1 Defining Open Education

Open education stems from the fact that expanding educational opportunities is more possible now than it has ever been before. Through the Internet, learners can instantly find information on virtually any topic. Teachers can share their knowledge with students on another continent almost as easily as in their own classroom. Educational materials can be disseminated to a worldwide audience at virtually no marginal cost.

Principles of Open Education

In 2008 the Cape Town Declaration was one of the first to lay the foundations of the “emerging open education movement.”  These principles advocated for the freedom to use, customize, and redistribute educational resources without constraint.

The Declaration describes open education as follows:

In 2008, the Cape Town Declaration was one of the first to lay the foundations of the “emerging open education movement.”  These principles advocated for the freedom to use, customize, and redistribute educational resources without constraint. 

Pillars of Open Education

Open education is a broad movement that applies differently across the world. In the context of higher education institutions, it is useful to think about open education in terms of three main pillars:

• Open Educational Resources: Open Educational Resources (OER) are learning, teaching and research materials in any format and medium that reside in the public domain or are under copyright that have been released under an open license, that permit no-cost access, re-use, re-purpose, adaptation and redistribution by others. (UNESCO Recommendation on OER, 2019) 
• Open Educational Practices: Open Educational Practices (OEP) teach techniques that leverage the “open” nature of OER and open technologies to facilitate learning. This may include open pedagogy where students participate in the creation or improvement of OER, “flipped classroom” models where students watch open video lectures to free up class time for discussion, or online courses taught openly so that anyone with an internet connection can participate.
• Open Educational Policy: Open Educational Policy refers to policy frameworks that support, encourage, and remove barriers to Open Education. SPARC tracks OER State Policies for Open Education.

References

SPARC. (2018). SPARC Open Education Leadership Program.  https://sparcopen.org/leadership-program Licensed under CC BY 4.0.