The theme of Open Educational Resources (OER aka Open Educational Content, OEC) is clearly a topic of current interest but, I believe, often discussed from different perspectives. If we are to discuss OER, and specifically if are to discuss projects, programmes or initiatives around OER, do we need a structure to make more clear the perspectives? Does the Zachman Framework help?<\/p>\n
The Zachman Framework<\/a>, devised by John Zachman about 20 years ago, is most commonly associated with the field of Enterprise Architecture and generally viewed as a 2-dimensional grid<\/a>. Do not be put off by the “Enterprise Architecture” label; the Zachman Framework is really a way of understanding and structuring the components of a description of a system (in the general sense of the word). A quote from Zachman:<\/p>\n “The Zachman Framework<\/em> is not<\/em> <\/strong>a methodology<\/span> for creating the implementation (an instantiation) of the object. The Zachman Framework<\/em><\/strong> is<\/em> <\/strong>the ontology for describing the Enterprise. The Framework <\/em>(ontology) is a STRUCTURE whereas a methodology is a PROCESS. A Structure is NOT a Process<\/strong>. A Structure establishes definition whereas a Process provides Transformation.”<\/em><\/p>\n The Zachman Framework, as it is described, is rather industrial in its terminology so some of the descriptions of the meanings associated with the cells in the grid need a bit of re-phrasing to be applicable to OER as do row headings like “technician” (would “custodian” or “support” be better?). For each cell, though, I can imagine a re-description consistent with the concepts of the Zachman Framework.<\/p>\n My proposition is that the Zachman Framework is useful if, for each row\/column intersection in the grid, we ask questions like: “do we have anything to say about this aspect” or “is this an aspect that I should be considering deeply or is it someone else’s concern”. Similarly, if discussing doing something under the category of OER: “which cells does our discussion cover” or, if developing a coordinated programme, “did we miss anything”.<\/p>\n As the whole point of the Framework is about thinking at an “Enterprise” level, although that term is somewhat inappropriate to OER, it seems like a resonable approach to asking whether a set of planned interventions are consistent with achieving the changes we seek across the “Communication Interrogatives” (columns) and the “Reification Transformations” (rows). To diverge again from the industrial\/manufacturing heritage of the Framework, maybe we should think about the “Enterprise” from more of a social viewpoint and ask, when considering the Operations row, “what is is about an OER-related intervention that seeks to change the capabilities and intentions of the various stakeholders?” I think sociologists would use the terms “structure and agency” here.<\/p>\n What do you think?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The theme of Open Educational Resources (OER aka Open Educational Content, OEC) is clearly a topic of current interest but, I believe, often discussed from different perspectives. If we are to discuss OER, and specifically if are to discuss projects, programmes or initiatives around OER, do we need a structure to make more clear the … Continue reading Open Educational Resources and the Zachman Framework<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-62","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cetis-content","category-oer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hilltop-cottage.info\/blogs\/arc12\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hilltop-cottage.info\/blogs\/arc12\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hilltop-cottage.info\/blogs\/arc12\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hilltop-cottage.info\/blogs\/arc12\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hilltop-cottage.info\/blogs\/arc12\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=62"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.hilltop-cottage.info\/blogs\/arc12\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hilltop-cottage.info\/blogs\/arc12\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hilltop-cottage.info\/blogs\/arc12\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hilltop-cottage.info\/blogs\/arc12\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}