What Does ‘Open’ Really Mean?

Document Type

News Article

Publication Date

1-29-2016

Abstract

INTRODUCTION: Yesterday EdSurge published an opinion piece by Stephen Laster, the Chief Digital Officer at McGraw-Hill Education, titled The Future of Education Isn’t Free. It’s Open. The article makes a strong argument for the importance of interoperability among learning platforms, tools and content. I enthusiastically and wholeheartedly endorse this message—interoperability of platforms, tools and resources is absolutely critical to education becoming significantly more effective—and significantly less annoying—in the future.

However.

While I wholeheartedly support, endorse, approve and praise arguments extolling the virtues of interoperability, I unequivocally renounce, oppose and reject arguments that attempt to weaken the meaning of “open.” Unfortunately, the article seems to be as much an attempt to redefine open (by equating it with interoperability) as it is an attempt to argue for interoperability. While I think this is more accidental than malicious, as I’ll explain below, the article needs a clear response.

Several paragraphs into the article we read, “There’s some debate about just what we mean by ‘open’ in the context of education.” I want to briefly demonstrate that there is in fact incredibly strong consensus about what we mean by “open” in the education context, and then explain why a small amount of debate remains in spite of this overwhelming consensus.

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