[GOAL] Open Education: A Study in Disruption - new book, print and OA

[Gary Hall]

I just wanted to let you know about the new book, Open Education: A 
Study in Disruption, by myself and several colleagues, that has been 
published by Rowman and Littlefield International in their Disruptions 
series, edited by Paul Bowman:
http://www.rowmaninternational.com/cultural-studies/disruptions

Co-authored by Coventry University’s Open Media Group and Mute 
Publishing as a critical experiment with both collaborative, processual 
writing and concise, medium-length forms of attention, Open Education: A 
Study in Disruption explores the disruption of the traditional 
university as a result of the increasingly widespread provision of free 
online open education.

An open access version is available here:
http://bit.ly/1tI3XEV

For those of you who would like a print version, it’s also available to 
purchase as either a paperback or hardback from Rowman and Littlefield 
International here:
http://www.rowmaninternational.com/books/open-education

(To buy Open Education: A Study in Disruption in North America, go here: 
https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781783482085)

Summary
What for decades could only be dreamt of is now almost within reach: the 
widespread provision of free online education, regardless of a student’s 
geographic location, financial status, or ability to access conventional 
institutions of learning. But for all the hype-cycle that has been 
entered into over MOOCs, many experiments with Open Education do not 
appear to be designed to challenge the becoming business of the 
university or alter Higher Education in any fundamental way. If 
anything, they are more likely to lead to a two-tier system, in which 
those who can’t afford to pay (so much) to attend a traditional 
university, will have to make do with a poor, online, second-rate 
alternative education provided by a global corporation.

Open Education thus engages critically with the creative disruption of 
the university through free online education. It puts into political 
context not just the 2012 batch of extremely publicity-savvy MOOCS (Edx, 
Udacity, FutureLearn etc.), but also TED Talks and Wikiversity along 
with self-organised ‘pirate’ libraries such as libgen.org and 
aaaaarg.org, and ‘free universities’ associated with the anti-austerity 
and student protests and global Occupy movement. Questioning many of the 
ideas open education projects take for granted, including Open Access 
and Creative Commons, it proposes a radically different model for the 
university and education in the twenty-first century.

Table of Contents
Preface
1 The University in the 21st Century
2 A Radically Different Model of Education and the University
3 The Educational Context
4 Open Education
5 Open Education Typologies
6 Towards a Philosophy of Open Education
Conclusion: Diverse ‘disruption’ (including Media and Cultural Studies PLC)
Bibliography
Index

Endorsements

An exceptionally lucid study of actually existing practices of ‘open 
education’, this book is also a passionate call for proactive 
experimentation with emergent media technologies and forms of 
collaboration that might yet generate a radically different idea of the 
university. Sober, critical and energizing in equal measure, Open 
Education: A Study in Disruption is an indispensable guide to those 
forces of creative destruction that are currently transforming the 
academy. It should be read by anyone working or studying in contemporary 
higher education.
David Cunningham, Institute for Modern and Contemporary Culture, 
University of Westminster and member of the Radical Philosophy editorial 
collective

In a refreshing change from the simplified (and shallow) treatment in 
popular media, the authors unveil the layers of complexity needed to 
truly address the concepts of "Disruption" and "Open Education". While 
it may contain more questions than answers, this is a critical step in 
looking beyond strategies of solutionism. Grounded in a consideration of 
the societal, economic, and cultural influences on the future of higher 
education, combined with the practical experience of Coventry 
University, this book will be foundational for any institution that 
wants to have a hand in crafting their own future.
Alan Levine, Learning Technology Consultant and blogger at cogdogblog.com

Open Education aims at starting new conversations, encouraging a 
thoughtful engagement with its subjects. Open education emerges through 
this text as a space of possibility, and opportunity, but also a space 
which demands an ethical, critical approach.
Jesse Stommel, Assistant Professor at University of Wisconsin-Madison 
and Director of Hybrid Pedagogy


Author biographies
Pauline van Mourik Broekman is co-founder, Mute, and Mute collective member.

Gary Hall is Professor and Director of the Centre for Disruptive Media 
at Coventry University, UK, and visiting professor at the Hybrid 
Publishing Lab – Leuphana Inkubator, Leuphana University, Germany. He is 
also co-founder (in 1999) of the open access journal Culture Machine, a 
pioneer of OA in the humanities, and co-founder (in 2006) of Open 
Humanities Press, which was the first open access publisher explicitly 
dedicated to critical and cultural theory. He is the author and editor 
of several books on digital culture and the idea of the university, the 
best known of which is Digitize This Book!: The Politics of New Media, 
or Why We Need Open Access Now (Minnesota University Press, 2008)

Ted Byfield is a New York–based independent researcher and writer. He 
served for over a decade on the design faculty of the New School 
University, and is a former visiting fellow at Yale Law School's 
Information Society Project. He co-founded the Open Syllabus Project 
research network, and since 1998 has co-moderated the <nettime> mailing 
list.

Shaun Hides is Head of Department of Media and Co-director of the 
Disruptive Media Learning Lab, Coventry University, UK. He authored the 
Department’s Open Media strategy, led a JISC-funded OER project on 
open-connected teaching innovation and has spoken at numerous events on 
OER, Innovation and the impact of disruptive technologies on education. 
He is an advisor to the British Council.

Simon Worthington is a Research Associate at the Hybrid Publishing 
Consortium – Leuphana Inkubator, Leuphana University, Germany.


-- 
Gary Hall
Research Professor of Media and Performing Arts
School of Art and Design, Coventry University
Director of the Centre for Disruptive Media
http://disruptivemedia.org.uk/
Visiting Professor, Hybrid Publishing Lab, Leuphana University
http://www.leuphana.de/zentren/cdc/forschung-projekte/alle/hybrid-publishing-lab.html
Website http://www.garyhall.info

NEW BOOK: Open Education: A Study in Disruption
(London: Rowman and Littlefield International, 2014) - co-authored by Coventry’s Open Media Group and Mute Publishing
http://www.rowmaninternational.com/books/open-education
and available open access at http://bit.ly/1tI3XEV