Open Source Pedagogy

Open Source provides a useful model for pedagogical design and for classroom production. While instruction in process-oriented composition classrooms clearly shares many elements with the Open Source method, few pedagogies have engaged fully with the implications of that method. In short, we suggest that the Open Source method can provide a comprehensive model for production in a composition classroom.

Elements of composition classes such as peer review, collaborative authorship, and the multiple-draft process regularly parallel elements of Open Source. Whereas courses in other fields may emphasize rote learning and do not necessarily require elements like collaborative work and peer review, composition classes generally focus on production. This focus on production demands a method that not only incorporates, but explicates writing processes.

Use of Open Source Ideology in Academia

Some programs have begun to integrate Open Source ideology. Such programs include MIT, which launched their OpenCourseWare initiative in 2003 to put all course documents online for anyone to use (Diamond, 2003). Similar initiatives can be found on many academic web sites which offer open access to technical documents, syllabi, assignments, and class projects. While open access is an initial step in an Open Source model for education, open access is only a small part of Open Source.

Open Source requires more than open access; it also depends upon collaboration, peer review, and the evolution of the work. As with the open access movement, the tools for implementing collaboration and peer review in composition classrooms are already emerging. For example, several publishers have created course-management software to accompany their composition textbooks. This software facilitates peer review and collaboration through a centralized exchange system. In her review of InSite: For Writing and Research, Valerie Balester explains that the program "implicitly supports a process-oriented, student-centered pedagogy" (2004), if a conservative one. Instructors can also make use of collaborative technologies to create teaching materials and methods. James Inman et al explore such uses in their CCCC 2004 Wiki Proposal (2004). These diverse applications link the process method with the ideology of the Open Source community.

We suggest that an Open Source pedagogy would draw together these emerging threads. It would embody both process and product by focusing on collaborative work and peer review, creating materials that could be edited by others, and publishing under an open strategy similar to MIT's.

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