Education has long been touted as a benchmark for how advanced a society is in the world. As digital transformation has made its way into the education sector, expanding education to be more adaptable and accessible has never been easier. The Internet and mobile apps allow students to complete lessons and share information from anywhere in the world at a much lower cost than on-site education.At the same time technology has changed education, the expectations of students have changed too. Students today behave much like consumers with businesses — they expect quick, easy customer experiences with their schools as they do with their favorite brands. This newfound standard for the student journey has caused many grade schools, EdTech startups, and colleges alike to bring their internal processes and institutions as a whole up to speed with technological advancement. The concept of open education seeks to close the gap between the legacy solutions and outdated practices of traditional education and the opportunities of open learning and EdTech.
What is open education?
To start, open education is an attitude, a practice, and a method of teaching. At the center of open education is the belief that education is strengthened when shared openly. It seeks to accomplish many of the same goals as the open-source technology community: equal and easy access to information, closing divides and disparities, and sharing knowledge with the wider community. Open education relies on open educational resources (OER) and open licensing. OER refers to educational materials that include permission for anyone to use, modify, and share at zero cost. The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation defines OERs as “teaching, learning and research materials in any medium – digital or otherwise – that reside in the public domain or have been released under an open license that permits no-cost access, use, adaptation and redistribution by others with no or limited restrictions.”
How do OERs differ from other online courses like MOOCs?
MOOC stands for Massive Open Online Course. It would appear that MOOCs fall within the umbrella of open education, but they are actually quite different. Free materials and courses such as most MOOCs allow users only fair use rights or rights stated in specific licenses issued by the publisher. However, their material cannot be legally copied and users cannot alter anything in the course without explicit permission granted from the copyright holders. On the other hand, open educational resources (OERs) are like open-source code. They grant all users rights without needing to request permission from the copyright holders. The users’ rights are clearly specified and easily understandable, which is unlike the legalese usually found in proprietary educational material like MOOCs. Given this understanding, it’s easy to see how online courses provide the degree of accessibility that OERs do, but not necessarily the flexibility and accuracy to up-to-date information that OERs offer. When one is granted an open license, users of an OER participate in these five characteristics (known as 5Rs) of open education:
