The Open Future of Course Content Development and Dissemination

Abstract

An emergent Open Education (OE) movement characterized by an abundance of information and interaction opportunities, as well as new connections between content, curriculum and community, presents the potential of profound impact on educational access and quality. Fueled by the affordance of networks and technology tools, OE presents the ability to overcome traditional assumptions about the development and delivery of educational resources and the opportunity to radically alter the economics and ecology of education. While the open education movement points to promising opportunities, there is clearly a need for a fresh perspective on how we think about resources and the relationships available to education to constructively leverage this new ecology blending technology and open education resources in powerful ways. This chapter builds on recent efforts at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and elsewhere illuminating some of the transformative possibilities. It also highlights some of the technological, organization, and cultural dimensions of “readiness” needing to be addressed for the promise of the open education movement to be realized.