[Image: “Bull in a China Shop” by Gwen’s River City Images, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0]

In one of my daughter’s favorite TV programs is an episode she used to love: A bull in a china shop. Mr. Bull breaks his teapot and takes to to be fixed at Ms. Rabbit’s China Shop, inciting some dry British jokes. As little ones tend to do, she loves tea parties and tea. She used to like this episode a lot, but recently it’s become “Too Scary!” as Mr. Bull decides to dig up the road outside the shop to fix a pothole and all of the teapots and cups rattle and shake in the shop. Why is this episode suddenly scary? It’s not that scary, but she’s changed. She used to be fearless and blithe; she’s started to notice that not everything is safe or anxiety-free. It makes her anxious, I think. And, really, I get it. OERs have progressed kind of like that for me.

I jumped in, happily, and loved what I found. As I’ve looked around a bit, the open education world can be a bit scary. I sometimes feel like what I’ve done is upsetting the delicate balance: in my life, in my academic life, in the greater publishing world. As a writer, the idea of giving away my words for free has always been frowned upon. Using an OER, creating one, remixing many seems suddenly, daunting. Too Scary. I have to learn about a whole new licensing system? I mean, I knew of the Creative Commons licensing system but I actually have to figure out what it means? And I have to give my work away to other people to change? That’s scary. I have to use this and I can make changes to someone else’s books? What if they don’t like what I change? That’s scary, too. I might make a mistake. I might screw something up just by trying/messing with it/thinking I’m helping. Scary. But, not too scary.

Things I’ve learned:

• Academic Fair Use is not the same as OER, although sometimes I still supplement my OER resources with “fair use” snippets and copies
• OER adoption takes a lot of time, more time than a new textbook adoption, even if the OER is already a “textbook”
• The more open your CC license, the more useful your product for others (IE You have to let them change it. That’s scary!)
• Creative Commons Licensing Rules and Conventions are pretty easy to understand and you can link people to what the acronyms mean, but they are intimidating

Things I haven’t learned:

• OER is not worth the time
• OER is going to die out just like MOOCS did
• OER is too scary

So, Happy Halloween a day late, from a bull in a china shop.