What is open education?
Open education is an umbrella term under which different understandings of open education can be accommodated. It goes beyond open educational resources (OER) and other open research outputs to embrace different ways of delivering content, strategic decisions, teaching methods, collaboration between teachers and institutions and recognition of in- and non-formal learning.
European Commission has defined that open education uses digital technologies to increase access and participation, making learning more flexible, customizable, and accessible through various formal and informal pathways. Open education ensures that everyone – regardless of their stage in life or career – has access to meaningful and appropriate learning opportunities. In general, digital technologies are one of the main driving forces behind educational modernization.
Open education is often divided into two main categories:
Advantages of open education
The idea of free and open sharing in education is not new. In fact, sharing is probably the most basic characteristic of education: education is sharing knowledge and information with others, upon which new knowledge, skills, ideas and understanding can be built. Through open educational approaches, students can get additional information, perspectives and materials to help them to succeed. Workers can learn new things that could help them in their current employment or retrain to get new skills that might help them undertake a career change. Faculty can draw on resources from all around the world, researchers can share data and develop new networks, and teachers can find new ways to help students learn.
Opening up education is important in the European policy agenda for many reasons. It allows access barriers to education to be reduced or removed (for example, cost, geography, time, and entry requirements). This can make it possible for learners to up skill or re-skill in a cheaper and flexible way – an important consideration in Europe today.
Open education helps to modernize higher education, since it is mostly carried out via digital technologies. If universities really want to find more resources to invest in better teaching and research, it is essential that the open sharing of resources is encouraged. Knowledge must be shared and spread, teachers inspired to network and collaborate on course development, and institutions discouraged from fragmentation and a silo mentality. In terms of access to learning, institutions which embrace open education are pushed to think further about supporting, for example, students with special needs. They can, therefore, widen their reach and increase the opportunities for participation in education.
Through open education, people, especially teachers, can connect with others they wouldn’t otherwise meet to share ideas and information. Materials can be translated, mixed together, broken apart and openly shared again, increasing access and inviting fresh approaches.
The potential of open educational resources can be summed around two linked possibilities:
- Increased availability of high quality, relevant learning materials can contribute to more productive students and educators. Removing restrictions around copying resources can reduce the cost of accessing educational materials; in many systems, royalty payments for textbooks and other educational materials constitute a significant proportion of the overall cost of education.
- Having the possibility of adapting existing materials provides one mechanism for constructing roles for students as active participants in educational processes, who learn by doing and creating, not by passively reading and absorbing. Content licenses that encourage activity and creation by students through re-use and adaptation of that content can make a significant contribution to creating more effective learning environments and experiences.
Benefits for different stakeholders
Open education approaches provide benefits for several stakeholders – the learners, the educators, the educational institutions, and the other sector.
Remember:
- Open education emphasizes collaboration, sharing, and the use of digital technologies to make learning more inclusive and flexible.
- Open educational resources (OER) and open educational practices (OEP) are the key components of open education.
- There are many benefits of open education for several stakeholders.