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Over the past few years, open curriculum has gained momentum in K-12 education. In the face of difficult economic circumstances, site administrators are finding their budgets squeezed by severe funding limitations.  In response to these challenges, public school throughout the country are building comprehensive online learning environments that present new and exciting learning opportunities for students.

Open curriculum, or curriculum based on open educational resources, presents exciting opportunities for public schools. The curriculum is very flexible, easily personalized, inexpensive, and has (over the last few years) significantly improved in terms of academic quality. Many prestigious universities are  involved in building open curriculum, including MIT, Carnegie Mellon University, Yale University, and Stanford University. With the difficult testing requirements and economic circumstances facing most schools, a significant demand has emerged in the  K-12 market for both open source technology and curriculum. State-wide programs in Utah and Florida, for example, are serving thousands of students using open curriculum. This trend appears to be growing fast.

Open curriculum has a few important benefits worth noting.

1. Low Cost– Most schools pay large sums of money for books, resources, and curriculum. Therefore, the financial benefits of utilizing open curriculum is obvious. As a site administrator who is strapped for resources, this is certainly a very appealing reason to use open curriculum.
2. Flexibility– Open curriculum is usually easily customizable and can involve third parties, including learning management systems like Moodle (which is also free). This means new features, tools, and apps can be imported from the open source community. These applications can greatly enhance the effectiveness of the virtual learning environment.
3. Curricular Continuity– Because open curriculum projects usually involve a large network or community of contributors, it is very unlikely the curriculum will be discontinued.
4. Continued Improvement– Because of the aforementioned network of contributors, the product is always being improved.

Some of the most important developments in open curriculum have taken place at the university level. Following is a list of a few exciting programs.

1. MITOpencourseware (MIT)
2. Open Learning Initiative (Carnegie Mellon University)
3. Open Yale Courses (Yale University)
4. Stanford Engineering Everywhere (Stanford University)
5. UOnline (University of Utah)

In addition to colleges and  universities, a few influential organizations have begun developing open curriculum for K-12 institutions.

1. National Repository of Online Courses
2. HippoCampus
3. cK-12
4. Curriki
5. OER Commons
6. UC College Prep

Although open curriculum presents many exciting opportunities for K-12 education, it also presents significant challenges.

1. Building Consensus– When it comes to using open curriculum at the K-12 level, building consensus around a particular type of curriculum is difficult. Whether in a small department or a large program, it’s very hard to get  professional educators to agree on a specific approach or course of action. Often times, this sort of disunity sinks a fledgling online program.
2. Implementation– The implementation phase of an online program which utilizes open curriculum is the most difficult. Finding a curriculum that best suits the students’ needs is challenging. However, building an online platform which not only integrates various technologies (i.e., communication tools, grade book tools, assessment tools, etc.) but also effectively delivers curriculum to students at the K-12 level can seem like an insurmountable task. Moreover, finding ways to modify and improve the open curriculum can also present difficult challenges for K-12 educators.
3. Hidden Costs– Every open source curricular program has hidden costs. Depending on the nature of the online program, these costs can quickly sink a project. Developing online curriculum and managing a complex learning management system, for example, can be a very costly endeavor, particularly for a cash strapped public school.
4. Intellectual Property Issues– The intellectual property issues usually associated with open source curriculum can be confusing and frustrating for educators, especially teachers who have limited experience with online learning.

Even though open curriculum presents a few difficult challenges, its potential for improving student achievement is very exciting.

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