Commodification and the shaping of e-learning

Created by Stuart Yeates (University of Oxford) on January 4, 2006

Graham Attwell has published a paper detailing what he sees as the economic and social pressures on the elearning world, and I've got to say that it doesn't look promising for those trying to create open source e-learning systems. The key point is that the overwhelming majority of elearning installs and content are proprietary because of:

[...] three dominant policy discourses in education have shaped the development and implementation of e-learning: commodification, privatization and a restricted discourse of lifelong learning, which in turn are based on broader discourses around globalization and the privatization of knowledge.

The paper concludes:

Where once teachers were responsible for designing learning materials, now institutions are encouraged to buy learning materials from private providers, form the e-learning industry and from educational publishers. In the UK, newspaper advertisements encourage parents to pressurise their children's schools to buy learning materials from one or another company. Digital rights management is designed to ensure only those institutions who are so licensed are able to use the learning materials.

Learning is supposed to take place not through engagement with the wider environment and through social processes but through interaction with the sequenced learning objects albeit with the help of an on-line mentor and through participation in a closed forum.

Assessment takes place through interaction with a bank of machine readable questions and answers. One of the driving forces behind the agreement and adoption of the QTI standard for computer based assessment was to create a market in question banks.

Even the development of individual learning portfolios has been inhibited by the desire to control and commodify learning. Rather than learners being encouraged to develop an account of all their learning experiences, many systems constrain the recording and reflection on learning to the learning outcomes prescribed by the curriculum (Attwell, 2005) and by the desire to present the results of the portfolio in a standard way.

Against all that pessimism, I'd like to point out that Moodle will be making a showing at BETT this year and the work of the JISC on the Creative Commons.

Stuart's blog
Login or register to post comments
4135 reads

It's been a while since I

Submitted by Henry E. Schaffer (North Carolina State University) on January 4, 2006 - 8:22pm.

It's been a while since I got immersed in the jargon in which Graham Attwell showers us, such as, "it can also be said that the development of e-learning systems and applications has largely been constricted and shaped by the dominant discourses." It reminds me of the cant repeated ad naseum in A Hacker Manifesto (don't read it!, or if you do, don't blame me for bringing it to your attention! :-)

IMHO Attwell's paper really doesn't say anything about the outlook for Open Source LMSs. He says, "the development and maintenance of these [proprietary - not Open Source] monolithic systems is largely controlled by the private sector e-learning technology industry with a recent spate of mergers leaving control in the hands of a limited number of major multinational companies." which is accurate. However we already know that the two best known Open Source LMSs (Moodle and Sakai) are very new and so it would indeed be astonishing if they now had the majority of the market.

The real question is whether or not they are growing? From my own experience there is substantial interest in looking at them and trying them. Will it translate into adoption? I don't know - but the article gives no reason (other than the fear of capitalism and the US MoD) to rule this out.

Some of the bias in this article is seen in, "It is perhaps unsurprising the the driving force behind the SCORM technical specification for Learning Objects was the US Ministry of Defence (who, incidentally, provide a vast subsidy to the private e-learning industry)." The US Department of Defense does have a great interest in training, and is using "e-learning" in this effort. The DoD pays private companies to deliver various products and services in this arena. How does that discredit the use of ICT in K-16 education? Particularly, what does it say about Open Source LMSs? Nothing.

		Commodification and the shaping of e-learning Created by Stuart Yeates (University of Oxford) on January 4, 2006 Graham Attwell has published a paper detailing what he sees as the economic and social pressures on the elearning world, and I've got to say that it doesn't look promising for those trying to create open source e-learning systems. The key point is that the overwhelming majority of elearning installs and content are proprietary because of: [...] three dominant policy discourses in education have shaped the development and implementation of e-learning: commodification, privatization and a restricted discourse of lifelong learning, which in turn are based on broader discourses around globalization and the privatization of knowledge. The paper concludes: Where once teachers were responsible for designing learning materials, now institutions are encouraged to buy learning materials from private providers, form the e-learning industry and from educational publishers. In the UK, newspaper advertisements encourage parents to pressurise their children's schools to buy learning materials from one or another company. Digital rights management is designed to ensure only those institutions who are so licensed are able to use the learning materials. Learning is supposed to take place not through engagement with the wider environment and through social processes but through interaction with the sequenced learning objects albeit with the help of an on-line mentor and through participation in a closed forum. Assessment takes place through interaction with a bank of machine readable questions and answers. One of the driving forces behind the agreement and adoption of the QTI standard for computer based assessment was to create a market in question banks. Even the development of individual learning portfolios has been inhibited by the desire to control and commodify learning. Rather than learners being encouraged to develop an account of all their learning experiences, many systems constrain the recording and reflection on learning to the learning outcomes prescribed by the curriculum (Attwell, 2005) and by the desire to present the results of the portfolio in a standard way. Against all that pessimism, I'd like to point out that Moodle will be making a showing at BETT this year and the work of the JISC on the Creative Commons. E-Learning \| elearning \| Moodle \| UnitedKingdom Stuart's blog Login or register to post comments 4135 reads It's been a while since I Submitted by Henry E. Schaffer (North Carolina State University) on January 4, 2006 - 8:22pm. It's been a while since I got immersed in the jargon in which Graham Attwell showers us, such as, "it can also be said that the development of e-learning systems and applications has largely been constricted and shaped by the dominant discourses." It reminds me of the cant repeated ad naseum in A Hacker Manifesto (don't read it!, or if you do, don't blame me for bringing it to your attention! :-) IMHO Attwell's paper really doesn't say anything about the outlook for Open Source LMSs. He says, "the development and maintenance of these [proprietary - not Open Source] monolithic systems is largely controlled by the private sector e-learning technology industry with a recent spate of mergers leaving control in the hands of a limited number of major multinational companies." which is accurate. However we already know that the two best known Open Source LMSs (Moodle and Sakai) are very new and so it would indeed be astonishing if they now had the majority of the market. The real question is whether or not they are growing? From my own experience there is substantial interest in looking at them and trying them. Will it translate into adoption? I don't know - but the article gives no reason (other than the fear of capitalism and the US MoD) to rule this out. Some of the bias in this article is seen in, "It is perhaps unsurprising the the driving force behind the SCORM technical specification for Learning Objects was the US Ministry of Defence (who, incidentally, provide a vast subsidy to the private e-learning industry)." The US Department of Defense does have a great interest in training, and is using "e-learning" in this effort. The DoD pays private companies to deliver various products and services in this arena. How does that discredit the use of ICT in K-16 education? Particularly, what does it say about Open Source LMSs? Nothing. Login or register to post comments
		© Copyright 1999-2009 EDUCAUSE Need Help? \| Feedback \| Privacy Policy
	Unless otherwise noted, EDUCAUSE holds the copyright on all materials published by the association, whether in print or electronic form. In certain cases the work remains the intellectual property of the individual author(s) (see Special Circumstances). Content from conference speeches, presentations, blogs, wikis and feeds reflect the opinions of the author, and not necessarily those of EDUCAUSE or its members.