Opening Up Education: The Collective Advancement of Education through Open Technology, Open Content, and Open Knowledge

Given the abundance of open education initiatives that aim to make educational assetsfreely available online, the time seems ripe to explore the potential of open education to transformthe economics and ecology of education. Despite the diversity of tools and resources alreadyavailable--from well-packaged course materials to simple games, for students, self-learners,faculty, and educational institutions--we have yet to take full advantage of shared knowledge abouthow these are being used, what local innovations are emerging, and how to learn from and build onthe experiences of others. Opening Up Education argues that we must develop not only the technicalcapability but also the intellectual capacity for transforming tacit pedagogical knowledge intocommonly usable and visible knowledge: by providing incentives for faculty to use (and contributeto) open education goods, and by looking beyond institutional boundaries to connect a variety ofsettings and open source entrepreneurs. These essays by leaders in open education describesuccesses, challenges, and opportunies they have found in a range of open education initiatives.They approach--from both macro and micro perspectives--the central question of how open educationtools, resources, and knowledge can improve the quality of education. The contributors (from leadingfoundations, academic institutions, associations, and projects) discuss the strategic underpinningsof their efforts first in terms of technology, then content, and finally knowledge. They alsoaddress the impact of their projects, and how close they come to achieving a vision of sustainable,transformative educational opportunities that amounts to much more than pervasive technology.Through the support of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, an electronicversion of this book is openly available under a Creative Commons license at The MIT Press Web site,http://mitpress.mit.edu. Toru Iiyoshi is Senior Scholar and Director of the Knowledge Media Lab atthe Carnegie Foundation. M. S. Vijay Kumar is Senior Associate Dean and Director of the Office ofEducational Innovation and Technology at MIT.Contributors Richard Baraniuk, Randy Bass, TrentBatson, Dan Bernstein, John Seely Brown, Barbara Cambridge, Tom Carey, Catherine Casserly, BernadineChuck Fong, Ira Fuchs, Richard Gale, Mia Garlick, Gerard Hanley, Diane Harley, Mary Huber, PatHutchings, Toru Iiyoshi, David Kahle, M. S. Vijay Kumar, Andy Lane, Diana Laurillard, Stuart Lee,Steve Lerman, Marilyn Lombardi, Phil Long, Clifford Lynch, Christopher Mackie, Anne Margulies, OwenMcGrath, Flora McMartin, Shigeru Miyagawa, Diana Oblinger, Neeru Paharia, Cheryl Richardson,Marshall Smith, Candace Thille, Edward Walker, David Wiley

Toru Iiyoshi is Senior Scholar and Director of the Knowledge Media Lab at the Carnegie Foundation.