OER textbooks in Polish schools: A year later
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00:00
Data acquisitionOpen sourceFreewareStandard deviationAverageRight angleInformationLimit (category theory)Single-precision floating-point formatOpen sourceInternetworkingSoftwareMultiplication signFile formatOctahedronStandard deviationGoodness of fitBasis <Mathematik>Context awarenessMereologySet (mathematics)Connected spacePrice indexMaxima and minimaComputing platformSource codeFreewareShift operatorView (database)Content (media)StapeldateiWeb portalProbability density functionProjective planeAreaOpen setFamilyCharge carrierStatement (computer science)Level (video gaming)CoalitionINTEGRALBitPoint (geometry)Closed setDataflowFlow separationLaptopTablet computerSpezielle orthogonale GruppeDifferent (Kate Ryan album)Shared memoryAverageSinc functionDerivation (linguistics)WhiteboardComputer iconComputer animation
07:09
Student's t-testOpen setPhysical systemMultiplication signTerm (mathematics)Closed setInheritance (object-oriented programming)E-bookHypermediaRevision controlOpen setRight angleInformationOrder (biology)GodProjective planeComputer programmingParameter (computer programming)Open sourceDigital rights managementOperating systemStrategy gameGoodness of fitNeuroinformatikSocial classTablet computerMaxima and minimaRange (statistics)FamilyNumberArithmetic meanAverageMathematicsMereologyState of matterWordLibrary (computing)PixelStudent's t-testTunisAxiom of choiceTelecommunication2 (number)Computer animation
14:03
Process (computing)Parameter (computer programming)Student's t-testInsertion lossCivil engineeringSolid geometryComputer programmingPhysicalismOpen setStreaming mediaRight angleWindowAreaTablet computerWordFocus (optics)Inheritance (object-oriented programming)Physical systemSingle-precision floating-point formatForm (programming)NeuroinformatikDecision theoryBookmark (World Wide Web)Centralizer and normalizerLecture/Conference
20:58
Computer programExpandierender GraphHaar measureNP-hardStandard deviationDigital rights managementParameter (computer programming)System callPoint (geometry)Radio-frequency identificationoutputCoalitionMathematicsExpert systemInformationHypermediaComputer programmingCoalitionPerspective (visual)InternetworkingOperator (mathematics)Term (mathematics)MereologyOpen setFreewareStapeldateiRight anglePixelDependent and independent variablesInformationUniverse (mathematics)Different (Kate Ryan album)E-bookoutputMaterialization (paranormal)Decision theoryDerivation (linguistics)Point (geometry)Flow separationSlide ruleProjective planeWage labourDigital photographyGraph (mathematics)Goodness of fit1 (number)CausalityGodOpen sourceData miningWikiLibrary (computing)Lecture/Conference
29:41
Data acquisitionComputer animation
Transcript: English(auto-generated)
00:15
Okay, I can start because I'm not that important a few years ago One of my kids as usual packed its
00:22
School back in the evening and it was like tons Actually, I think it's well Yeah, you can get like five or six kilos on the children's back And it's just books and I said poor boy you know one day there will come a time when you won't have to carry all this stuff around because
00:44
Everything you need to know will be in the internet and all you have to carry is a laptop or A tablet or whatever and he went I mean, he's crazy about the internet, but he went are you crazy? No way I said why and he said because then I don't know what's right or wrong
01:02
Someone's not got to decide and in the internet there's everything so who decides and I said well who decides what rights? What's right in your textbooks that you that you're given by your teachers might be wrong as well And we had we ended in a long discussion which showed that Open educational research isn't such a simple subject and it's not so easy to decide whether it's good or bad
01:25
but One year ago our neighbor Poland said, okay, Tanya We'll give it a try and they started something which is by now the world's largest project concerning the shift to open educational research and I welcome Mike was net
01:43
Wozniak who is the president of the first foundation and he was going to tell us what happened this year Thank you Hello, my name is Mike Wozniak or me how Wozniak or as it was printed on my badge
02:01
Question mark question mark There is UTF-8 now and we can use it so it works like that I'm the president of the board of the fee and the free and open source software foundation It's a polish NGO that works and promotes free software and free and open
02:22
Standards technological standards Generally to the government to the business to education everywhere and the foundation is part of the open education coalition The open education coalition is a coalition of several different NGOs and institutions including our foundation Wikimedia Poland Open street map Poland and some higher education establishments also
02:44
And we're working we're working towards well as the name says free and open Education free as in freedom not free as in beer so Oops, sorry, who knows who of you knows that you they that you use free software on a daily basis ends up
03:01
Show of hands. Okay, that's not that bad Probably more people recognize those icons, right? Thank you. Thank you Probably more people recognize those icons Or those are those logos. This is this is all free software. What what does free software mean? It's all important in the context of open education resources
03:21
Well, it means this it means for freedoms. It means the freedom to use To modify to share and to share modifications if you think how Wikipedia works. This is how it works, right? Everybody can view it or use it any way they want anybody can Modify an article and hence the article use it within the Wikipedia or outside the Wikipedia they can share
03:46
What's in Wikipedia and they can share the modifications they've made if you want to if you want to ascertain yourself That people actually can share modifications and can share the the content from Wikipedia Well in any ways they like you can try to find two beautiful
04:01
Projects one of them is called nonsense opedia and the other one is called the delete opedia That's a homework since we're talking about education resources Do not treat anything in those portals as truth. Please do not the you should not do that, but What is openness? What is openness in the context of open education coalition?
04:24
Well three main three main points Technological openness so open standards free software not shutting anybody out of Being able to use the content because of technology for example not using closed formats Right that require closed source or using closed platforms that require certain kind of devices
04:46
To to be able to use them Open licensing so Creative Commons by Creative Commons by essay GPL BSD or other open licenses by the way Non commercial and no derivatives licenses are not free they infringe upon one one or two of those freedoms
05:04
I showed you earlier and accessibility so that people with disabilities for example people that Do not see or do not hear can still somehow engage with the with the content those three those three are areas are Crucial to what what the open education coalition does?
05:23
And why are we doing that a few years ago Eben Moglen was was on the bigger stage He's a little bit bigger than me, so he needs a bigger stage. I guess he was talking about he was talking about how democracy and how open open flow of ideas needs free software and needs
05:42
open platforms and he said There in many other places that we live in times where no single there is no reason for a single brain to remain hungry brains thrive and live and and Expand themselves and develop themselves on information on knowledge on
06:01
Data on art and today with you know these devices and these devices and the internet We can send all those things art knowledge information data Etc etc all around the world completely free or almost completely free everybody who has an internet account Who has a connection to the internet can participate and can use them as?
06:26
As broadly and as Beautifully as they want so there is no reason for a single brain to remain hungry And we believe that this is a kind of a mission statement for for us Let's get to the background of the situation in Poland
06:41
A set of textbooks in Poland costs around 150 euros That might not be much here But if you take into account that an average wage is 1,000 euros and minimal wage in Poland is about 280 euros That's quite a lot. That's quite a lot and that's per per child per year So if you have a family of through with three children they have to pay
07:02
They have to pay 450 euros per year for a set of textbooks and nothing else You can compare that to France right where the minimum minimum wage is higher than the average wage in Poland So there used to be a second-hand market for textbooks right I could use my
07:23
older friend or my older sibling textbook in because Really what changes in math or biology year to year right some changes are important of course right sometimes There has to be a new addition, but most of the time you can use the same the same textbook well
07:43
Textbooks are being created in a way that they are flimsy They fall apart after a year or two They are integrated with exercises so a child when they do exercises in school they write on the textbook so the textbook is unusable for the next child next year and
08:01
They are being changed year by year often in non subject matter ways for example shifting shifting the Order in which information is given and calling that version 2.0 right so next year next child cannot use the same textbook and it's it's a strategy to to kill off a secondhand market and
08:24
The other thing is that while the textbooks for a given class are being chosen by teachers Parents pay for them right so teachers choose parents pay so publishers organize Workshops for teachers and promise schools gifts you see how well that works right you can influence a teacher and
08:41
The parents will have to pay anyway Government offers subventions for for poor families to buy textbooks, and this is In the range of 32 million euros per year That's a lot of money and the whole value of the market of the textbook market in Poland is around 250 euros per year
09:03
Which went up from? 155 million euros in 2005 even though the number of students fell by 1 million interesting isn't it So so there was a campaign and there were and we were talking with the government and we were talking with many many many
09:21
so-called stakeholders that we need Textbooks and we need open textbooks and we need textbooks that are accessible to people with disabilities that are liberal licensed open licensed And that are technologically open so I can use any device or I can print the textbook for my use From any device and turned out turned out last year that there was a pilot program announced by the Polish government
09:47
Up to a tune of 11 million euros to create just that open textbooks for Polish schools Publishers were invited, but they did declined to take part in that program even though
10:01
They were invited as partners that would be paid for working in that program government government said well you have the you have the Experience you have the information you had you know how to make textbooks We need you help us help us make great quality textbooks for Polish schools We will pay you but but the but the textbooks will be liberal licensed, and that was something that
10:25
publishers could not swallow So there was a media campaign so there was a media campaign and the lobbying campaign Run by the by the publishers publishers Lobby, and these were the these were the general
10:41
Arguments being used I will go through them some of them are Interesting some of them are hilarious, so let's take it from the top the cost Of course the the first argument was oh my god. We will pay some exorbitant amount of money from our pockets you know from from the taxpayers money to create textbooks that are
11:04
Otherwise created by the by the publishers and seemingly for free. I don't know what was the argument here With but we if we take into account the subventions the 32 million euros per year And if we take into account the one-time cost of creating
11:21
Electronic textbooks of 11 million euros once It doesn't seem that the argument of cost holds right equipment that's a that's a very strong argument, and that's a lesson that we've learned along the way that calling the calling the Program II textbooks which was not our choice
11:44
Calling the the program II textbooks electronic textbooks meant that the that the publishers could do Two things they could attack the program on grounds that oh my god. Everybody will have to buy an iPad or And a tablet or a computer every child in Poland will have to buy a new tablet each year seemingly
12:07
Because there is no second market for devices apparently Of course this argument doesn't hold because we think we were very strongly We very strongly argued that if such a program is going to be
12:23
Created and funded by government those textbooks have to be prepared to be printed so that the so that the child can go to a library or a school library or a printing shop or whatever and print the whole textbook or just the chapters they need so that they don't carry the kilograms on their
12:41
backs To print the text books or the chapters they need for a given lesson or for a given time right and the second thing that Publishers did very fast was to publish their own e textbooks of course closed of course
13:01
Not licensed on you know under open the open terms of course DRM so closed or so technologically available only for a given platform or for a given operating system and available only for a given child if that child buys it right, so Subverting the whole idea and using the same name. That's why it's very it was very important
13:23
It was it's it's very important to look at the names of such projects right e textbooks is not a good name Quality Of course the this argument is the is the traditional think of the children kind of argument right think of the children With if the government will try to do textbooks if the government will try to create textbooks the textbooks will
13:44
Definitely be of bad quality. You know the the information there will be of bad quality and Nobody will you know only we the textbook publishers with our experience can really create good textbooks Well because they declined to take part in the project
14:02
Apparently the quality was not really what mattered to them, so that one was quite easy to counter Unfair business practice this one is nice the argument goes if The government pays somebody to create textbooks, and then the textbooks are will be will be
14:22
Published on open licenses and everybody can copy and everybody can share and everybody can improve upon that That me that's an unfair business practice against us right it will it will it will attack our business and It will it's it's basically a dumping
14:41
situation right a Simple simple simple retort would be that a government program cannot really be an unfair business practice because government is not business So that one didn't hold for long The other one market destruction and job loss is of course connected to this to the unfair business practice argument
15:03
and the argument goes If there are free and open textbooks available for all students Then we will lose our business and we and people will lose jobs right people employed in in in the publishing business people employed in
15:21
bookshops people employed in the whole In the whole area related to textbooks and publishing and etcetera etcetera etcetera I'm not sure if you've heard Something called the broken window policy who have you have heard about broken window policy Okay, so correct me if I'm wrong, but broken window policy goes something like this
15:45
John broke a window, but that's good that John broke the window because the window maker will make money We should break more windows in that way. We can support the the industry of window makers. This is the same argument, right? We can do we can make better
16:01
Textbooks we can make textbooks available for everybody and we can make them cheaper, but we should make them We should let it you know, let the market decide and we should let the publishers do their job as they did So far because this will support an old business an old an old Industry the assumption here is of course that if the money won't go to
16:24
To the publishers. It will not go anywhere. You'll disappear from the economy Which is of course not true as people that will have those 150 euros in their pockets will probably buy something else or invest in their Whatever they want to invest
16:40
IT industry will reap profits. This one is is one of my favorites Because it works nicely with the previous one Or yeah, it will it works beautifully with the previous one. So the previous one was This is unfair business practice. You work. You are taking away money from our our industry and
17:01
Then the the IT industry will reap profits argument is the other way around we want to take money from another industry So I'm not really sure. What was the what was the thinking again behind that that argument? Obviously, you can't you can't have it both ways right either either giving money to a industry is okay or not
17:20
Apart from that and now speaking seriously This is simply not true. There is no way That the IT industry will reap huge profits because first of all Teachers or your parents or or schoolchildren will be able to just print the
17:41
Textbooks as I said before right so that there will be no huge spike in buying tablets laptops or whatever, right? and And secondly every single school in Poland more or less every single school in Poland already have already has some infrastructure Access to the internet and and some computers there. There's not nearly enough computers in Polish schools
18:04
but there are some and it and more or less every single Polish school has at least a few so IT industry will not reap any profits because there are no profits to be wrapped centralized education system this is This is something that I think
18:20
Wouldn't play in Germany, but played quite quite well in in Poland with our history and our you know remembrance of things past The the the argument here is that if the government creates the textbooks and then makes it mandatory for Schools to use these particular textbooks. This is a way. This is a form of censorship
18:43
This is way of government deciding what school what school children should be taught at schools, and this is bad There are two problems with that with that argument first of all the original program didn't Didn't assume that this will be the only available textbook it only it only the pilot program
19:05
Only said that these textbooks will be prepared and teachers can use them or can use anything else and and the other problem with that is the Government already decides what children are taught at schools, right we have
19:21
Institutions that decide what is the program in Polish schools and only only this can go into textbooks that are that are qualified to be used at schools, so This our argument is move is moot and the last one is my absolutely favorite death of books the culture and everything
19:42
The argument the argument goes like this Textbooks are the main Revenue stream for publishers and for bookstores right now, which is kind of true people don't buy books Physical books that much anymore and textbooks were you know year to year to year
20:03
Solid solid market for the for the for the publishers, so textbooks textbooks are something that holds the industry up and if we remove that if we publish Open licensed textbooks and everybody can will be able to use them
20:22
That means that the industry will crumble and because our civilization our culture is based on books Right We can now see that our civilization will crumble And I'm not making this up this actually this argument with a little more words in it and a little you know
20:40
Padded here and there showed up in one of the one of the most important Polish newspapers And I was not sure I was reading that correctly And I don't think I will comment on that on that argument This is this is one of the ways that publishers were fighting against the
21:01
unfair business practice that they That they said this program is this is a this is a legal letter sent to all the universities that Said that they want to take part in the program because the program the government asked publishers Universities higher education establishments, etc. Etc. Etc to help write those to help write those
21:25
textbooks right and the publisher said we will not take part in that and then they said this legal letter to Universities that were interested in taking part in the program the legal letter saying something like this this program as you as you know
21:40
Is an unfair business practice and hence if you take part in that program, you will be doing something illegal and we will Go to court with you it was very nice of one of the universities to to publish this letter and Of course, we had a lawyer to look through that letter I will not I will not describe what the lawyer said because it would not be very nice
22:05
But basically this letter was a threat and the threat that was in no way based in In law, but these were the methods that the publishers were using to threaten The institutions that were trying to take part in the program Okay. So what do we have? What do we have today today? The program has been expanded today the whole curriculum
22:27
of the general education in Poland will have Open textbooks there. There are 18 open textbooks in the works being prepared right now as we speak and all of them are technologically open all of them are
22:41
Open licensed and all of them are accessible to people with disabilities because this is what we This is what we were Looking into very closely There is a broad cooperation around the program. There's academia there NGOs. There are companies involved in creation of those of those of those textbooks
23:01
And the cooperation goes from our perspective from the perspective of the coalition of the open education coalition is Mainly about two things first of all workshops Seminars and general schooling about openness
23:21
Accessibility and licensing. These are not easy topics These are not easy topics and you can assume that everybody or anybody that takes part in a program like this Will not get some part of it will not understand Open licensing or will not understand accessibility or will not understand technological Openness and it was it is crucial that
23:42
That we are able to cooperate with the government and with the with other institutions that are involved in this program program on In this program to help them understand and to help them make make decisions that are compatible with those three those three values and
24:01
The the other thing that came up lately is helping to find materials There are there's a lot of places in the internet in the world that offer Open licensed materials like photos like films like animations like graphs like anything like that, right? But if you want to use something like that in a textbook, it has to be high quality. We know that right?
24:26
so it's hard to expect from the from the people working in those in those programs that had No or little experience with open Open education resources before to know where to look for them and to know how to look for them
24:42
And this came out to be a problem at some point that we need that the program needs very good high quality Materials, but it's hard to find them. So the Polish Wikipedia chipped in and and together with the operator of the program they
25:01
They are running right now a contest called wiki likes a text books With people with the operator saying we need a picture of this this this this this There are hundreds of pictures that are needed and Wikipedia users are searching for them in Wikipedia resources or in all other
25:21
open resources on the internet because they know how to they know how to search for them they know what to look for and they know how to You know look at the license and know what's happening and if it can be used in in such a project More and more institutions use and promote liberal licenses there are even
25:42
ministries that Have grants that require liberal licensing of project outcomes and from the probe from the from the perspective of Open education coalition. This is a huge win This is a huge thing because once we pay for something from our tax money We should be able to use it in any way. We want we have already paid for that
26:06
But the jury is still out and we'll see in a year the Textbooks are being prepared the first batch the first the one that was being prepared in the pilot program has already been Published and is available and got positive response But the 18 textbooks that are being prepared
26:22
Will see them in a few a few months and then they will be used in schools And then we'll know if teachers use them if children are happy with them if everything went as expected as it As and as it should so last thing lessons learned. Oh my god. I have two minutes
26:41
lessons learned Don't be shy go for full-blown openness Right go for technological openness library licensing as I said non-commercial and no derivatives are not open licenses They will cause problems and they will cause tears accessibility WCAG to zero is highly recommended. That means that people that with disabilities will be able to use the
27:05
Use the materials created this way, even if somebody will try to find Something against this project. They will not find it within those three Which are the important ones, right? Don't call them e-textbooks as I said or electronic textbooks use open textbooks Libra textbooks free textbooks
27:25
anything that has that is based on the four freedoms the important part because you can you can really Relate to people on the important part the electronic part is nice Right that you can use it via internet etc. But it's not the crucial part. The crucial part is the is the licensing
27:43
So so let's use that Explaining freedom to general public is hard But this is the biggest selling point and we can be clear about it and people people will eventually get it, right? It's hard to translate it to simple terms. It's hard to Explain people you will be able to use that in any way you want. Will I be able to share it? Yes
28:04
Modify it. Yes, remix. Yes, just assume that the answer is yes And at some point some at some point people will get it and will fall fall in love with the with the project Work together and form broad coalitions, right? This is this is something that worked beautifully in Poland
28:21
We have a we have a broad coalition of different NGOs Some of them are working mainly with accessibility some of them like mine are working mainly with technological openness Some of them are working with with licensing openness When you have a broad coalition, you can do beautiful things like wiki likes tech e-textbooks You have a lot more input input and you have a lot more experience and an expertise support openness, but look carefully and react
28:44
because politicians will change their minds or will not understand something or will go with something that they They thought they understood but they didn't and be clear about what is okay and what is not Okay, this really helps don't also Yeah
29:03
Right Sorry one more thing Do not assume malice where lack of knowledge is an explanation. That is good enough, right? They're not malicious They might not understand help them understand. They will help you more information the this is where you can find more more information about the the project and
29:24
Right, I got two slides mixed up Contact outreach and and and try to prepare materials for everybody involved and more because they will When they will understand they will help you Thank you