Dear Commons Community,

Less than two weeks before its 16th annual meeting, the Open Education Conference  canceled one of its keynote panels — “The Future of Learning Materials” — after facing backlash on social media. As reported by The Chronicle of Higher Education.

“The panel, which had been scheduled for November 1, was slated to include representatives from Cengage, McGraw-Hill, Lumen Learning, and MacMillan, all for-profit publishing companies, as well as the managing director of OpenStax, a non-profit. It was supposed to explore the potential role of traditional commercial entities in the future of open-education resources. “That role could be anything from ‘no role’ to ‘deeply committed participant,’” David Wiley, a member of the program committee and a co-founder of Lumen Learning, said in an email. Of the more than two dozen speakers and panels nominated for keynotes, the panel was one of the top vote-getters among the program committee, Wiley added. 

But the reaction to the panel highlighted the often contentious relationship between advocates for open-education resources and commercial publishers, as open-ed resources expand their presence in the learning-materials market. The outcry also raised broader questions about the politics of providing platforms to those with opposing views and social media’s tendency to amplify outrage. Many members of the open-ed community pushed back against the framing of the panel and objected to elevating profit-seeking entities with a keynote and pre-screening questions audience members could ask.

The conference’s program committee, comprising Wiley and 11 others involved in the open-education community, said the decision to cancel was because of “toxic behavior” on Twitter, adding that program-committee members received “abusive and harassing” direct messages. A statement said that two panelists withdrew and potential replacements declined to participate because of the tone of the discussion on Twitter. But some of those within the open-education community, both those who pushed back against the panel and those who stayed out of the discussion, say they did not see anything particularly troubling in the public posts.”

I find this troubling for two reasons.  First, we do have something called freedom of speech in this country.  Second, the future of open education resources will likely include partnerships between education and private companies.  The latter will be sticky in its development but will happen nonetheless.

Tony

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