Open University
Access to information about the software programs we use, leads to further questions about access to information in general, especially when it comes to academic spheres. Our educational institutions create systems that limit access to academic materials to only those who have the privilege to attend academic institutions. Individuals should have access to education through a variety of methods because this disrupts academic hierarchies and power structures and the notion of academic information as being available to only a privileged few.
MIT has created an Open Course Ware system which provides materials from all the courses taught at MIT to any individual who is interested in it, irregardless of whether they are a student at the university. Open Course Ware promotes self learning and attempts to question the lack of external access to course information that most academic institutions have.
Another node on the tree of free information is the Open or Free University. These spaces vary widely, since the label Open University usually refers to an institution that offers mainly distance education programs which allow individuals who cannot attend university full time to obtain a degree. Distance education does, however, promote self learning and justifies the power of individuals to teach themselves with some support and resources from professors. The Open University in England has no entry requirements and prides itself on providing high quality education to those who wish to attain it. However, these universities still hold the same hierarchical structure that is found in most other academic institutions, including payment of fees for access to knowledge and the validation of knowledge by the institution in order to obtain a degree.
The Anarchist University in Toronto is an exception to this because it is a free school both financially and in the sense that students are allowed to pursue their educational goals in ways that work for them, rather than in ways that work for the institution. This university does not have a campus or a centralized space that it operates in because classes take place in different locations around the Toronto area. The physical decentralization of a learning space deconstructs the ivory tower of academia and brings forth the idea that knowledge and education is everywhere, and does not solely exist within academic institutions. In this space, teachers are seen as resources of knowledge rather than authority figures and the principles of the Anarchist University “include consensus decision-making, decentralized organizing, and a non-hierarchical structure in classes and meeting” (www.anarchistu.org). Since no degree is obtained through this university, it prioritizes education for the sake of education. Many of our current academic institutions function as corporations that provide their customers (the students) with degrees, and not necessarily with an education for its own sake.
Collaborative structures are often formed in these new kinds of educational spaces because of the shift away from specialization and the compartmentalization of knowledge that most academic spaces adhere to. Organizations such as the Free Floating Faculty “bases its education and research on a transdisciplinary approach, as virtually all problems to be encountered at present and in the future are no longer related narrowly to a single discipline, but can only be effectively and lastingly resolved by accessing a variety of knowledge bases and involving a range of different disciplines” (http://www.freefloatingfaculty.org). This is the kind of collaboration that the CAE points to in their discussions on tactical media and how it requires collaborative structures and differentiated skill bases. Resistance is formed against academic hierarchies in these new educational structures, and they will hopefully remold our academic landscapes. These attempts to change our ideas of education systems and how we access education and knowledge are supported by electronic structures that allow for distance education, free education, and free access to academic materials.
