[Open-education] Friday Chat: what is openness to you?

[Darco Jansen]

Dear all,

Thank you Marieke for starting this discussion. And thanks for referring to removing barriers as a key issue.

Openness in open education for me is about removing all unnecessary barriers to learning and provide people with a reasonable chance of success in education. This implies 'openness' in the sense not only of no financial cost, but also open accessibility, open licensing policy, freedom of place, pace and time of study, open entry, and open pedagogy.

For me personally I see an inflation of the term openness, as everyone is using open now. Open has become a business term, it opens doors. Consequently openness can be anything. MOOCs are open as they are free online available? (no for me). OCWC changed their name to Open Education Consortium, and now they are now an expert consortium of all apects in open education? (no for me)

But who cares.... Openness is not a absolute term, it is refers to something being closed. And not everything can and must be open, as discussed in latest book on Open Development by Smith and Katherine: "However, no open model is ever universally open, nor can it ever be. "The constraints of people , existing social systems, and the contours of the open model all provide limitations to who can participate, and how. Time, distance, language, culture, past experiences, and so on, affect individuals' ability to access and participate meaningfully."

So, for me openness is about removing barriers but such that it it creates success for as much as people as possible And that is not only barriers at entrance, of by improving design (e.g. by pedagogy) but also how open development approaches can increase success for many.  As such it is connected to a social mission, to equity, to social inclusion, etc.

Enjoy your weekend,

Darco

Sent by iPad

Op 2 mei 2014 om 18:59 heeft "Pat Lockley" <patrick.lockley at googlemail.com<mailto:patrick.lockley at googlemail.com>> het volgende geschreven:


To me, openness is, like you mentioned based on power. Hobbes and his leviathan are quite apt.
I don't feel it has to be about knowledge or education, but the humble acceptance that some other can improve or gain from your work in ways you can't possibly imagine, and to prevent them from doing so, is to denigrate your work, almost explicitly criticise it, and to leave me thinking you must be a little arrogant.

On 2 May 2014 14:47, "Marieke Guy" <marieke.guy at okfn.org<mailto:marieke.guy at okfn.org>> wrote:
Last week we talked about having a Friday Chat or discussion on the list. There were quite a few suggestions on how best to do this. I was out at OER14 early this week (some really great sessions<http://education.okfn.org/oer14-outwards-and-onwards/>) and have been a little busy since so haven't had time to look in to any of the more exciting approaches in detail.

In an attempt to keep things going I've set up an etherpad<http://new.okfnpad.org/p/Open_Education_Working_Friday_Chats> [apologies Andre ;-)] and have dropped in some ideas for topics - please do add more!

Fred suggested we start with "what is openness to you?"

Thinking back, I studied an MSc in Information Management many moons ago and I remember a discussion we had in the pub after a lecture about the phrase "knowledge is power". We acknowledged that the phrase is often used in a very competitive way in the commercial space - for many of us it brought to mind bankers and trust fund managers - people who deal in secrecy and competitive advantage. When we dug a bit deeper<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientia_potentia_est> we realised that the phrase (attributed by many to Francis Bacon - though actually first used by his secretary Thomas Hobbes) is actually about the value of education, not about withholding information. Our discussions went on to consider whether which is the best path to knowledge - openness or secrecy? I was quite keen on openness...

I see openness as one of the tools that helps us find knowledge. For me openness is about a freedom that allows us to work together, rather than in isolation. In places like the UK openness is often a given, in other countries they have to continually fight for this right. Openness manifests itself in removal of barriers such as censorship, financial inequality, the inability to change, racism and other forms of oppression - it results in transparency and ultimately a better world.

So what about you? ;-)

Marieke

--

Marieke Guy
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