Central to the TEE vision is the idea of access to theological learning. The vision implies the desire to remove obstacles blocking people from accessing theological education. Extending theological education means opening up geographical access, economic access, linguistic and cultural access, ecclesiastical access, gender access, class access, pedagogical access and spiritual access. All of these barriers can be overcome by extending theological education to everyone-everywhere.
However, an additional barrier hinders access to theological learning, namely access to quality learning material and books/research about TEE and theological education. We often discuss the implementation of new TEE programmes with churches or institutions interested in extending their training. However, our discussions stop when we cannot offer training material to start. Also, most theological educators worldwide grew up with residential face-to-face training as the norm for theological education. To promote alternative methods of theological education, we can only point to books published that are either expensive, not globally available or are simply out of print, yet it would be helpful to point others to freely available material about TEE. Additionally, books about TEE are a niche market, and the initial investments into traditional publishing and the printing of a minimum stock are huge investments that often do not recover the initial investment. This might explain why very few books about TEE have been published in the last 30 years.
Over the last few years, modern technology has opened opportunities, including the possibility of distributing learning material without geographical restrictions and free from distribution costs through the Internet. These days, new material can be published through globally fully accessible e-books. However, traditional publishing still charges for them.
At TEEnet, we decided to try a different route from conventional publishing. We would like to see an increase in access to TEE courses and TEE books without geographical or financial restrictions. This is why TEEnet embraces Open Access/open theological publishing. This means that TEEnet publishes e-books, TEE courses and related material free of charge on our website. This removes the barrier of geographical and financial restrictions and allows relevant material to be accessible to the global community of TEE practitioners. We have found that many TEE writers wish their material could be more widely accessible to others but distribution has been a problem. TEEnet seeks to be a repository for such material so churches and TEE programmes all over the world can share and access TEE materials easily.
Two different and sometimes conflicting ideas are at the heart of Open Access materials. Some Open Access material is free to use (it has open geographical and financial access), while other material is also free to change (it has open copyright access, which might include open geographical and financial access). TEEnet also makes this distinction. For example, you can freely download a book published by TEEnet Press will be free to use (but cannot be changed). However; most of the courses posted on TEEnet will be free to change (you can contextualise, use part of a course, or add to a course).
Open Access materials help churches/institutions who are looking to start a TEE programme. However, starting a TEE programme from scratch is a daunting and nearly impossible task as full access to experienced TEE course writers and subject experts is rare. Additionally, to write a course or even a whole curriculum from scratch is only possible with financial investments. This is where the collaboration of TEEnet bears fruit, especially as TEEnet will focus on church-based training and material for lower educational levels.
Open Access materials save time for current TEE programmes who are seeking to address current issues and develop new courses to help with contextual challenges. Writing a course is often a very difficult and costly process. TEEnet hopes to help these programmes by offering courses that can be downloaded, contextualized, printed, and used free of charge. Additionally, TEEnet can pool writing resources both of course writing experts as well as subject experts (which might not be always locally available) and in that way, support the development of new contextual courses.
Open Access materials also provide vital support for individual and church-based spiritual growth as systematic church-based training often require bible study materials. These church-based programmes are also vital for developing church-based theological training. TEE materials are good resources for those churches who are not necessarily looking to start a TEE programme but perhaps want to either (a) study on their own and are looking for well-prepared materials to guide them or (b) they are looking for material for small group study like Sunday school, youth group, community study, etc. Many of these materials are inaccessible unless you pay some money for them or buy the study materials at a book shop. TEE materials are carefully written to guide the learner and make excellent materials for private study, Sunday school programmes, or small group studies. TEEnet seeks to support organized TEE providers as well as individuals who are seeking to grow in their knowledge, faith, and skills in specific areas.
Additionally, a challenge in church-based training is that often church members seek training, yet are very reluctant to pay anything besides a small token of appreciation. These small tokens of appreciation do not cover the costs of running the programme, much less developing new materials. Development costs for new courses and books are time consuming and costly, especially when done comprehensively. Unfortunately, we know that TEE courses have even been stolen and are now used by “competitors.” Thus, the whole investment has been lost, and institutional leadership has been undermined. We recognize that Open Access materials are not a solution for every TEE program. Some TEE providers need to protect their materials to recoup the cost of their investment.
Furthermore, TEE courses are costly to run because of the need to continuously train facilitators/tutors to deliver the best learning outcomes. Institutions rightfully guard their courses so they are not just sold as self-study materials and thus lose their pedagogical effectiveness. TEE programmes with government-accredited study programmes will not want their own material to be openly accessible and shared as the quality and relevance of their programmes and their income depend on these courses. Despite the above, there is a great need of pedagogically appropriate TEE learning material for training believers in the work of ministry. This is why TEEnet has decided to make as much of the courses and books as possible Open Access materials.
All publications under TEEnet Press are published under the Creative Commons License (https://creativecommons.org/about/cclicenses/). The Creative Commons Licence is basically an internationally recognised open-access copyright licence for published works. The Creative Commons Licence allows for various levels of permission from the copyright holder to edit, update, and even contextualise published material. TEEnet can choose the appropriate licence for each work as the Creative Commons Licence has different levels of permission.
Here are two examples of how this will work for TEEnet. We distinguish between books published by TEEnet Press and TEE courses published by TEEnet.
TEEnet Press mainly uses the following licence: “Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivates 4.0 International Licence.” (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
The “CC: Creative Commons” indicates that a work has an original international copyright, which is protected under this Creative Commons license.
“BY” indicates the requirement for end users to include “attribution “, meaning that end users must credit the original copyright holder.
“NC: Non-Commercial” indicates a non-commercial use of the material. This means that the end-user cannot sell the work to make a profit (but the end-user can charge for the material to recover their costs like printing).
For example, you could use a TEEnet Press book for staff training. You could print as many copies of it as you like. However, you must always include the copyright information to show that the author and TEEnet Press hold the copyright. You cannot sell the book to someone else to make a profit. You are also not allowed to change anything in the book. You cannot translate the book without additional permission from TEEnet Press.
TEEnet TEE courses mainly use the following licence: “CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International.” (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/).
The Creative Common Licence uses the following symbols to explain the copyright status of a published work:
The “CC: Creative Commons” indicates that a work has an original international copyright, which is protected under this Creative Commons license.
“BY” indicates the requirement for end users to include “attribution “, meaning that end users must credit the original copyright holder.
“NC: Non-Commercial” indicates a non-commercial use of the material. This means that the end-user cannot sell the work to make a profit (but the end-user can charge for the material to recover their costs like printing).
This licence does not have the restriction “ND”, indicating that no changes to the original material are permitted. This means that changes are allowed to be made to the original course. But this licence also stipulates that:
For example, you could download a TEEnet course and either use it in its original form or you could contextualise the course to suit your context better and change the course content. But you still need to show on your copyright page that your version is derived from the original TEE course by TEEnet and the original author. If you changed the course, you would also indicate the name of the author of the additional material or the translator’s name. You still could not sell the TEE courses to someone else to make a profit. Under this licence, you are allowed to translate the material. You are also allowed to add your school or programme’s logo in addition to the TEEnet logo on the cover of the material.
Images used with permission, Creative Commons Licence, Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Find out more about Creative Commons Licence under https://creativecommons.org/.