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Open Education provides a great mix of research and authentic application of "open" in éducation which is global in perspective. The contributions provide insightful evidence that open education as an ecosystem is on the tipping point of crossing the chasm from sharing to learn to learning to share. This book is a must-read for those who care about more sustainable education futures showing that open is a viable pathway to realising education as a fundamental human right. — Wayne Mackintosh, Founding Director of the OER Foundation and the OER Universitas In a time of openness vs closure, collaboration vs competition, elitism vs democratisation, this volume presents a range of perspectives that make a strong case for open education in both the developed and developing worlds. A recommended read for all those interested in transforming higher education. This book is a rich resource that illuminates the different dimensions of open education and its critical link to human rights. This delivers a very important message: that open education is a powerful tool to throw open the ivory towers and transform higher education in the 21st century. — Asha Kanwar, President & CEO, Commonwealth of Learning Sustainable Development Goal 4 (United Nations) enjoins us to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all. While we cannot rely on our current rigid and closed educational traditions to meet this goal, the concepts of the open education movement provide some promise. The importance of this book lies in its analysis of these concepts through the lens of the democratisation of education. Open is taken to enable far more than access - rather it focuses in on ideals of diversity, inclusion, agency, equity and social justice, towards the final goal of improving learning for all. — Jenny Glennie, Head of Saide

The Open Educational Resource (OER) movement has been successful in developing a large, global community of practitioners, in releasing high quality learning material and influencing policy. It now stands at the cusp of mainstream adoption, which will require reaching different audiences than previously. In this contribution the findings of the OER Research Hub are used to identify three categories of OER user: OER active, OER as facilitator and OER consumer. These groups have different requirements of OER and thus varying strategies would be required to meet their needs if mainstream adoption was to be realized.

Design of educational interventions is typically carried out following a design cycle involving phases of investigation, conceptualization, prototyping, implementation, execution and evaluation. This cycle can be applied at different levels of granularity e.g. learning activity, module, course or programme. \ud \ud In this paper we consider an aspect of learner behavior that can be critical to the success of many MOOCs i.e. their persistence to study, and the related theme of learner retention. We reflect on the impact that consideration of these can have on design decisions at different stages in the design cycle with the aim of en-hancing MOOC design in relation to learner persistence and retention, with particular attention to the European context.

The Changing Pedagogical Landscapes study took place from January 2014-June 2015 and was designed to address the following objective: “to examine to what extent government strategies and higher education regulatory and accreditation, funding, quality assurance, assessment and certification frameworks support or hinder new modes of learning, and in particular increased use of technology in the teaching and learning process. The research should further formulate conclusions and recommendations on how these systems – the framework conditions for higher education - can best be tailored to support new modes of teaching and learning.” European higher education has a long history of providing high quality degrees and advanced training in a very wide range of subjects, and has expanded its capacity greatly over the past 50 years. The use of qualification frameworks, quality assurance processes, mutually-recognised awards and credits, and support for student and teacher mobility have led to a sophisticated and sought-after higher education system. However, in common with all developed countries, there is concern that uptake of ICT in teaching and learning and innovation in pedagogy are still insufficient to enable the degree of flexibility and accessibility that will be needed for national economic success and the personal fulfilment of citizens. This study was commissioned by the European Commission to provide research analysis for, and recommendations to, European governments that would aid them in promoting greater innovation in pedagogy and in the use of technology in higher education

Resumen basado en el de la publicación La digitalización de los contenidos en combinación con una red de distribución global y un sistema abierto para el intercambio, ha provocado cambios radicales en muchas industrias. Tradicionalmente el modelo de negocio establecido en muchas de las industrias basadas en la gestión de contenidos se ha basado en la hipótesis de la escasez. Con un enfoque abierto y digital en red, se está presenciando un cambio global hacia la abundancia de contenido y, consecuentemente, se están desarrollando nuevos modelos económicos. Se explora el papel de la hipótesis de la escasez en prácticas desarrolladas en la educación superior, así como en pedagogía. El cambio hacia la abundancia de contenidos digitales tiene profundas implicaciones tanto para la educación, como para las industrias de contenidos. Se examinan los posibles métodos orientados hacia una 'pedagogía de la abundancia' y se destacan los requisitos necesarios para que puedan cumplirse . Madrid Biblioteca de Educación del Ministerio de Educación, Cultura y Deporte; Calle San Agustín, 5 - 3 planta; 28014 Madrid; Tel. +34917748000; biblioteca@mecd.es ESP

En l'última dècada s'ha produït una enorme innovació en la manera com les persones es connecten en línia les unes amb les altres. Les xarxes socials han experimentat un ràpid augment de popularitat i han generat tant preocupacions (confidencialitat, autoria del contingut) com oportunitats. Els articles d'aquesta revista es poden considerar intents de donar resposta a una pregunta: què haurien de fer els educadors respecte a les xarxes socials? L'arribada de les eines d'orientació social, sovint agrupades amb l'etiqueta de web 2.0 o mitjans socials, representa un dilema per a l'ensenyament superior. Els llocs de xarxes socials (SNS; social network sites) poden representar un avantatge per als estudiants, perquè fomenten el diàleg entre companys, promouen la compartició de recursos, faciliten la col·laboració i desenvolupen habilitats de comunicació, característiques totes de l'aprenentatge en línia que els sistemes de gestió de l'aprenentatge (LMS; learning management systems) convencionals han mirat de fomentar en l'última dècada d'adopció intensiva en l'ensenyament superior. Els SNS, en canvi, sembla que ho han aconseguit amb una facilitat i una velocitat sorprenents., The last decade has produced tremendous innovation in how people connect with one another online. Social networks have experienced a rapid increase in popularity, producing both concerns (privacy, content ownership) and opportunities. The articles in this journal can be viewed as attempts to answer the question: What should educators do about social networks? The advent of socially oriented tools, often grouped together under the Web 2.0 or social media banner, represents something of a dilemma for higher education. Social network sites (SNSs) can be a real benefit for learners as they encourage peer-to-peer dialogue, promote the sharing of resources, facilitate collaboration, and develop communication skills. These are all features of online learning that conventional learning management systems (LMSs) have struggled to realize over the past decade of intensive adoption in higher education. Yet SNSs seem to have accomplished this with remarkable ease and speed., En la última década ha tenido lugar una enorme innovación en el modo en que las personas se conectan en línea unas con otras. Las redes sociales han experimentado un rápido aumento de popularidad, y han generado tanto preocupaciones (privacidad, autoría del contenido) como oportunidades. Los artículos de esta revista pueden considerarse intentos de dar respuesta a una pregunta: ¿qué deberían hacer los educadores con respecto a las redes sociales? La llegada de las herramientas de orientación social, a menudo agrupadas bajo la etiqueta de web 2.0 o medios sociales, representa un dilema para la enseñanza superior. Los sitios de redes sociales (SNS; social network sites) pueden representar una ventaja para los estudiantes, ya que fomentan el diálogo entre compañeros, promueven la compartición de recursos, facilitan la colaboración y desarrollan destrezas de comunicación. Todas ellas son características del aprendizaje en línea que los sistemas de gestión del aprendizaje (LMS; learning management systems) convencionales han intentado fomentar en la última década de adopción intensiva en la enseñanza superior. Los SNS, en cambio, parecen haberlo conseguido con una facilidad y una velocidad sorprendentes.

Much of the attention around OERs has been on institutional projects which make explicit learning content available. These can be classified as 'big OER' but another form of OER is that of small scale, individually produced resources using web 2.0 type services, which are classified as 'little OER'. This paper examines some of the differences between the use of these two types of OER to highlight issues in open education. These include attitudes towards reputation, the intentionality of the resource, models of sustainability, the implicit affordances of resources and the context of their hosting sites.

This paper looks at how the concept of reusability has gained currency in e-learning. Initial attention was focused on reuse of content, but recently attention has focused on reusable software tools and reusable activity structures. The former has led to the proposal of service-oriented architectures, and the latter has seen the development of the Learning Design specification. The authors suggest that there is a mutual dependency between the success of these two approaches, as complex Learning Designs require the ability to call on a range of tools, while remaining technology neutral.\ud The paper describes a project at the UK Open University, SLeD, which sought to develop a Learning Design player that would utilise the service-oriented approach. This acted both as a means of exploring some of the issues implicit within both approaches and also provided a practical tool. The SLeD system was successfully implemented in a different university, Liverpool Hope, demonstrating some of the principles of re-use.

In this paper we consider an initial implementation of a system for managing and using IMS Learning Design (LD) to represent online learning activities. LD has been suggested (Koper & Olivier, 2004) as a flexible way to represent and encode learning materials, especially suited to online and web-based learning while neutral to the pedagogy that is being applied. As such it offers a chance to address a gap in the preparation of learning materials and their eventual use by students by providing a formal description of the approach, roles and services needed for a particular unit of learning. The potential in learning design that most interests us is its scope for the exchange of validated and formalised designs and so encouraging reuse. Until full implementations exist this potential cannot be explored and it is hard to predict if learning design will provide value in describing either full courses or in describing isolated activities. The initial work is therefore to implement a system for managing, validating and inspecting learning design building on collaboration between the Institute of Educational Technology at the Open University UK (OUUK) and the Educational Technology Expertise Centre (OTEC) at the Open University of the Netherlands (OUNL), who produced a Learning Design Engine CopperCore (http://coppercore.org/) released under Open Source.