Open Education
- LAST REVIEWED: 25 August 2021
- LAST MODIFIED: 25 August 2021
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199756810-0284
- LAST REVIEWED: 25 August 2021
- LAST MODIFIED: 25 August 2021
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199756810-0284
Introduction
Open education expands access to learning resources, tools, and research through collaboration and connection in a flexible learning framework that removes technical, legal, and financial barriers so that learners can share and adapt content to build upon existing knowledge. The foundation of “open education” first emerged in England when the Oxford Extension Movement was established in 1878 to provide education to the general masses. Following the success of these extension centers, the US Congress passed the Smith-Lever Act in 1914 to create a system of cooperative extension services connected to land grant universities. These extension cooperatives provided courses in agriculture, administrative policy, economics, and other subjects at little or no cost. Participants were given flexibility to direct their own learning by accessing instructional materials as they needed. In the late 1960s, theories regarding the value of this self-directed learning began to transform traditional classroom practice and again, interest in open learning gained popularity. By 1969, Prime Minister Harold Wilson garnered support to establish the British Open University, which globalized education through television and radio instruction. During the 1970s, even though open learning practices were favored in K-12 schools, ongoing criticism redirected educators back to standardized teaching methods. In the 1980s, the invention of the Wide World Web (1989) led to the creation of applications and networks that could deliver web-based education. The development of online “social” networks fostered the expansion of collaborative projects such as Wikipedia (2001) and the Budapest Open Access Initiative (2001), which broadened the educational landscape to support barrier-free learning. The emergence of online participatory platforms enabled several leading academic institutions who had been using web-based applications to curate and share their learning materials. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) created the MIT Open Courseware Project (2002), which led to the creation of massive open online courses (MOOCs). As educators worked together on the development of open educational content, the Cape Town Open Education Declaration (2009) was written as a statement to promote the use of open resources and open teaching practices in education. This declaration catalyzed further emphasis of Open Educational Resources (OERs), which included freely adaptable textbooks, journals, and open data projects. To share these resources, instructional repositories such as MERLOT and the OER Commons evolved. Open repositories enable educators to find instructional materials they can adopt, adapt, and create without financial or legal constraints. In some cases, OER projects focus on a disciplinary area such as digital humanities, open science, and open courses. To protect the rights of content creators, Creative Commons licenses assist with the attribution of these resources. The expansion of the open education movement has also prompted new explorations into open educational practices (OEP) to include mobile learning, personalized learning, and other open pedagogies. In 2012, the World OER Congress published the UNESCO OER Declaration, which states that “everyone has the right to education.” This statement reflects the foundation of open education.
General Overview
Silberman 1970 denounces traditional schooling and makes the call for open education. Historical overviews of the early “open education” movement can be found in Illich 1971 and Easthope 1975. Stephens 1974 offers examples of open teaching principles that can be linked to modern-day open pedological practices, whereas Resnick 1972 fosters the concept of personalized and participatory learning. After the 1980s, online open education studies examine the use of technological innovations to develop open education platforms. Kamenetz 2010 furthers the argument by discussing the need for higher education to support open education development, whereas Bonk 2009 identifies how emerging technologies are changing the barriers to open education. Weller 2014 examines the challenges of open access, massive open online courses (MOOCs), open educational resources, and open scholarship as the four key areas in open education.
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Article
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- Academic Audit for Universities
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- Action Research in Education
- Adjuncts in Higher Education in the United States
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- Advocacy and Activism in Early Childhood
- African American Racial Identity and Learning
- Alaska Native Education
- Alternative Certification Programs for Educators
- Alternative Schools
- American Indian Education
- Animals in Environmental Education
- Art Education
- Artificial Intelligence and Learning
- Assessing School Leader Effectiveness
- Assessment, Behavioral
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- Classroom Management
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- Computer-Based Testing
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- Critical Race Theory
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- Cross-National Research on Continuous Improvement
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- Distance Learning
- Distributed Leadership
- Doctoral Education and Training
- Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) in Denmark
- Early Childhood Education and Development in Mexico
- Early Childhood Education in Aotearoa New Zealand
- Early Childhood Education in Australia
- Early Childhood Education in China
- Early Childhood Education in Europe
- Early Childhood Education in Sub-Saharan Africa
- Early Childhood Education in Sweden
- Early Childhood Education Pedagogy
- Early Childhood Education Policy
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- Equity, Ethnicity, Diversity, and Excellence in Education
- Ethical Research with Young Children
- Ethics and Education
- Ethics of Teaching
- Ethnic Studies
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- Family and Community Partnerships in Education
- Family Day Care
- Federal Government Programs and Issues
- Feminization of Labor in Academia
- Finance, Education
- Financial Aid
- Formative Assessment
- Future-Focused Education
- Gender and Achievement
- Gender and Alternative Education
- Gender, Power and Politics in the Academy
- Gender-Based Violence on University Campuses
- Gifted Education
- Girls' Education in the Developing World
- Global Mindedness and Global Citizenship Education
- Global University Rankings
- Governance, Education
- Grounded Theory
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- Higher Education and Globalization
- Higher Education and the Developing World
- Higher Education Faculty Characteristics and Trends in the...
- Higher Education Finance
- Higher Education Governance
- Higher Education Graduate Outcomes and Destinations
- Higher Education in Africa
- Higher Education in China
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- Higher Education in the United States, Historical Evolutio...
- Higher Education, International Issues in
- Higher Education Management
- Higher Education Policy
- Higher Education Research
- Higher Education Student Assessment
- High-stakes Testing
- History of Early Childhood Education in the United States
- History of Education in the United States
- History of Technology Integration in Education
- Homeschooling
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- Inclusive Education
- Indigenous Education in a Global Context
- Indigenous Learning Environments
- Indigenous Students in Higher Education in the United Stat...
- Infant and Toddler Pedagogy
- Inservice Teacher Education
- Integrating Art across the Curriculum
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- International Perspectives on Academic Freedom
- Intersectionality and Education
- Knowledge Development in Early Childhood
- Leadership Development, Coaching and Feedback for
- Leadership in Early Childhood Education
- Leadership Training with an Emphasis on the United States
- Learning Analytics in Higher Education
- Learning Difficulties
- Learning, Lifelong
- Learning, Multimedia
- Learning Strategies
- Legal Matters and Education Law
- LGBT Youth in Schools
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- Literacy
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- Literature Reviews
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- Measurement in Education in the United States
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- Methodologies for Conducting Education Research
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- Multiple Documents Literacy: Theory, Research, and Applica...
- Multivariate Research Methodology
- Museums, Education, and Curriculum
- Music Education
- Narrative Research in Education
- Native American Studies
- Nonformal and Informal Environmental Education
- Note-Taking
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- One-to-One Technology in the K-12 Classroom
- Online Education
- Open Education
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- Organizing Schools for the Inclusion of Students with Disa...
- Outdoor Play and Learning
- Outdoor Play and Learning in Early Childhood Education
- Pedagogical Leadership
- Pedagogy of Teacher Education, A
- Performance Objectives and Measurement
- Performance-based Research Assessment in Higher Education
- Performance-based Research Funding
- Phenomenology in Educational Research
- Philosophy of Education
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- Politics of Education
- Portable Technology Use in Special Education Programs and ...
- Post-humanism and Environmental Education
- Pre-Service Teacher Education
- Problem Solving
- Productivity and Higher Education
- Professional Development
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- Psychology Learning and Teaching
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- Qualitative Data Analysis Techniques
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- Qualitative Research Design
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- Race and Affirmative Action in Higher Education
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- Refugee and New Immigrant Learners
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- Reliability in Educational Assessments
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- Response to Intervention
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- Risky Play in Early Childhood Education
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- Scaling Up Research-based Educational Practices
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- School Improvement through Inclusive Education
- School Reform
- Schools, Private and Independent
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- Science Education
- Secondary to Postsecondary Transition Issues
- Self-Regulated Learning
- Self-Study of Teacher Education Practices
- Service-Learning
- Severe Disabilities
- Single Salary Schedule
- Single-sex Education
- Single-Subject Research Design
- Social Context of Education
- Social Justice
- Social Network Analysis
- Social Pedagogy
- Social Science and Education Research
- Social Studies Education
- Sociology of Education
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- Statistical Assumptions
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- Teacher Collaboration in School Improvement
- Teacher Evaluation and Teacher Effectiveness
- Teacher Preparation
- Teacher Training and Development
- Teacher Unions and Associations
- Teacher-Student Relationships
- Teaching Critical Thinking
- Technologies, Teaching, and Learning in Higher Education
- Technology Education in Early Childhood
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