I must admit that the talk by Maha Bali opened up several avenues of thought for me concerning open education. Previously my perception of open education was perhaps somewhat naive and oversimplified – to me, it was mainly a matter of cost. Textbooks, case studies, reference books and other teaching materials can be a heavy financial burden on the student, and I thought of open education as a good way to relieve students of having to pay for expensive textbooks that they will only need for one semester. Naturally, adoption of open educational resources will also free up a lot more budget for libraries that purchase textbooks, allowing acquisitions of other useful resources.

However, open education has many more facets than just cost. For minorities (be it race, nationality, culture, language or others), the cost of publishing can be prohibitive and many publishers may not want to publish works that are too niche in nature. Online platforms have offered many alternatives to author, collaborate and share knowledge for free or very little cost.

A few drawbacks have come up during the discussions, such as copyright infringement and plagiarism. There is the risk of the credit of your research being taken by someone else because you have opened access to it. Open platforms may also be prone to content being vandalised (e.g. Wikipedia). There is also a limit to how much individuals can do to create, maintain and promote open learning – professors and academics have their own workload that they are paid to do. It is imperative that entities such as governments, NGOs and institutions must step up their support of open learning to help developing economies and individuals and societies in poverty obtain educational resources. Another consideration is creating online content that is suitable for areas with low internet access, as lack of internet access is one recent obstacle to online teaching during COVID-19. I don’t really have answers, but one possibility may be mobile learning, as mobile phone ownership is much higher in rural and poorer economies than laptop or computer ownership, especially in Asia.

I have always been a supporter of open educational resources, and was previously an active proofreader on Distributed Proofreaders, which converts public domain books into e-books. Alas, work and other obligations have cut down the time I have for this outside projects, but I would like to go back to contribute towards making more resources available freely online, and also explore alternatives suitable for students who cannot afford laptops and high-speed internet.