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The adoption of open, online, flexible and technology-enhanced modes of learning (in short: of OOFAT) differs by higher education institution, despite the general cries of revolution and disruption due to digitalisation. This paper presents a new conceptual model for framing difference in three key educational processes (content, delivery and recognition) related to the potential of digitalisation to make these processes more flexible and more open. It is based on the results of a global survey of 69 higher education providers. The findings reveal six distinct archetypes of technology-enhanced higher education which vary according to the extent to which digitalisation is harnessed for content, delivery and recognition, and suggest different institutional strategies of digital adoption. It is hoped that this contribution will support comparative analysis of digitalisation strategies and peer learning between institutions.

The web has had a profound effect on the ways people interact, with online social networks arguably playing an important role in changing or augmenting how we connect with others. However, uptake of online social networking by the academic community varies, and needs to be understood. This paper presents an independent, novel analysis of a large-scale dataset published by Nature Publishing Group detailing the results of a survey about academics use of online social networking services. An open coding approach was used to analyse 480 previously unused text responses. The analysis revealed a wide range of benefits and also problems associated with engaging with online networking, and tensions within this. The analysis provides further insight into the nuances of uptake, by exploring clusters of co-reported benefits and problems within the qualitative analysis. The findings will help move forward current debates surrounding social media use by academics from being viewed in solely beneficial terms, towards an understanding of the problems and tensions that arise through academic work online.

The term open education has recently been used to refer to topics such as Open Educational Resources (OERs) and Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). Historically its roots lie in civil approaches to education and open universities, but this research is rarely referenced or acknowledged in current interpretations. In this article the antecedents of the modern open educational movement are examined, as the basis for connecting the various strands of research. Using a citation analysis method the key references are extracted and their relationships mapped. This work reveals eight distinct sub-topics within the broad open education area, with relatively little overlap. The implications for this are discussed and methods of improving inter-topic research are proposed. [This paper was presented at the 2018 Open Education Consortium Global Conference, held in Delft (The Netherlands) April 24th-26th, 2018.]

The advent of the internet and digital technologies has given rise to a number of new economic models. These have often been applied to education, but either through faults in the initial models or differences in the characteristics of the education sector, they have not proven to be widely applicable. The use of digital, network technologies combined with open licences is one area that has seen particular success in educational application. This field offers an economic model that has particular application to education, through the reallocation of finances to the production of openly licensed resources instead of the purchase of copyrighted ones. This has potential significant impact across a range of educational practices and beyond.

It has been suggested that open educational resources (OER) can lower cost and lead to greater flexibility; however, while there has been significant investment in opening up content there have been few studies looking at how these resources are perceived by those who might use them. This article contributes to fill a gap in our knowledge of how K-12 educators teaching in face-to-face, online and blended contexts currently think about and use OER. It is part of the research carried out by the Hewlett-funded OER Research Hub (OERRH) Project to examine the impact of OER on teaching and learning practices. The authors report findings from an international survey of over 600 teachers who answered a set of attitudinal and behavioural questions in relation to how they use OER, what types of OER they use, and what influences their selection of content, in addition to the purpose, challenges and perceived impact of OER in the K-12 classroom. The research highlights how teachers adapt rather than simply adopt OER, suggesting a strong connection between OER use and personalized learning, and argues that mainstreaming OER in K-12 education is not only a matter of raising awareness but of changing teachers' habits.

The paper introduces the "UK Open Textbooks" project and discusses its success factors with regards to promoting open practice and open pedagogy. Textbooks remain a core part of educational provision in science. Open Textbooks are openly licensed academic textbooks, wherein the digital version is available freely, and the print version at reduced cost. They are a form of Open Educational Resource (OER). In recent years a number of openly-licensed textbooks have demonstrated high impact in countries including the USA, Canada and South Africa. The "UK Open Textbooks" project piloted several established approaches to the use and promotion open textbooks (focusing on STEM subjects) in a UK context between 2017 and 2018. The project had two main aims: to promote the adoption of open textbooks in the UK; and to investigate the transferability of the successful models of adoption that have emerged in North America. Through a number of workshops at a range of higher education institutions and targeted promotion at specific education conferences, the project successfully raised the profile of open textbooks within the UK. Several case studies report existing examples of open textbook use in UK science were recorded. There was considerable interest and appetite for open textbooks amongst UK academics. This was partly related to cost savings for students, but more significant factors were the freedom to adapt and develop textbooks and OER. This is consistent with a range of research that has taken place in other countries and suggests the potential for impact on UK science education is high.

There has been little research into the impact of textbook costs on higher education in the United Kingdom. To better understand textbook use patterns and the issues faced by UK students and educators the UK Open Textbooks Project (2017-2018, http://ukopentextbooks.org/) conducted quantitative survey research with United Kingdom educators in September 2018. This article reports on the findings of this survey, which focussed on awareness of open educational resources; textbook use and rationale; awareness and use of open textbooks; and open licensing. Results reveal fertile ground for open textbook adoption with potential to support a wide range of open educational practices. The findings indicate strategies for supporting pedagogical innovation and student access through the mainstream adoption of open textbooks.

Massive open online courses (MOOCs) have generated considerable media interest, more than other education initiatives such as Open Education Resources (OERs). In this article the author argues that this can be seen as an example of the battle for narrative in open education. MOOCs attracted media interest because they appealed to broader narratives such as "education is broken" and the dominant Silicon Valley narrative. Analysis of the media coverage of MOOCs highlights how they satisfied the core beliefs inherent in these narratives in a way that other educational initiatives have not.

The OER Research Hub has been investigating the impact of OER, using eleven hypotheses, and a mixed methods approach to establish an evidence base. This paper explores the findings relating to teaching and learning. The findings reveal a set of direct impacts, including an increase in factors relating to student performance, increased reflection on the part of educators, and the use of OER to trial and supplement formal study. There are also indirect impacts, whose benefits will be seen after several iterations. These include the wide scale reporting of adaptation, and the increase in sharing and open practice that results from OER usage.

Massive Online Open Courses (MOOCs) have recently become a much discussed development within higher education. Much of this debate focuses on the philosophical and operational similarities and differences between the types of MOOCs that have emerged to date, the learner completion rates and how they can be sustained. In contrast there has been much less discussion about how such courses do, or do not, fit in with existing higher education policy and practice in terms of the social, economic and environmental benefits. This paper begins to address this issue by comparing and contrasting current MOOCs with one large population ICT-enhanced, mostly online Open University UK course presented a decade earlier and how they have both served, or might serve, broader social, economic or environmental objectives. The paper concludes that while MOOCs are forcing a re-conceptualisation of higher education study, much can also be learned from previous and existing large population mainly online courses from open universities. [This paper was presented at the 2014 OpenCourseWare Consortium Global Conference, held in Ljubljana (Slovenia) in April 2014.]

In this article the author argues that openness in education has been successful in establishing itself as an approach. However, this initial victory should be viewed as part of a larger battle around the nature of openness. Drawing lessons from history and the green movement, a number of challenges for the open education movement are identified as it enters this new stage. The value of openness to education is stressed in that it relates to opportunities for development and the role of the higher education in society.

Higher education institutions face a number of opportunities and challenges as the result of the digital revolution. The institutions perform a number of scholarship functions which can be affected by new technologies, and the desire is to retain these functions where appropriate, whilst the form they take may change. Much of the reaction to technological change comes from those with a vested interest in either wholesale change or maintaining the status quo. Taking the resilience metaphor from ecology, the authors propose a framework for analysing an institution's ability to adapt to digital challenges. This framework is examined at two institutions (the UK Open University and Canada's Athabasca University) using two current digital challenges, namely Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) and Open Access publishing.

The nature of openness in education has transformed from just relating to open access to encompass a wide range of interpretations. This paper explores the concept of an "open scholar" whose practice is shaped by digital and networked technologies. It is argued that openness represents an effective working method in this environment, and that creativity plays a key role in realising this. The relationship between creativity and open educational resources is outlined to demonstrate that there is a positive feedback loop between the two processes.

The paper will argue that adopting a learning design methodology may provide a vehicle for enabling better design and reuse of Open Educational Resources (OERs). It will describe a learning design methodology, which is being developed and implemented at the Open University in the UK. The aim is to develop a "pick and mix" learning design toolbox of different resources and tools to help designers/teachers make informed decisions about creating new or adapting existing learning activities. The methodology is applicable for designers/teachers designing in a traditional context--such as creation of materials as part of a formal curriculum, but also has value for those wanting to create OERs or adapt and repurpose existing OERs. With the increasing range of OERs now available through initiatives as part of the Open Courseware movement, we believe that methodologies, such as the one we describe in this paper, which can help guide reuse and adaptation will become increasingly important and arguably are an important aspect of ensuring longer term sustainability and uptake of OERs. Our approach adopts an empirically based approach to understanding and representing the design process. This includes a range of evaluation studies (capturing of case studies, interviews with designers/teachers, in-depth course evaluation and focus groups/workshops), which are helping to develop our understanding of how designers/teachers go about creating new learning activities. Alongside this we are collating an extensive set of tools and resources to support the design process, as well as developing a new Learning Design tool that helps teachers articulate and represent their design ideas. The paper will describe how we have adapted a mind mapping and argumentation tool, Compendium, for this purpose and how it is being used to help designers and teachers create and share learning activities. It will consider how initial evaluation of the use of the tool for learning design has been positive; users report that the tool is easy to use and helps them organise and articulate their learning designs. Importantly the tool also enables them to share and discuss their thinking about the design process. However it is also clear that visualising the design process is only one aspect of design, which is complex and multi-faceted. (Contains 2 tables and 5 figures.)

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. 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 reuse.

The true power of comparative research around the impact and use of open educational resources is only just being realised, largely through the work done by the Hewlett-funded OER Research Hub, based at The Open University (UK). Since late 2012, the project has used a combination of surveys, interviews and focus groups to gather data about the use of open educational resources (OER) by educators, formal learners and informal learners across the globe. These data focus on the overall picture emerging from the survey research of the project, which presently comprises more than 6390 responses, 50.3% of which are informal learners, 24.7% of which are formal learners, 21.6% of which are educators and 3.4% of which are librarians. Results from more than 20 individual questionnaires have been compiled, including surveys of K12 and Flipped Learning teachers; college educators from the CCCOER consortium; users of iTunesU, OpenLearn, OpenStax, Saylor, Siyavula and the YouTube channel of The Open University.