Hapgood

I’ve mentioned before that the impulse many people have about OER — that we need a central high visibility location where we can put ALL THE OER and everyone will know to go there — is flawed. We know it’s flawed because it’s failed for 15 years or so (more if you count early learning object attempts).

If you want someone to find something, don’t put it in one place — put it everywhere.

This graphic of the Buzzfeed network reminds me of that fact. Buzzfeed is one of the most recognizable destination sites on the web. If anyone could survive making people come to them, it would be Buzzfeed. And what does Buzzfeed do?

They put it *everywhere*. They publish in something like 30 platforms, an 80% of their views come from places other than Buzzfeed.

Now let me ask you — if Buzzfeed can’t rely on a central distribution site, what chance does OER have?

Make copies of good stuff, lots of copies. Put them everywhere. Duplicate incessantly, host redundantly, fork recklessly. Then, and only then, will we have solved the dicoverability problem.