Opening the Online Homework System: Toward Cooperation and Collaboration

Abstract

One of the core tensions in open educational practice in current mathematics and physical science coursework is the use of online homework systems. Many such tools are from commercial providers and have profit to that provider as a motive. Open resources are pursued by those who, for reasons of cost or of pedagogy, seek to resist the tools of commercial providers. This pursuit is frequently made outside of the context of discussions of open educational practices; indeed, the first author of this presentation describes one such effort that started before he was even aware of open education as a discipline. It is important to ask how those faculty, particularly in the mathematics and physical science disciplines at non-elite institutions, assign homework in ways that encourage practice and skill-building, and more broadly, how such content can be shared more robustly and completely among faculty at different institutions.