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"Open education is not just education with open materials or open-source software. Properly conceived, open education is an education that empowers our students to be active citizens in an increasingly open world. The presenters will review some of their institutions' efforts to combine open education methodologies with civic engagement and community-based learning."

"The Saylor Foundation When we first canvassed the open education space a few years ago as a recently-established, program-oriented foundation, we were impressed with the wealth of content available, but found that open resources were disaggregated, difficult to discover, and of ranging quality. In short, students and instructors would have a difficult time finding and using open-access and openly-licensed content. We decided that in order to make these materials useful to the most constituencies, we would organize open content in a structured, intuitive format modeled upon the traditional university course, and that we would hire accomplished instructors to design the courses and pair them with best-of-breed open content. "

"The Community College Open Textbook Project (CCOTP) was developed to support the use of textbooks that are freely available and accessible online, and that can be adapted by teachers and learners to meet their unique needs and contexts. This article presents the findings of a research study conducted by the Institute for the Study of Knowledge Management of Education (ISKME) on CCOTP. The study examined the adoption and use patterns of teachers and learners as end users of open textbooks, finding that important initial drivers of use included reduced cost, dependable quality and ease of use, and that teachers and learners use open textbooks in ways that reflect their existing teaching and learning practices. The study also showed the potential for new teaching and learning behaviours aligned to the use of open textbooks, including increased teacher collaboration on curriculum development and the interactivity of open materials as an enhancement of student learning. In addition, the study identified challenges for the sustainability of the open textbook model, including teacher technological efficacy and professional development that supports open textbook use."

"This paper provides a summary and assessment of the current development of open textbooks and describes a possible direction for future development and funded support of open textbook projects. This paper provides answers to the following questions: Why do we need open textbooks? What are open textbooks (in their various forms)? How are open textbooks developed and distributed? And finally, when will open textbooks be produced? As these questions are addressed, other dimensions relevant to the Open Education Resource (OER) movement are also revealed and discussed."

" Open Doors Group is an informal association of several educational, non-profit, for-profit, and government institutions and some individuals. Its purpose is to prepare students for the future by promoting, producing, and distributing open educational resources supporting students and educators in adopting and using open educational resources expanding access to education for all learners researching and evaluating the impact of open educational resources"

President of Empire State College Alan Davis on their unique focus on open education: "One of the reasons why we have positioned and described ourselves as an "open university" is to grab prospective learners' and others' attention, and then be ready to describe what we mean by "open" education, and vice versa. There is a whole philosophy behind it, and it is reinforced in many ways by the impact of technology, with open source software and systems, open education resources, and so on. We are a leader in the state and in the country in exploring these areas too. But even without technology, our approach is truly open in all its dimensions, striving always to overcome the barriers of the "closed" traditional system that restrict so many from getting a university education."

JISC: "Open Education, open academic practice, open scholarship and open content all need digital infrastructure to thrive. The emphasis in this Call is on making use of existing tools, services and standards, to meet clearly articulated use cases. Areas to bid to will include: A: Open content and academic profiles B: Enhancing platforms for open content C: Enhancing tools and services for open e-books D: Search log analysis E: SEO of common platforms and format types for OER F: Open Call, including:"

"It's the new business models for providing learning opportunities that concerned me in a previous post: Why Open Education is Dangerous. Are the ideals of open education a trojan horse for commercial interests to undermine publicly funded institutions? What is driving the interest, is it on the inside or the outside of "education"? Am I a reactionary for wanting to preserve some of the strengths of a public education system? In other words, I see there are opportunities, but what are the threats? Is education on the edge of the abyss, or the edge of a reformation? If the castle of "education as we know it" is under seige, is "openness" in education the dragon or the knight in shining armour?"

"Abstract Open educational resources (OER) raise many similar issues for education to those that have surrounded Learning Objects (LO). However the greater use and availability of digital technologies and open licensing seems to be enabling OER to have wider acceptance into individual and institutional teaching practice. While the need for appropriate design in teaching and learning on the part of educators, which was the primary driver of developments in LO, remains, the very openness of OER is changing the relationships between educators, learners and content (resources) and is becoming a primary agent of change. Experience in OpenLearn, a major initiative to provide OER from The Open University, indicates that some of these changes can be planned for while others will emerge as releasing content openly imposes evolutionary pressures that accelerate change and work around barriers. Development can then be driven by learner expectations of the technology and needs for informal life-long learning that in turn impact on how content is being designed and openly presented. It is argued that this represents a shift from a teacher-centric, systematic model of change in teaching practices as embodied in earlier ideas about LO to a learner-centric, systemic model of change as embodied in OER."

" The nature of openness in education has transformed from just relating to open access to encompass a wide range of interpretations. This paper explores the concept of an 'open scholar' whose practice is shaped by digital and networked technologies. It is argued that openness represents an effective working method in this environment, and that creativity plays a key role in realising this. The relationship between creativity and open educational resources is outlined to demonstrate that there is a positive feedback loop between the two processes. "

"SUNY Empire State College President Alan R. Davis today announced the college has joined the Open Education Resource university as the first anchor partner in the United States. Further, the college has established a presence on the WikiEducator community website facilitated by the Open Education Resource Foundation. "By joining OERu as the first United States' anchor partner and participating in advancing open educational resources, Empire State College will expand its own reach far beyond our 35 locations around the state and extend the national and global reach for SUNY," said Davis. "Most importantly, we will join the global community of learners who contribute to and benefit from the expansion and dissemination of open educational resources.""

"In the spring semester of 2011, the Provost's Office and the University Libraries launched the Open Education Initiative at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. This initiative incentivizes the use of textbook alternatives through ten $1,000 grants to faculty. Using any combination of Open Educational Resources and proprietary Library resources, this initiative aims to bring about new ways of conceptualizing higher education tools, hopefully saving undergradute students hundreds of dollars each year. Below is a copy of the Open Education Initiative announcement and guidelines."

"Proponents of open education agree that "education can be improved by making educational assets visible and accessible and by harnessing the collective wisdom of a community of practice and reflection."1 Educators at all levels can take advantage of a diverse set of resource repositories for a wide range of disciplines. However, to maximize the utility of these resource collections, it is crucial to incorporate into their design specific strategies to support their sustainability by ensuring both short-term and long-term value. Furthermore, by purposefully integrating learning materials with teaching expertise, the value of open educational resources for teachers can be greatly enhanced. "

"In this chapter, we explore a number of ways openness affects the practices of teaching and learning and the motivations behind supporters of these emergent practices. We discuss the three principal influences of openness on education: open educational resources, open access, and open teaching."

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

" In this session our team of instructional designers and faculty will share our experiences and what we learned by utilizing an open education course (MOOC) and face-to-face study group sessions for professional development on open education. Incorporating a study group with the online open education course was found to be effective for keeping participants engaged and moving forward through the course topics."

"The Open Access Textbooks Grant Project worked with others involved in open content to create a sustainable model for Florida and other states to discover, produce, and disseminate open textbooks. This three-year initiative was funded by a grant from the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education (FIPSE). The project built on efforts in Florida and across the U.S. to create a sustainable open textbook model and a collaborative community to further implementation of open textbooks. "

" Project Start Date: 2006 A wide range of individuals and organizations are actively involved in the development of free-to-use open educational resources (OER). Because the field is so new, there have been few opportunities to share learnings and advances across projects and boundaries. Little is known, for example, about how projects are facilitating the adaptation of open content by diverse users, what structures they are instilling to support peer production, and how they are attempting to inspire community engagement. Our Role: ISKME has worked with six projects to help them build capacity to track, analyze and share key developments in open educational resources (OER), and in the practices and models that play a role in project sustainability. The aim was to enable projects to discover unknown or untapped potential, to facilitate decision making around which practices to change or maintain, and to learn how other OER projects have overcome similar challenges. In addition, it sought to advance the field at large by contributing new knowledge on which others can build. The participating OER projects include: * CurriculumNet (Uganda) * Curriki (United States) * Free High School Science Texts (South Africa) * Mission 2007 Training Commons (India) * Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (United States) * Teachers' Domain (United States) "

"UNESCO and Commonwealth of Learning are two global organisations that are championing the open learning cause and have just published the results of a major survey: Survey on Governments' Open Educational Resources (OER) Policies. They sent out a questionnaire to all 195 UNESCO member states asking them whether they had any policies concerning the use of OER in the country's schools and universities. Less than half (82) of these countries replied in time but the results show that there are countries who are taking open education seriously and beginning to form national strategies around the open sharing of educational material. "

"ABSTRACT: This document is an introduction to Open Learning. It examines briefly what "Open" means and the different facets of the open movement and what "Learning" means and how it is different for every person. Attention is brought to the issue of the digital divide and ways to reduce or eliminate barriers to education. We look at how to get started with Open Learning if you are fortunate enough to have access to the technologies, and possible ways of obtaining access if you don't. We then go over how to map out a personalized learning strategy that works for you. The core of the document goes over many of the different types of Open Learning resources available, and possible ways to organize and structure your learning. We will also looks at the issue of accreditation and how to receive recognition for your learning in a way that allows you to demonstrate your newly acquired skills. Finally, it finishes with ideas on how to start solo or collaborative projects as well as possible ways to get them funded."