1 Introduction

For a long time, teaching and learning were understood as activities tied to a particular sense of place. Although various concepts had emerged, such as distance learning, e-learning, blended learning, and online learning, these mainly occurred in academic debates but were widely absent in pedagogical practices in higher education.

The incisive developments during the COVID-19 pandemic have made the importance of online learning for education in the digital age evident, and it is unlikely that this wheel will be turned back in the foreseeable future (Brown, 2021). First experiences show, for instance, that online learning can support the development of digital education and the practices of student engagement (Gourlay et al., 2021) and can lead to an openness towards learning innovation that was not present before the COVID-19 pandemic (Rapanta et al., 2021). However, as the term “online” learning implies, the internet has played and will play a key role in developing and distributing new forms of teaching and learning.

What is remarkable from an educational media perspective is that efforts and studies primarily treat the internet as an amorphous space where tools and services can be provided and delivered. Consequently, one rarely encounters the question of how the learning space itself has to be designed on the internet to enable and support different notions of teaching and learning. The authors of this book are convinced that this will be one of the crucial questions of the following decades.

From our perspective, the only appropriate answer is that the notion of open education must guide all design approaches for the internet to enable education as a public good (Otto & Kerres, 2021). As proof of concept, this book presents the idea of designing and conveying education on the internet as a mesh of Distributed Learning Ecosystems (DLE).

The DLE concept was developed in the research project “Digital Educational Architectures. Open Learning Resources in Distributed Learning Infrastructures” (EduArc), funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) in Germany from 2018‒2022. For this undertaking, an interdisciplinary project consortium was created, consisting of the University Duisburg-Essen, the University of Oldenburg, the Leibniz Institute for Research and Information in Education in Frankfurt/Main (DIPF), and the Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (ZBW), in order to address the different technical, pedagogical, and organisational aspects. The consortium developed a design concept for distributed learning infrastructures with which digital educational resources can be provided in a federated manner. For this, it explored the technical, instructional, and organisational conditions for the success of an educational architecture that is based on networking higher education institutions and the interaction of state, public, and private actors. The project mainly focused on the challenges that arise when distributing Open Educational Resources (OER) in an “informationally open ecosystem” (Kerres & Heinen, 2015), particularly the provision and access to repositories. Furthermore, it explored possibilities of linking via metadata, dealing with different versions of the material, and the possible quality mechanisms in this context. Finally, the project also strove to connect to existing country-specific, national, European, and international developments.

The basic concept of a learning ecosystem reflects the observation that different elements interact and influence each other in today’s learning processes. For higher education institutions, a learning ecosystem comprises all services, resources, and environments within the institution that enable or support learning processes.

The main argument found in the book is that, although these learning ecosystems are increasingly established in higher education institutions, there is still a gap regarding their permeability and interconnectedness. Consequently, the book intends to close this gap by presenting the concept of DLE. The authors of the different chapters are guided by the aim of addressing the pitfalls that exist on the way to achieving this goal. In order to cover the crucial aspects, the book offers an interdisciplinary perspective that addresses the three critical aspects: concepts, resources, and repositories. To approach these aspects comprehensively, we invited a range of acknowledged researchers and practitioners to complement the research done within the project and beyond.

2 Structure of this book

Section I: Concepts

The book’s first section covers the core conceptional elements that need consideration before thinking about DLE.

Otto and Kerres start by introducing and defining the basic concept of DLE. Then, they demonstrate that the internet is increasingly becoming the space where learning takes place and that DLE can serve as a concept for establishing a link between decentralised learning ecosystems (consisting of content repositories and educational resources) that exist in the higher education landscape. With reference to the other chapters in the book, their chapter highlights challenges and solutions on the road to DLE.

The second chapter by Bozkurt and Stracke introduces openness as the philosophical basis of DLE. The authors show that openness has emerged as one central topic of interest due to the wideness of its scope and the opportunities it offers. The impact the digital transformation in terms of online technologies has had on openness in education is explained, and the characteristics of ecosystems and learning ecologies are presented from a socio-environmental perspective. The authors conclude that if practised through DLE, openness in education can unfold its full potential.

Repositories play an important part for DLE as they serve as the dots that need to be connected. Santos-Hermosa, in her chapter, provides a comprehensive analysis of the role of institutional repositories in higher education. She critically assesses their purpose and level of openness. The latter is crucial for allowing learners and teachers to deposit their educational resources for open sharing and use in teaching and learning processes. It is stimulating to read her suggestions on advancing from open content and OER to Open Educational Practices (OEP) and from OAI-PHM (Open Archives Initiative Protocol for Metadata Harvesting) protocol interoperability to Linked Data and Open Informational Ecosystems. Lastly, she presents several ongoing initiatives that need to be considered.

Online courses are an essential element in DLE. However, an online course is a concept that is not well defined. Stracke et al., in their chapter, present a typology of (open) online courses and their dimensions, characteristics, and relationships with DLE, OER, and Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). The authors elaborate on the key terms and conduct a literature review, confirming the absence of a typology framework for online courses. Consequently, they analyse and compare dimensions and categories of online courses from diverse sources and develop a framework proposal for typologies of online courses (TOC) with eight dimensions that can support designers in the design process, quality development, and evaluation of online courses. Furthermore, the framework enables learners to differentiate online courses according to the dimensions of these courses in comparison with their own preferences and demands. Finally, the authors present some thoughts on how OER and MOOCs can contribute to DLE and the general need for (equitable and collaborative) open education.

Open textbooks are another concept that has gained prominence in the context of open education. Studies with open textbooks have repeatedly shown that they can reduce educational material costs while achieving the same learning outcomes as conventional textbooks (Hilton, 2016). Pitt, in her chapter, takes a closer look at open textbooks, which she defines as complete course books available on open licenses. They have been particularly successful in facilitating widespread use of OER in some regions, such as North America. The chapter surveys the current extent and future potential use of open textbooks in higher education. Notably, it examines how open textbooks are used to address challenges in higher education and provide opportunities for connecting and enabling institutional and extra-institutional communities. Pitt finds that while open textbook ecosystems are well developed in some countries, the role of open textbooks is still emergent elsewhere. She provides key lessons learned from more mature ecosystems as well as those where open textbook use remains limited.

Section II: Resources

There can be no doubt that OER provide a nucleus of open education and, therefore, have to be considered in any learning ecosystem design. However, especially in empirical research, there is still limited knowledge about how OER are used or should be used in education (Otto et al., 2021). The second chapter sheds light on the issue by providing innovative chapters on the diverse aspects necessary for designing and connecting DLE.

Schuwer and Baas start with a chapter on the reuse of OER, a much-needed perspective in the debate on OER. Too often, the focus is on the lack of awareness of OER or barriers to their use (Koseoglu & Bozkurt, 2018; Otto, 2021b). The authors find that the extent of reusing OER is still limited. One problem here is that the measurement of actual reuse is difficult. As a result, much of the reuse remains invisible or happens under the radar, often labelled as dark reuse (Beaven, 2018). The authors develop a process model for the practical reuse of OER to determine which support and skills are needed. This model differentiates between two scenarios: an educator-centred and a student-centred one. However, to maximise the impact, the authors conclude that support structures and skill programmes should be directed both at educators and students.

The aspect of quality has been one central controversy in OER discussions (Yuan & Recker, 2015). It is certainly debatable whether and to what extent the idea of openness can be reconciled with a demand for quality standards. Lübben et al., in their chapter, draw on this debate and stress that primarily due to their dynamic development process, OER pose a unique challenge regarding quality assurance. They argue that although many approaches to developing procedures for quality assurance exist, there is still a lack of suitable instruments to measure the quality of OER. An empirical validation of the German version of a quality instrument is presented in their chapter. The validation included the analysis of interrater reliabilities, internal consistencies, and an estimation of construct validity operationalised as convergent validity with the MERLOT Peer Reviewer Report Form. This provides a basis for the authors to discuss the importance of quality assurance of OER within DLE. They argue that to ensure the quality of OER, three conditions must be met: First, there must be practicable procedures for measuring quality. Second, reliable and valid instruments for measuring quality must be used. Third, the results of any quality measurement must be communicated back to OER users.

How can we incentivise teachers to engage in OER activities? Unfortunately, answers to this question are rarely addressed in OER studies (Otto, 2021a). In their chapter, Schön et al. present the case of the “Forum Neue Medien in der Lehre Austria” (fnma), responsible for developing and introducing a procedure to ascertain OER competencies and OER activities in higher education. The aim is to develop and implement an operative and recognised procedure that sustainably promotes and makes visible OER activities and OER competencies at Austria’s higher education institutions. The authors deliver an operational plan, present first results, and discuss how the competence framework is compatible with other existing frameworks.

The section concludes with a much-needed chapter on the debate on OER. With “Future directions in OER”, Kimmons and Irvine reflect on OER and why we should avoid technocentric narratives of OER as having effects in themselves. Instead, we must explore the opportunities provided by open technologies and resources to rethink what learning is all about, rethink education, and actively work to reshape our institutions in accordance with possible futures. This rethinking and reshaping is not only limited to how we understand the impact of OER, but also how educators can more feasibly create and use OER and how we make a better and more equitable world. The chapter also explores some of the emerging possibilities offered by OER to rethink how we approached education in the past and how we can use OER to move toward futures that allow for more sustainable generosity.

Section III: Repositories

Repositories are constitutional parts of federated open educational infrastructures. While Santors-Hermosa provided a first glance with her chapter, the chapters in this section show and address the different challenges that arise in the process of designing and connecting different repositories.

Hiebl et al. build on the discussion in the last section and combine it with Open Educational Practices (OEP), which have become a powerful concept in discussing the pedagogical implications of OER (Cronin & MacLaren, 2018). The sharing and collaborative creation of OER are at the core of such practices. Digital infrastructures provide environments for these kinds of practices and reflect ideas and implications of OEP through the functionalities they offer and can, therefore, be regarded as key drivers. Since a shared understanding of OEP has yet to be defined, this chapter shows the relationship between open practices and digital infrastructures and reveals challenges for designing digital infrastructures that foster OEP.

Learning Management Systems (LMS) are typically the place where teachers provide learning material, and learners access it. Therefore, providing access to OER repositories for both groups through LMS is desirable from a pedagogical perspective. An informational perspective is needed to accomplish this goal. In their chapter, Abdel-Qader et al. outline the process of connecting OER repositories using the Learning Object Metadata (LOM) standard step by step as simply as possible. Detailed specifications and requirements for connecting different OER repositories using the LOM standard are considered from a technical point of view. The authors define the used technical terms and show how the process works at the back end. More specifically, for each stage of connecting repositories, from harvesting the metadata from those repositories to storing the processed data in files ready to be used in the front end, they describe the functional requirements and technologies needed and how the process works. Their idea is to allow non-technical staff to replicate such a process or stages of it. They round off their hands-on approach by giving examples of tools that may help in the process of harvesting data from the web. Some of these tools are visual and do not require any programming skills.

If we follow the idea of OER becoming increasingly available in different repositories, we might wonder how we can distinguish the different versions of a resource. Moreover, how can we track the changes that were made to a resource? Schroeder, in her chapter, addresses this crucial challenge of OER in DLE, taking on board the various initiatives worldwide that are currently investigating technical developments for finding and sharing OER in higher education. She finds that engaging in OER can result in new versions of a resource, and further developments by other users can lead to derivatives. Therefore, managing these versions in terms of tracking changes and learning about new versions available is not only an issue for developing OER repositories. It also facilitates the interconnectedness of repositories, which can improve the discoverability of OER in DLE. Consequently, she discusses use cases of OER in the context of version management and presents approaches to managing educational material in DLE, resulting in a concept of version management for OER.

While more OER become available, these are often not discoverable for teachers and learners (Cortinovis et al., 2019). One reason for this is that they are not findable to potential users because they lack any or adequate metadata. Menzel dedicates his chapter to this topic by first introducing the recognised FAIR principles (improve Findability, Accessibility, Interoperability, and Reuse of digital assets) necessary to describe educational material through meaningful metadata. However, there are conflicting demands to complying with them. On the one hand, the educational resources should be described in as much detail as possible for accurately fitting search results. On the other hand, only strictly necessary information should be obligatory to keep the obstacles for authors as low as possible. Operators of OER repositories from several federal states in Germany (HOOU, OERNDS, ORCA.nrw, VCRP, VHB, ZOERR) have developed a metadata profile focussing on OER in the context of higher education. Menzel describes the decision process and specific choices that were made to reach this goal.

Last but not least, in this section, Ahamd et al. deal with another emerging topic, learning analytics. Learning analytics has received increasing attention among the educational research community (Chiappe & Rodríguez, 2017). Following Ahamd et al., learning analytics consists of various steps that include data harvesting, storing, cleaning, anonymisation, mining, analysis, and visualisation to make educators’ vast amount of educational data comprehensible and ethically utilisable. Instructors can then use the advantages that learning analytics brings to benefit education. These include the potential to increase learning experiences and reduce dropout rates. In their chapter, the authors shed light on OER repositories, learning analytics, and learning analytics dashboards and present an implementation of a research-driven learning analytics dashboard for displaying OER and their repositories that allows the visualisation of educational data in an understandable way for both educators and learners. Moreover, they present a case study of a learning analytics dashboard for displaying OER that shows information on the existing German OER repositories as part of the EduArc project.

3 Conclusion

We hope that this book will provide readers with as comprehensive and interdisciplinary a perspective as possible on the question of how to design learning ecosystems on the internet as a teaching/learning space in general. Our response to this is to introduce DLE to enable education as a public good.

We also hope that readers will be motivated by the various sections and chapters to make their own efforts, be they theoretical, conceptual, or practical.

If this book serves as an impulse or guideline to trigger these efforts, one of our major goals will have been achieved.