Open Education and Open Educational Practices

Openness in teaching and learning gives all learners an equal opportunity for continuous learning. The advantage of open educational resources is that they are available to learners throughout the learning process, thus supporting deep learning. Co-development and further development of educational resources is made possible through free online sharing.

The purpose of openness in teaching and learning is to expand access to and participation in learning for all and often open education takes place using digital technology. Openness to learning diversifies opportunities for teaching, learning, knowledge creation, co-creation and sharing, and links formal and informal learning paths. We can enable participation in learning by lowering barriers and increasing accessibility, supply and learner-centeredness.

Open Educational Resources

Open educational resources refer to digital teaching, learning, and research materials designed for educational purposes. They have been released for general use or licensed with an open license, which gives others the right to access the materials for free of charge, the right to use and modify the materials, and the right to redistribute them. Open educational resources can be, for example, courses, videos, books, articles or set of tasks and they can be in any format and available on any medium.

Open Educational Practices

Openness in teaching and learning is not limited to open educational resources, but it enables the sharing of diverse teaching practices. Open educational practices refer to practices that make learning and teaching transparent, shareable and further processable. In addition to course materials, course material selection processes, curricula, lesson plans, coursework, assessment matrices, and learning objectives can be shared. In open education, pedagogy is at the center. A key principle for instructional design and assessment of learning is coherence, i.e. all elements of instruction should contribute to deep learning for the learner. Open educational practices also enable co-development with different experts.