The Nature of Openness

Abstract

This chapter takes a particular position on the notion of ‘openness’, considering it from a broad perspective covering each major phase of the academic lifecycle, namely, design, delivery, evaluation and research. What would a vision of a truly open approach to design mean, beyond open educational resources towards a more explicit representation and sharing of the whole design process? With a shift towards more open learning and teaching practices, the boundaries between traditional, formal educational contexts and other non-formal and informal learning contexts are changing. What would adopting a more open approach to delivery mean? In terms of open evaluation, how can we harness and utilise the data we collect about learners on our courses? How can we build on the understanding developed as part of the learner experience research work and the associated new methodologies? What new methodologies and approaches might we develop to gain new insights into the impact of a changing technological context for learning? What will be the impact of the open access movement for research? How can we capitalise on the rich research data, which is now being made available on a global scale? How can we move to adopting more open approaches to research, open bibliographies and citations, making research outputs available online? What would it mean to make raw data publicly available for others to interrogate and use?