrounds how many followers you have, or how many 'Likes' you can garner for a post.

I had never come across the term 'homophily', but I certainly recognise the 'echo chamber' of social media. I think this is more noticeable in the area of politics. Very few people on social media disagree with the opinions I post, and they often share what I've written. So it's easy to gain the impression that 'everybody' agrees with a certain point of view, when actually you're talking to people who have a very similar outlook on life.

I must admit, though, i don't think this applies quite so much to the field of education. On Twitter, I read a whole range of views, many of them very different from mine. There is a strong 'techno-enthusiasm', though, as the authors say, and a lot of rather bland Marketing Speak. Personally, I rather like the upbeat tone of my Twitterfeed, but I do understand that it may undermine the credibiility of the EdTech field.

Assumption #4 Open scholarship is seen as a practical and effective means for achieving scholarly aims that are socially valuable

Hmm. Although open scholarship is certainly exciting and dynamic, I'm not sure that the adjectives 'practical and effective' quite fit the bill. It is very true, as the authors point out, that filtering information is, in fact, becoming far harder. When I started my EMA, I went to the library database for my initial search, simply because i know that the resources I found there would be of a certain quality. Twitter has some terrific resources, but you have to trawl through an awful lot of irrelevant infommercials in order to reach the gold nuggets. The authors talk of the need to 'develop skills, devise methods, and use technologies to manage...digital information'. This is, of course, true. You can use Diigo and other bookmarking tools to make the task easier, but I'm not sure any tool is going to be able to replace human discretion when it comes to selecting resources.

I have not seen much evidence of the tendency to 'abuse and exploit', but then I am, at present, a mostly peripheral participant. There is no reason to believe that snobbery would not play a part in online environments, as it most certainly does in face-to-face ones, although the lack of indicators in terms of physical appearance, accent, dress and so on would seem to militate against those tendencies.

Cheek, T. (2015) 'Week 11, Activity 2c' forum message to H800 Technology-enhanced learning: practices and debates, 28 April, 11:5