Revisiting Open Education

It’s been a long time since I’ve sat down to really think or write about Open Education. I’m not even sure if I’ll post this, but perhaps writing will help.

There was a time when I might have been characterized as an active advocate for Open Education, particularly in higher education. I sat on committees, delivered workshops and presentations, participated in communities of practice, collaborated on a MOOC focused on developing OER for ABE contexts, and worked with staff and faculty to create all kinds of Open Educational Resources, including textbooks and learning objects. One project from my long journey as an instructional designer that I’d say I’m most proud of (or close to) is an open textbook I co-authored with a team assembled by Olds College. But I’ve moved on from much of that in a way, I’m much quieter about it all now, and working with things like Open Licenses, and OER is part of my toolkit but not the primary focus of my day-to-day work anymore.

Some of that may be due to my shift in roles over the years. Some of it may be the opportunity. But a non-insignificant portion of it stems from needing to step back. I do still keep an eye on what’s happening in communities I used to participate in more frequently, but I felt I had to take a break from active participation in certain groups within the larger open education community. Despite my efforts, my socials are overrun with buzz from the Open Education and OER arena. So here I am.

There are conversations swirling around social media that seem to have been sparked by an upcoming presentation by David Wiley at the University of Regina titled, Why Open Education Will Become Generative AI Education.

That’s a really short description, but I see it’s ignited conversation across all the spaces I lurk. I’m not too surprised that it is a provocative suggestion. The last time I saw Wiley speak was at OER18 in Bristol where he gave some talk (I can’t remember if I published about it or not) where today the most memorable thing was Wiley opening with something along the lines of, “I was asked to be provocative, so here I am”. And yeah, that crowd had feelings (myself included). So what stands out from the debate this week? Well, if the intention was to be provocative, mission accomplished. Discussion channels have been overflowing, to the point where folks are also taking a step back. 

This isn’t the first time I’ve seen mixed reactions to specific technologies or approaches in the open education space. I recall in 2015 a hot new topic dominated the conversation: open textbooks. Given the position open textbooks hold in many organizations, it may come as a surprise there was a contingent of attendees who expressed their discontent, loudly, about how open textbooks supported the status quo, are a limiting factor in the larger open education movement, etc. Nine years later, some are still celebrating, promoting, and using open textbooks despite the criticism in 2015. Conferences are where trends in disciplines are brought forward for debate. That’s kind of the point.

In debates I’ve seen since 2015, some themes have tended to arise from segments of the broader community of open education practitioners, enthusiasts, advocates, etc. The underlying argument that creeps up every now and then might look like the following: 

1. there is a unified definition, set of values, and community of “Open”
2. that it’s useful to speak about “Open” in an all-encompassing way rather than specific areas and activities thereof (e.g. Open Education, OER, Open Access, MOOCs, Open Source, Open Streets, Open Government, Open Banking, etc.), and
3. that all actors engaging in various open practices must meet all of the components of the definition to be accepted as legitimate participants in “Open”

Sometimes, the conversation focuses on narrower terms, such as OER; at other times, it expands to “Open” as broadly as possible. However, attempting to capture any work area with the modifier “Open” would be pretty well impossible. We could consider education-related ones such as open education, open educational resources, and massive open online courses, for example. Arguably, there is some common ground there. Then, we could expand to open access, open science, open data, etc. There may be some overlap there. However, Expanding to concepts like Open Streets shows that there may be a scent of similarity, but there is a limitation to how broadly a single idea of the term can be applied.

However, based on where the conversations are taking place, it may be safe to assume that by “open,” participants mean “openness” as it intersects with “education.” This leaves us with a few areas to consider, highlighted in Openness and Education: A beginner’s guide. Based on a citation network analysis, Jordan & Weller identify clusters of related papers to illustrate the different ways of thinking about openness in education. They map these clusters to eight areas:

• open education in schools (and open classrooms),
• distance education,
• e-learning,
• open access publishing,
• open educational resources (OER),
• social media,
• MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses), and
• open practices.

Their work traces decades-long contributions and, importantly, emphasizes that openness in education did not stem from a singular concept. Instead, it has been and continues to be, a broad and evolving field with various interpretations and applications. The plurality of interpretations, motivations, and implementation is something I’ve seen firsthand. For some in the broader inter-related openness and education community(ies), that’s led them to focus on smaller, more easily defined areas (e.g. OER, badges, or teaching). Considering the tensions in ideas about and approaches to openness in education brought me back to another piece of Weller’s work, The Battle for Open. A lot resonates in the work, as he reminds us that openness 

This feature means that all kinds of people can come to participate in some open practice while also acknowledging that articulating how it relates is important. 

The book overall examines a few areas that were in the air around its research and publication, including open access, MOOCs, etc., and Weller notes that,

That’s why it’s essential to be more specific about what you mean, to provide clarity rather than describing your work in one broad, ambiguous term. Beginning with the positionality of the practitioner and the work may reveal the influences, interpretation, and motivation behind the work. Again, this provides nuance that is unavailable in broad, sweeping, assumed or unspoken definitions.

For the purposes of the book, Weller identified coalescing principles of openness and education grounded in open universities, open source, and Web 2.0. He acknowledges that these strands may increase over time. Still, he observes that even with few strands, a unified definition is impossible, 

Increasing the number of strands only compounds this problem. Therefore, Weller states (and I agree), 

I would further clarify that some principles overlap at specific points and not at others. As if one laid ribbons out on the floor, portions of each ribbon overlap. In some places, all strands overlap; in others, a strand is alone. These evolve over time. While Weller grounds this work in the Open University (where much of his work lies), if we look at a singular term like “open pedagogy,” there has been an evolution in its definitions and characteristics. Looking back to the 1970s, open in this context was more associated with distinguishing didactic teaching from what we might describe now as active learning (or many other more student-centred approaches)(Elliot, 1973). Paquette (1979) outlines open pedagogy along the lines of flexible scheduling, student choice of (common) activities, and peer to peer socialization and interaction. Again you can see the contrast between “open” and “closed” along the lines of didactic vs. facilitative instruction.  

More recently, its focus has become increasingly on creating, using, and sharing open educational resources (OER). It’s even expanded to a similar yet distinct term, Open Educational Practices, but OEP is usually tightly integrated with OER (e.g. Ehlers, 2011; Chronin, 2017), which I don’t believe would have been anywhere near the conversation in the 1970s. We didn’t have the kinds of networks and participatory technology that we came to have in the 2010s. 

If these strands had not come together over time, many working in open education-related areas would not have been able to join “the movement” in the first place. Openness in Education has been and continues to be, shaped by changing contexts (Bozkurt et al., 2019). It has come to include many dimensions, such as open pedagogy, open educational resources, and open practices. It reflects values like accessibility, collaboration, and inclusion, and more which makes it difficult to pin down (Baker, 2017). As a dynamic ideal, openness resists a singular definition, continually adapting to new demands and expanding its meaning over time (Zawacki-Richter et al., 2020). While the flexibility and evolution of openness over time present challenges, they are also its fundamental strength. Over time, openness has taken on various forms, continually evolving and integrating new meanings as a guiding ideal for open education (Bozkurt, et al., 2023). 

I’ll leave off with a final quote,

Its strength, responsiveness, and adaptability come from the plurality of interpretations, motivations, and implementations of practitioners. It doesn’t belong to any one person or group—that’s the point.

Bozkurt, A., Gjelsvik, T., Adam, T., Asino, T. I., Atenas, J., Bali, M., … & Zawacki-Richter, O. (2023). Openness in education as a praxis: From individual testimonials to collective voices. Open Praxis, 15(2), 76-112.

Baker III, F. W. (2017). An alternative approach: Openness in education over the last 100 years. TechTrends, 61(2), 130-140.

Jordan, K., & Weller, M. (2017). Openness in education: A beginner’s guide. Global OER Graduate Network.

Weller, M. (2014). The battle for open: How openness won and why it doesn’t feel like victory. Ubiquity Press.

Zawacki-Richter, O., Conrad, D., Bozkurt, A., Aydin, C. H., Bedenlier, S., Jung, I., … & Kerres, M. (2020). Elements of open education: An invitation to future research. International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, 21(3), 319-334.