2. 2
Doors can be open,
so too can education
Doors can be open, closed, or partly open/closed.
So can education.
3. 3
Abstract
● WHAT: Open education involves educational
practices which use open educational
resources and which reduce barriers to
participation.
● WHY: Advantages of open education include
including greater accessibility, flexibility, quality
improvement, and lower long-term costs.
● HOW: Transform to open education by using
OERs, well-known open education web
platforms, minimising barriers, encouraging
students to contribute, and engaging in
communities of open practice.
4. 4
What is open education?
● Use of open educational resources
(OERs)
(as opposed to commercially-distributed copyright-restricted resources)
● Elimination of barriers to access and
participation
(or at least reduction and minimisation of barriers)
● An important aspect of open
academia
(open academia also involves open research and open service)
5. 5
Why open education?
● Range and quality of OERs is rapidly
increasing
● Flexibility
- can be accessed anytime, anywhere, any way
● Quality improvement
– open material attracts review, comment and editing
● Cost
– some short-term cost (e.g., in switching to or developing OERs), but long-
term savings
6. 6
How to go open?
● Make gradual changes
towards openness each teaching cycle
● Audit copyright licenses for materials
and switch to, and/or develop, OERs
● Minimise barriers to engagement
(e.g., open materials to public)
● Encourage students to contribute
(e.g., via open assessment tasks)
● Use well-known OER platforms
for developing and hosting materials (e.g., Wikiversity, WikiEducator)
● Share with open communities
- engage with open communities of practice for support and mentoring
7. 7
Presentation details
● Prepared and presented by James
Neill, Assistant Professor, Centre for
Applied Psychology, University of
Canberra, 5 June, 2014
● All material, images and recordings are
available under a Creative Commons
Attribution 4.0 International license
● For more information, see the
presentation home page:
https://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Going_open_education