When I first began reflecting on the theme of sharing and openness, I realised that I already felt quite comfortable with openness in one part of academic life: research. Publishing openly, sharing findings, and supporting wider access to knowledge all seem relatively easy to justify. But when the conversation shifts from research to teaching, I notice that my confidence becomes less certain. The idea of making teaching materials openly available sounds admirable in principle, yet in practice it raises questions about ownership, quality, misuse, professional identity, and control. That tension sits at the heart of this topic, and it is what made it so thought-provoking for me.
What struck me most is that openness in teaching is not simply a technical issue of uploading files or applying a licence. It is also an emotional and professional issue. The notes in our group discussion captured this very well: the fear that others might find mistakes, adapt materials in ways that distort their purpose, or judge what was originally designed for a very specific context. Teaching materials are not neutral products; they are often shaped by a particular cohort, institutional setting, learning outcome, and personal teaching style. That makes the act of sharing feel much more personal than sharing a published article. I can relate to that. A slide deck or assessment task often contains traces of how I think, what I prioritise, and the way I try to support learners. Making that open can feel less like offering a resource and more like exposing part of one’s professional self.
At the same time, this topic challenged me to move beyond a defensive view of openness. One of the strongest ideas in the notes is that open should become the default way of creating, sharing, and improving knowledge in education, not only because it reduces cost, but because it supports access, adaptation, transparency, and collaboration. In that sense, openness is not just about being generous; it is about seeing education as a collective and social good rather than a private possession. Instead of asking, “Why should I share my materials?”, perhaps I should be asking, “Why should useful educational resources remain closed if they could benefit others?”
One idea I found especially powerful was the description of open pedagogy as creating information instead of only consuming it. That phrase helped me see how openness can transform not only access to materials, but also the role of the learner. If students are invited to adapt, remix, co-create, and share knowledge, then learning becomes more participatory and more meaningful. In my own practice, I can imagine this leading to richer forms of engagement: students contributing annotated resources, building shared knowledge banks, or creating materials that future learners can use. This would not only support active learning, but also help students see themselves as contributors to a wider learning community. That feels both empowering and more authentic than a model where knowledge flows only one way.
However, I also appreciate that openness is not automatically good just because it is free. One of the most useful distinctions in the notes is that “open” is not the same as “available.” Sharing something informally with a colleague is different from releasing it under an open licence that clearly allows others to retain, reuse, revise, remix, and redistribute it. David Wiley’s 5R framework gives language to this difference, and I think that language matters. Without it, open practice can become vague or even careless. I was also struck by the discussion of “dark reuse”, where materials circulate informally without proper licensing, recognition, or clarity. That is a reminder that openness is not the same as a “pirate culture” of sharing everything without consent or attribution. For openness to work ethically, it needs structure, etiquette, and trust.
This brought me to one of the questions that feels most relevant for my own development: what does good sharing etiquette in teaching look like? In research, we are more familiar with expectations around citation, authorship, reproducibility, and the scholarly record. In teaching, those norms are much less clear. The document notes that barriers to openness are often institutional as much as personal: unclear ownership policies, lack of incentives, limited legal guidance, workload pressures, and insufficient recognition. I found that reassuring in a way, because it suggests that reluctance to share is not simply a matter of individual resistance or selfishness. Sometimes people hold back because the system has not provided clarity or support. That means the solution cannot simply be “be more open.” Instead, institutions need to provide policy, licensing guidance, infrastructure, and professional recognition if openness is going to become sustainable.
This is where I think my own practice can grow. Rather than seeing openness as an all-or-nothing choice, I am beginning to think in terms of “open where appropriate.” That phrase from the notes feels realistic and balanced. Not every teaching artefact should necessarily be shared in the same way. Lecture slides, course design ideas, assessment tasks, and student-generated work all raise different ethical and legal questions. A thoughtful open practice might begin with selected materials that I am comfortable sharing, using clear Creative Commons licensing, checking third-party content carefully, and inviting feedback as part of an ongoing process of improvement. This feels more manageable than imagining that everything must be openly released at once.
Another important reflection for me concerns academic identity. The notes point out that, in many contexts, academics are rewarded for research outputs far more than for the time and labour involved in creating and curating high-quality OER. That observation explains a great deal. If open teaching is valued rhetorically but not recognised professionally, then it is not surprising that many educators hesitate. Sharing takes time. Curation takes time. Adapting materials for open reuse takes time. If institutions genuinely want open practice to become mainstream, then they must treat it as meaningful academic work rather than an optional extra. This made me think more critically about the link between professional development and openness. Perhaps becoming open is not just a personal moral choice; it also depends on whether the culture around us makes that choice viable.
Overall, this topic has pushed me to think of openness less as a simple virtue and more as a practice of careful generosity. It asks educators to share, but also to think ethically about ownership, attribution, context, quality, inclusion, and student benefit. It asks us to move from an individual mindset toward a collective one, without pretending that this shift is easy. For me, the main learning is that openness in teaching is not about losing control entirely. It is about choosing to contribute to a wider educational commons in a way that is thoughtful, supported, and purposeful. If I can begin to approach open practice with that mindset, then I think it has real potential to enrich both my own teaching and my students’ experience of learning
References
- UNESCO (2019), Recommendation on Open Educational Resources (OER) — Best starting point for definitions, policy framing, and the public-good rationale for open teaching materials.
- David Wiley, “Defining the “Open” in Open Content and Open Educational Resources” — Clear explanation of the 5Rs and what makes a resource truly open rather than merely free to access.
3. Otto (2022), “How to Promote the Use of Open Educational Resources (OER) in Higher Education” — Useful on staff attitudes, especially the finding that educators prefer incentive
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