There are technical considerations for optimally editing OER and integrating them into our learning management systems, and other learning environments, including selecting an editing platform that can optimally support dynamic learning content, and creating and sustaining methods of delivering that dynamic content in real-time.
While open licenses provide legal permission to retain, reuse, revise, remix, and redistribute, many open content publishers make technical choices that interfere with a user’s ability to engage in those same activities.
ALMS Framework
The ALMS Framework provides a way of thinking about those technical choices and understanding the degree to which they enable or impede a user’s ability to engage in the 5R activities permitted by open licenses.
Specifically, the ALMS Framework encourages us to ask questions in four categories:
Access to Editing Tools
- Is the open content published in a format that can only be revised or remixed using tools that are extremely expensive (e.g., 3DS MAX)?
- Is the open content published in an exotic format that can only be revised or remixed using tools that run on an obscure or discontinued platform (e.g., OS/2)?
- Is the open content published in a format that can be revised or remixed using tools that are freely available and run on all major platforms (e.g., OpenOffice)?
Level of Expertise Required
- Is the open content published in a format that requires a significant amount technical expertise to revise or remix (e.g., Blender)?
- Is the open content published in a format that requires a minimum level of technical expertise to revise or remix (e.g., Word)?
Meaningfully Editable
- Is the open content published in a manner that makes its content essentially impossible to revise or remix (e.g., a scanned image of a handwritten document)?
- Is the open content published in a manner making its content easy to revise or remix (e.g., a text file)?
Self-Sourced
- Is the format preferred for consuming the open content the same format preferred for revising or remixing the open content (e.g., HTML)?
- Is the format preferred for consuming the open content different from the format preferred for revising or remixing the open content (e.g. Flash FLA vs SWF)?
Using the ALMS Framework as a guide, open content publishers can make technical choices that enable the greatest number of people possible to engage in the 5R activities. This is an invitation to all OER content publishers (including you!) to be thoughtful in the technical choices they make – whether they are publishing text, images, audio, video, simulations, or other media.
Don’t feel like you need to know the answers to all these questions on your own, however. If you’re a faculty member building new open content, those in supporting roles on your campus, as well as the broader SUNY OER Services network, will help you get to the point of technical openness as well as licensed openness. Seek their guidance and support as you build.
More to Explore
Determining Technical Openness
This chapter from the University of Hawaii’s OER handbook explores the ALMS Framework and provides key takeaways under each category.
The Four R’s of Openness and ALMS Analysis: Frameworks for Open Educational Resources
This article discusses four separate aspects of reuse and demonstrates how these aspects describe different levels of openness.
This content is adapted from the following works:
- “Defining the “Open” in Open Content and Open Educational Resources” by David Wiley, licensed under CC BY 4.0
Unless otherwise noted, this work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.