I guess everybody has some kind of idea for what “openness” means, when we talk about it in daily life. But I’m pretty sure you will get the same number of explanations as the number of people you ask. 

So what does it mean and especially, what does it mean in education? And is there really something that can be called openness? After two weeks with the topic Open Learning – Sharing and Openness, I’m still not sure how to describe it. But I think I understand what it means. One way to try to answer what openness in education means, is by looking at how academics define it. 

“The term “openness” refers to any teaching organization or institution that offers a variety of choices to learners by giving them the opportunity to study and learn in ways that are independent of time and place.

Caliskan, 2012, n.p.n.

”This term has many forms and dimensions, but in essence, it supports the idea that knowledge is a public good and anyone who demands it should have access to it without being faced with any barriers.”

Bozkurt, 2019, p. 272

These two definitions might be seen as different, where Caliskan talks about organizations/institutes, while Bozkurt talks about general knowledge in society. But for me the basically say the same thing: that openness in education means that its open for anybody. Openness in educations is of course linked to the concept of Open learning. So let’s have a look at how this term is defined: 

“The term “open learning” is used to describe learning situations in which learners have the flexibility to choose from a variety of options in relation to the time, place, instructional methods, modes of access, and other factors related to their learning processes. It should be understood from this perspective that a learning situation or process should be open to everyone, under any circumstances, at any place and at any time. In many situations, the term open learning is used interchangeably to refer to e-learning, flexible learning, and distance learning.”

Caliskan, 2012, n.p.n.

“a way of studying that allows people to learn where and when they want, and to receive and send written work by mail or email:”

Cambridge Dictionary

”Any learning activities within formal, informal, and non-formal domains that are facilitated by information and communication technologies to lessen distance, both physically and psychologically, and to increase interactivity and communication among learners, learning sources and facilitators.”

Bozkurt, 2019, p. 272

All of these definitions basically tells me that openness in education and open learning is all about making the learning available for whoever wants to take part of it. But is it really that simple? In our ONL group (no 5) we had an interesting discussion about this during one meeting where one of my bright colleges from Brazil (you know who you are D J) brought up an interesting issue. 

If you put this discussion of openness and open learning in the context of on-line course, is openness then applicable? To be able to take an on-line course you need two things: access to internet and “enough” digital literacy to be able to handle the course. Let’s start with internet access, how many people in the world have access to internet today? If you google it, you get different numbers, but they all point in the same direction. According to Wikipedia (wikipedia.com) 53,6% of the population worldwide have regular access to internet. Internet World Stats (internetworldstats.com) figure is 58,7% (both figures are for 2019). So basically, only half of the world’s population have the possibility to take an open course given on Internet. There is a huge difference between different continents whereof almost 95% of the population in North America have internet access and in Africa down under 40% (internetworldstats.com). Digital literacy’s is of course much harder to measure, but it takes skills to be able to master many of the platforms that are used for online learning. So, is it really open then? Well, I would still say yes. For me, you need to distinguish between the ability for everyone to access a course (openness) and the access to tools needed to be able to take the course. If not, nothing would be totally opened. E.g. if you take a free course on you home town campus, the course will be still be limited to the people living nearby. Or if you take a free course of a University it’s still limited to the people who have the money to go there to take the course. 

References

Bozkurt, A., (2019), From Distance Education to Open and Distance Learning: A Holistic Evaluation of History, Definitions and Theories, Handbook of Research on Learning in the Age of Transhumanism, p. 252-273

Caliskan, H., (2012), Open Learning, In Encyclopedia Norbert M. Seel, 2516-2518, Boston, MA: Springer US, p. 2516-2518

Cambridge Dictionary, available at https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/allow

Internetworldstats.com, https://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm, accessed 01-05-2020

Weller, M., 2014, The Battle of Open: How openness won and why it doesn’t feel like victory, ubiquity press, London.

Wiley, D., (2014), The MOOC Misstep and the Open Education Infrastructure,  July 15, 2014, http://opencontent.org/blog/archives/3557 , accessed April 9, 2020

Wikipidia.com, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Internet_usage, accessed 01-05-2020.