Open Education is a way of carrying out education, often using digital technologies. Its aim is to widen access and participation to everyone by removing barriers and making learning accessible, abundant, and customizable for all. It offers multiple ways of teaching, learning, and building and sharing knowledge. It also provides a variety of access routes to formal and non-formal education and connects learners. (Inamorato et al. 2016)
Open education is an umbrella term, under which different understandings of open education can be accommodated. The most well-known part of open education is open educational resources (OER) supported by open educational practices (OEP).
The following video by Unesco gives an explanation on open educational resources.
Open educational resources (OER)
Therefore, content that is otherwise freely available (like webpages, images, podcasts, YouTube videos, MOOCs etc.) is not considered to be an OER unless it also has an open licence.
In Finland, open education is promoted on a national level by the expert panel in Open Education. The panel's task is to promote and discuss issues concerning Open Education in Finnish higher education by, for example, writing recommendations and policies, updating terminology, and holding events on Open Education. Read more about national co-ordination on the Open Science Finland homepage.
Source:
Inamorato Dos Santos, A., Punie, Y. & Castaño Muñoz, J. (2016) Opening up Education: A Support Framework for Higher Education Institutions. Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union. Available at: https://dx.doi.org/10.2791/293408 (Accessed: 21 Mar 2024)