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Despite the dramatic and pervasiveness of the impact of these changes; “higher education has largely ignored these changes in its supersystem” (Wiley & Hilton, 2009, 3). While higher education had the monopoly on knowledge production in eras past, it no longer does. Not only has higher education lost its monopoly in knowledge production, but higher education has also lost its monopoly on “access to teachers, tutors, and others who could answer student questions and support them academically in their learning” (Wiley & Hilton, 2009, p.6).

In the light of the above, Wiley and Hilton (2009, p.8) state that higher education’s only possible response is to increase connectedness, personalization, participation, and openness.

“Of these four, a significant increase in openness is the most pressing priority for higher education because a culture of openness is a prerequisite to affordable, large-scale progress in the other three areas”.

A recent study conducted by scholars associated with Carnegie Mellon University's Open Learning Initiative demonstrated that students who use OERs can obtain the same or better learning outcomes in half the time compared with students using traditional methods.