Page - 76 - in Radical Solutions and Open Science - An Open Approach to Boost Higher Education

80 T.Amiel et al. The intersectionofOERandprivacy is an emergingand still under-investigated field. The strategy supports the availability and capillarity of OER as they estab- lish connectionswithplatforms that control thedistributionand storageof content. Anotherexampleofambiguity is thepartnershipbetweenLumenLearning (headed byoneof thepioneers of theOERmovement in theUnitedStates ofAmerica) and Follett, “world’s largest singlesourceofbooks,entertainmentproducts,digital con- tent andmultimedia for libraries, schools and retailers”.13 This partnership could leadtoincreasingthevisibilityanduseofopencontent throughestablishedchannels while also reducing the plurality and diversity of players. Onemust also question the rhetoric that openness, when restricted to legal and licensing concerns, might actually lead tochanges ineducation,beyond thepossible reductionofcost. It is still notpossible to foresee theconsequencesof thesepartnershipsand their role in the consolidationof existingoligopolies in these industries and their impact on privacy, control, and transparency. The same scenario can be seen inBrazil, as wewill presentnext. 5.4 InvestigatingBenefitsandRisks It is important then, to reflect on the specific effects that anOERstrategycanhave on education. One of the most commonly used arguments I favor of OER is the reductionofcoststoeducationalresources(forexample,Fischer,Hilton,Robinson,& Wiley,2015).Educationalresourcesareunquestionablyimportantinanyeducational content,andhavesignificantcost(in2016,itwasR$1,8billion—halfoftheNational Fund for theDevelopment of Education (FNDE) budget—and almost 2% of the MinistryofEducations’budget).With theupsurgeofcopyright legislation in recent decades,where rights residemostly in the hands of publishers and conglomerates, the use of these resources is increasingly subject to restrictions—conditioned to authorizationofpayment—andfrequentlyboth. Paradoxically, the influenceof these restrictions isnot limited touseandcircula- tionofgood,butalsoaffect theproductionof these resources.Forasmallpublisher that develops resources on literature, for example, it is increasingly difficult (and expensive) to include sectionsof literaryworks in their textbooks.14OERallowfor thecreationofacollectionofresourceswithfewerrestrictionsandhavethepotential to reduce the cost in both the starting and endpoints of this process: for the “final users”ofeducational resourcesand its initial producers. ThisOERadvantage is full of complexities andpossible negative consequences thatmustnotbedismissed lightly.Wewill examine twoof these risks: thedisplace- mentofproduction,andtheimbalancein thedistributionofgainswith thereduction ofcosts. 13Seehttps://www.follett.com/lumen/. 14Benkler(2006,p.37)attributedthissituationtoacharacteristicsof informationalgoods: fact that theyarebothoutputs and inputsof creativework.