On the Open Education Drive and Gendered Leadership

Dr David Lim [DL]: Prof Melinda Bandalaria, you have been a leading voice in online, distance, and digital education (ODDE) since the inception of ODDE as a field, mode, practice, and community. The cup runneth over, as one might say of your career achievements in ODDE. To cite but a few milestones: You are and have been Chancellor of the University of the Philippines Open University (UPOU) since 2016; you led the Asian Association of Open Universities (AAOU) as President (2017-2019); you have been a key contributor to such organisations as the International Council for Open and Distance Education (ICDE) and the OU5 (a group of five open universities in Southeast Asia); and you have won numerous awards including the 2021 Prize of Excellence (for Individual Contribution to the field of Open, Flexible and Distance Learning) conferred by the ICDE, and the 2021 Meritorious Service Award conferred by the AAOU.

Please could you tell us how you first came into the field of ODDE and what it is about ODDE that continues to propel you through your illustrious career? As a leader, how important is it to you that women are equitably represented in ODDE leadership in general, and in Southeast Asia (SEA), in particular? If you agree that leadership styles are inescapably gendered, what unique contributions do you see women leaders bringing to the field of ODDE?

Prof Melinda Bandalaria [MB]: First, thank you for this opportunity to be featured in your e-magazine. Thanks also for recognising the awards conferred on me, which I consider as validation or affirmation that, somehow, I am contributing to the field of open education.

Women leadership in ODDE can provide insights so that the essence or primary mission of ODDE can really be realised through the inclusion of the marginalised sectors of the society, which in most cases, include the women.

My first involvement in ODDE was as a Research Assistant at the Office of Distance Education (ODE) which my university, University of the Philippines (UP), established in 1994. Each major Constituent Unit of UP, of which there were four at that time, had an ODE, which became the forerunner of the University of the Philippines Open University (UPOU). UPOU was established in 1995, so one can say that I’ve been part of the organisation long before its establishment as a university. Distance education is very much aligned with my advocacy of making quality education available to many, especially, the marginalised sector of the society. I consider myself a social activist and, somehow, the idea of democratising access to quality education through the distance education mode of instruction appealed to me. UP is known to provide quality education but it also has that image of being elite and exclusive as it can only accept a small percentage of tertiary-level students seeking admission into its various programs.

This advocacy for inclusion in a quality education ecosystem continues to propel me to pursue various initiatives and innovations, which include convincing other academic institutions to join the “movement” for open education by offering some of their programs in this mode of instruction; working alongside policymakers to provide a more conducive policy environment for ODDE; partnering with the industry so we can develop and offer relevant programs that would provide qualified workforce to the major industries of the country; and promoting ODDE as the path to learning for the new breed of learners.

On women leadership, I always believe that equal opportunities should be given to both men and women if they are qualified for the position. While there is a need to recognise the distinct characteristics of a gender which are brought about by biological and physiological features, such factors should not be barriers for women to occupy leadership positions in any organisation. Instead, these characteristics should be considered in designing suitable work environments to bring out the best from men, women, and others who are beyond this binary classification of gender in any organisation. Specific to ODDE, women leadership can be an advantage considering that traditionally and, in some cases, culturally, women have not been the priority where access to education is concerned. There are some culturally attributed practices as well as financial circumstances that may prevent women from attending the conventional system of education. And in most, although not all, cases, it is the women who recognise how important women education is to the building of the family, the community, and the nation. Women leadership in ODDE can provide insights so that the essence or primary mission of ODDE can really be realised through the inclusion of the marginalised sectors of the society, which in most cases, include the women. Mechanisms can be designed that will suit the context of women to facilitate their participation and inclusion in the education ecosystem and learning opportunities.

Integrating Universal Design for Learning (UDL) in Online Learning

DL: In the book chapter you authored titled “Universal Access in Online Distance Education: A Case Study from the Philippines” (2020), you made it disarmingly clear that “all the barriers to education as articulated by UNESCO are present” in the Philippines. Lest it is overlooked by readers, the Philippines is “an archipelagic country consisting of 7,107 islands”, with some parts facing natural instabilities, conflicts, and accessibility issues arising from geographical features. Other significant barriers include poverty, physical disabilities, as well as the technological and digital divide resulting from the lack of resources involving hardware and software, language and other skills, and the necessary capital to acquire these.

It is therefore important that learning resources in the free online course be free as well, hence the impetus to use Open Educational Resources (OERs).

As someone who has been at the forefront of efforts to overcome these barriers in and out of the Philippines with ODDE, how would you help our readers to better appreciate the enormous challenges, especially given the imperative and additional challenge to “integrate the principles and features of Universal Design for Learning (UDL) in online programs and courses in order to facilitate full participation of all learners”? As context for readers, UDL is a set of principles that “provides a blueprint for creating instructional goals, methods, materials, and assessments that work for everyone [abled and disabled] – not a single, one-size-fits-all solution, but rather flexible approaches that can be customized and adjusted for individual needs”, to pluck a line from the online course titled “Introduction to UDL” offered by the Commonwealth of Learning.

MB: Well, you have mentioned the different challenges that may prevent an individual from accessing learning opportunities relevant to his/ her context. Each barrier may need a specific set of actions so that we can really attain that universal access to learning. Offering programs in the online mode of instruction addresses just one barrier – that is the “any place learning” as long as you have access to the internet. But what about those who don’t have access to the equipment/gadget to access the internet and the digital/digitised content or learning resources? What about those who cannot pay the course fees associated with the online course?

In this context, an online course can be offered as a free online course (e.g., as a Massive Open Online Course or MOOC) which removes the barrier of course fees and admission requirements. However, if the content or learning resources used in the MOOC will have to be paid for or purchased, then we are presenting another barrier to learning! It is therefore important that learning resources in the free online course be free as well, hence the impetus to use Open Educational Resources (OERs). In using OERs, we are not just facilitating access and inclusion to the learning opportunity, we are also facilitating course/learning journey completion and, in the process, enabling the learners to access the opportunities that will be made available as a result of course completion. To further ensure inclusion, we also have to make sure that the content or the OERs are made available in multimedia format and are in a repository which integrates at least the basic features spelled out in the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines.

Further, as we all know, poverty is a major barrier to learning even if courses are offered as MOOCs. Partnership with the relevant agencies, especially government agencies, can be a great help to address the other barriers to learning. In the Philippines, the government has what are called Community eCenters/Tech4Ed Centers, which offer free digital literacy training programs and free internet access to the community. Arrangements can be made, which can involve other stakeholders as well, for a more focused initiative for ODDE learners in the community. In the case where learner mobility is a barrier coupled with non-access to the internet, open education can be implemented without an online platform. Learning resources can be provided, and radio and television can also be used for the multimedia materials. We can learn our lessons and draw insights from our experience during the COVID-19 pandemic and improve from there to facilitate inclusion and access to learning opportunities for all.

So, depending on the context of the learner, and the barrier that he/she is facing, many options are available.

Truths and Myths about OERs and MOOCs in Southeast Asia

DL: You have championed and written extensively on OERs, as well as on Massive Online Distance eLearning (MODeL) courses offered by UPOU – both as instruments to help overcome access barriers to education. You have usefully addressed the tight integration of OERs and MODeL in, for instance, your book chapter, “OERs for Development (OERs4D) Framework as Designed and Implemented in the Philippines”, which appears in the edited volume, MOOCs and Open Education in the Global South (2020).

Given the breadth of your experience, how would you respond to the observation that OERs and MOOCs (as the model upon which UPOU’s MODeL courses have been designed) have been adopted at varying rates with varying levels of enthusiasm, urgency, and success by the different ODDE providers in SEA? How would you account for the variations, if they exist? Also, based on global trends and UPOU’s praxis, how much of the OERs used, especially in SEA, have been borrowed or adapted from existing resources and how much have been produced entirely anew and released under an open licence?

In other words, has there been more usage of existing OERs than entirely-new creations of OERs? Lastly, what are some of the most enduring myths about OERs and MOOCs that you keep encountering and find challenging to dispel, particularly in the SEA context?

MB: You are correct. The level of enthusiasm, urgency, and success in adopting OERs and MOOCs varies. Some possible reasons, based on our experience at UPOU, include the still prevailing copyright mindset of many of our academics, and the resources required to produce/develop OERs and MOOCs.

A question like “Is ChatGPT the one answering the online exam questions or are the students doing their own work?” has direct implications on the integrity of the whole teaching and learning process.

In 2019, we conducted a study, in collaboration with the SEAMEO Secretariat, on the adoption of OERs in SEA. The results indicate that one reason for the low adoption of existing OERs is the language barrier, given that most OERs are in the English language. At that time, there was also a relatively low level of awareness about OERs even among the teachers. At the onset of the pandemic when academic institutions were forced to immediately shift to remote instruction, the massive and rapid training of teachers was accompanied with a more intensified campaign to use OERs to hasten the development of course packages as well as to provide free lesson contents. MOOCs were also used as the platform for inclusive, rapid, and massive training of teachers. Our experience at UPOU showed a significant increase in our MOOCs enrolment and the production of OERs during the pandemic. We also promoted the model MOOCs as OERs so that other institutions could develop and implement their own training programs using our MOOCs as content in the way OERs are used in courses.

A myth common to both OERs and MOOCs is their questionable quality. For OERs, given the ease with which one can develop video materials and share them through the internet, quality can really be a concern. Of course, there are now recommended ways and even QA frameworks for OERs which can guide users in determining the quality of the OER that they want to use. Institutions also have ways of vetting OERs before they are made available on their OER platform or repository.

Since MOOCs are basically a form of distance education in which students are physically separated from their teachers, they also share the myth of being of low quality, and this dates back to the beginnings of distance education. This myth persists despite research showing that distance learners can be on par with students from conventional education in terms of performance based on the expected learning outcomes of a course.

The putative lack of integrity of the whole learning process including assessment of learning is another myth that seems to persist. Because MOOCs, and other fully online courses for that matter, rely heavily on modern ICTs, specifically the online technologies, issues like verifying the identity of the student doing the learning activities and taking exams, using paper mills for completing learning activities, and plagiarism almost always become the subject of discussion. This has become more apparent, and probably more worrisome especially to online learning providers with the rise of artificial intelligence (AI), specifically ChatGPT and Bard. A question like “Is ChatGPT the one answering the online exam questions or are the students doing their own work?” has direct implications on the integrity of the whole teaching and learning process. One thing is certain: digital transformation of education should now include a major change in the way we teach and conduct assessment.

For both OERs and MOOCs, the common myth is “they are difficult to sustain” as there are no course fees to be paid by the learners or users of the materials. However, there are sustainability models which institutions can consider which include among others payment for certification which is almost always assessment-driven, funding for research on open education, and others.

These myths imply that there is still a need to do more awareness campaigns and even invoke the UNESCO Recommendations on OERs (adopted by member states in November 2019) so that governments can also support the initiative, and academic institutions can devise mechanisms to engage in the use, development, and sharing of OERs and MOOCs.

The Role of OUs in Decolonising Higher Education

DL: In your book chapter on OERs4D that I cited earlier, you noted at the outset that “Developing countries are often perceived as resource-poor” and that some believe these resource-poor countries need not and indeed should not reinvent the proverbial wheel by producing their own OERs and MOOCs, given that so much of the same has already been produced by the highly industrialised countries and could be used for free or at almost no cost. The rest of the chapter essentially makes a case against the aforementioned perception/belief, arguing, in the case of the Philippines, that it is necessary to produce and contextualise OERs to address local needs.

Related to but located outside the scope of the aforementioned chapter is the subject of decolonising higher education which I am hoping to obtain your response on. There are many strands to the decolonising project, one of which is theoretically anchored to the work of Walter Mignolo. Irrespective of the theoretical foundations, though, all these strands share the common understanding that much of the knowledge circulating in global academia emerges from the West and that scholars and learners, especially from the Global South, ought to be critical and vigilant about what they consume, produce, and disseminate as knowledge (facts, assumptions, priorities, understandings, values, perspectives, truths, ways of thinking and sensing, etc.), for knowledge of all origins is never neutral and even the most neutral-seeming knowledge that purports to be progressive might dissimulate its imperial origin and bent. Based on the foregoing understanding, scholars have increasingly been attempting to decolonise higher education, including the curriculum, this being an investment that has been described as “about being prepared to reconnect, reorder and reclaim knowledges and teaching methodologies that have been submerged, hidden or marginalised” by the coloniality of power, to cite Rowena Arshad in an accessible article published by Times Higher Education. There are no easy solutions to the project of decoloniality, but it is gathering momentum across all life spheres, as we speak.

Twenty-five years into the future? I would say ODDE will be the default and no longer an alternative.

Given the position you established in the said chapter – that being perceived as resource-poor should not preclude one from doing what needs to be done to meet local needs – I wonder what your thought are on decolonising higher education in general, and in the context of open universities (OUs) in particular. Taking into account the OUs’ ability to reach the masses, how actively should OUs be partaking in, if not leading, the epistemic project of decolonisation? In these contemporary times, should OUs not seek to redress the reality/stereotype that “Innovation in curriculum is not in general the strongest element of innovation in an Open University profile, which has centred on mission and technologies for learning and teaching”, to cite Alan Tait in his article titled “Open Universities: The Next Phase” (2018)?

MB: First, on the issue of decolonising higher education, yes, I think I made it clear in that book chapter what my stand is when it comes to producing knowledge products. But I think I also implied the need to keep abreast of the developments and progress that are happening at a very fast pace in Western countries. What is important is we keep a critical mind about what we consume. Relevance is an important consideration, and contextualisation can be the key to make Western-produced knowledge suitable to our context. Being critical does not preclude recognising the potential of the Westernproduced knowledge to be the “seeds” that will yield other unique innovations that can be our contribution to the continuous process of knowledge-building. I believe we have enough supply of intellectuals to do that in various fields or areas of study.

It is also important for us to recognise and cultivate the local knowledge that we have here especially in SEA countries. I believe that we also have something to contribute to the world, especially given the important role that Asia would play in the political and economic arena in the years ahead.

In the case of OUs, I guess we need to go back to the essence of our being and answer the question, “Why are we here?” Does our mission necessitate innovation in curriculum? Probably, OUs should take a leadership role in this movement to decolonise higher education if it is relevant to our mission or, specifically, if innovation of the curriculum would be relevant to our target learners. However, we should also be cognisant of the changing role of OUs given the increasing adoption of online learning. In this context, relevance would probably take a new meaning given the possibility of a wider reach that can go beyond geographical boundaries. If we are to consider the demand from universities to produce globally competitive graduates given also the changing work environment and system, then decolonisation of higher education will have to be rearticulated.

The OU5 Synergy

DL: Open University Malaysia (OUM) and UPOU, with Sukhothai Thammathirat Open University (STOU), Hanoi Open University (HOU), and Universitas Terbuka (UT), constitute the members of the OU5, a group of five OUs in SEA set up to conduct joint collaborative research. I’ve been made to understand that you were one of the key figures in setting up OU5. Please could you share your point of view on how OU5 came to be, what its mandates are, what its key challenges have been, and what has been its most significant contribution to the collective thus far?

MB: If you were to ask the different personalities now involved in OU5, they will have different stories as to how it started. As indicated in the email exchanges that I had with some of our colleagues in 2013 when I was arranging for the signing of the MOU between OUM, STOU, UT, and UPOU, I was informed that there was already an existing MOU among these universities, together with HOU, signed as early as 2010. This early collaboration, though, was more focused on the development of a graduate program on ASEAN Studies.

For the institutional research component of OU5, I would like to consider the initiatives of OUM and STOU and the inclusion of UPOU in 2013 as the starting point, at least from my perspective. It was OUM who invited me (for UPOU) to be part of the research team in August 2013. The idea was for us to do research on the same topics in our respective institutions. Then we planned to compare notes so we can somehow establish some foundations on distance education in Asia. The first institutional research was on the Importance-Satisfaction Survey. In October of the same year, UT was invited to be part of the group doing institutional research and, in January 2014, HOU was invited to join the group. In May 2014, another signing of the MOU among the five OUs took place in Chiang Mai (Thailand) and research collaboration both for institutional research (on open distance learning) and ASEAN Studies became part of the collaborative work among the institutions in addition to the development and offering of the graduate program on ASEAN Studies. We can say that the signing of the MOU in 2014 strengthened the collaboration among the five OUs and the formation of OU5 which we have come to know.

Every year, one or two member institutions would host in-person meetings for the researchers to discuss the progress of their research initiatives and identify a new set of research topics for the next cycle of collaborative research. Beyond the ASEAN Studies program and research which are our contribution to strengthening the ASEAN spirit and community, research on ODDE has also contributed to the building of knowledge on ODDE in the context of Asia and ASEAN.

SEA’s ODDE Agenda

DL: OU5 is a Southeast Asian initiative, which complements the AAOU, the latter being an Asian initiative. OUM and UPOU are members of both, and both OUs clearly believe that various forms of regional synergies are crucial to push their shared agenda in providing quality open, distance, and digital education (ODDE) to the masses within and beyond their national boundaries. If we agree that regionness is a method that serves, how would you characterise the present state of intellectual leadership in the ODDE field in the region of SEA? How strong a voice on the global stage do we presently have in advocating SEA’s ODDE agenda? What is or should be the shared SEA’s ODDE agenda, as compared to the ODDE agenda of, say, Latin America, or Eastern Europe?

MB: When we talk of ODDE, I think, or rather, I believe, that our shared agenda include: access, inclusion, relevance, and people-centeredness. We can also say that sustainability is slowly gaining prominence in our agenda, given the global advocacy on this and considering the major role that technologies play in the ODDE ecosystem. To be mindful of the environmental impact of our IT usage should, in other words, soon, if not already, be included in our shared agenda.

As regards the intellectual leadership of SEA in the ODDE field, I think we are slowly being heard. We are no longer the silent voice in the discourse on ODDE and this has been happening for a number of years now based on my observation and involvement in the global initiatives. The OU5 members are active participants; in fact, we have held the leadership position of Presidency for several terms and as such have been instrumental in shaping the direction of the AAOU. In the global arena, our universities are active members of the ICDE and the recently organised Consortium for Benchmarking Framework and Data Set for Online, Open, Smart, and Technology Enhanced Higher Education which is being spearheaded by Hamdan Bin Mohammed Smart University (HBMSU) based in Dubai, UAE. We have to consider that our universities represent different contexts in SEA: we have mega open universities like STOU and UT, medium open universities like OUM and HOU, and small open universities such as in the case of UPOU. We may model different strategies to promote inclusion and access given the different economic status of our respective countries and the way we do things can guide countries and economies on how to implement ODDE.

Our combined action and voices (our publications and involvements on the international stage) will pave the way/clear the path especially if we push for the Global South-South cooperation and collaboration.

The Future of ODDE

DL: The field of ODDE has grown by leaps and bounds since the nascent days when the field was known as “distance education” and “used to be the ‘private garden’ of a small minority of educators who devoted themselves to its practice and research because they embraced its mission and value propositions”, to cite Prof Junhong Xiao in our conversation with him in Issue 18. Still, there’s a long way to go in our mission to widen access to education to all, especially the underserved. How would you paint the best-case scenario for ODDE if you were to project yourself, say, twenty-five years into the future?

MB: Twenty-five years into the future? I would say ODDE will be the default and no longer an alternative. There are various factors why such can be a strong possibility. For one, the experience during the COVID-19 pandemic is propelling ODDE now; academic institutions have made so much investment in implementing online learning infrastructure, training teachers, digitising learning resources, and so on. Online learning may be considered a new business model for many academic institutions and a platform to respond to the call for these institutions to perform their social responsibility.

In the near future, the Alpha Generation (born from 2010 to 2024) and the Beta Generation (or the Artificials, born from 2025 to 2039) will be our students at the tertiary level. They will definitely prefer a new way of learning, very much different from the conventional way, probably even different from the way we are currently doing ODDE. The way we are teaching and administering assessments are already being disrupted by AI (e.g., ChatGPT). With the way AI is progressing, we may not have to wait for 25 years for the teaching-learning process to change or to be turned upside down.

We have observed how the fast-changing world of work is driving the transformation not only of our curriculum but also the way we deliver instruction and the impact will be felt mostly by the conventional universities. Related to this is the emergence of the gig economy which is already happening in many countries in Asia. We have been talking about IR4.0 since the pre-pandemic period. We have also been talking about IR5.0, and we have started to talk about IR6.0 (a combination of human intelligence, AI, cloud computing energy, human-robot working big data, and quantum computing). Associated with all these is the necessity for individuals to engage in lifelong learning, and ODDE can be the most appropriate system.

We can probably say that the countdown for the 25-year timeline has already started with the commencement of the post-pandemic era. The pandemic pushed (or forced) the onset of digital transformation of conventional universities which should have happened at least a decade ago.

DL: Thank you, Prof Melinda, for the illuminating conversation. It’s been a pleasure.

MB: Thank you, also. I am honoured to be part of your series!