Content is free: universities should stop producing it

Maybe it is just my age but I cannot help feeling that I can produce better content that is tailored to my students than much of what is available elsewhere. Some of my notes contain examples and derivations that are original and not easily found. There is also the exercise of forcing the material through my brain first to make sure that I have a deep understanding. It may well be that much material from the first and second years is standard but the advanced material is not and offers the opportunity to introduce research topics. PS. I work in a School of Engineering so in the same area as the author.

The author's argument that skills like module design and content curation should be valued more by universities is well made. But who will create and quality assure content, if not academics? This may be a discipline specific issue, but it's not really explained in the article. Also, whilst off-the-shelf content can be provide a backbone for the more generic foundational modules, this is much less the case at higher levels. Free content often needs to be adapted/enhanced/contextualised for the specific audience. It can also lack diversity; e.g. in the business school context, a lot of free online content is US-centric and unrepresentative.

Open access to scholarly content is an undeniable good for universities, businesses (except those businesses dependent upon paywalls for profits), individuals, and society at large. The idea that universities - whose library budgets have for years been audibly creaking with the expense of maintaining subscriptions to paywalled content - should have been "fighting" it is laughable.

To follow on from the previous comment from DocStock, open access is a bit of a red herring here. Normally an employer owns the IP of all content produced by their employees while at work. Nearly all Universities waiver this right. Therefore IP originates with the author, who - in the process of getting published - normally passes these rights to a publisher. If Universities wanted to protect their content in the way the article implies I would imagine they would need to first end the waiver of IP of those in their employment. Open access really doesn't change anything here.

Content in itself is not knowledge. Content needs to be processed to become knowledge. The challenge with 'content is free' is that not all content is accessible. The conclusion is based on wrong assumptions. Universities should continue producing content as content is not finite.