Openness in education – a new hope

There is hope yet. Higher education is going through a turbulent time, so it’s important to recognise the leadership provided through educational research, with a global impact from educational projects and innovation. At OER26, the quiet army of global educational professionals and academics with a shared vision of education for all found their collective voice cut through supported by their great work. The last time I attended an open education conference was a fair few years ago, and it is clear that the discussion is now about purpose and social justice, rather than licensing and asset creation. 

Open education drives innovation 

Chaired by Beck Pitt and Rob Farrow, their welcome emphasised the full range of ‘open’ and interpretation of open in and beyond education. The message I took away was that open education, open science, open practice and open solutions all intersect. For the first keynote, Prof. Eileen Scanlon provided a brief history of how the UK Open University has driven innovation in education with open values. The bridging of informal and formal learning has been key to OU activity, through open science research, partnerships with broadcasters and open course platforms such as FutureLearn and more recently Open Learn. One of Scanlon’s key points for me was our responsibility as educational designers, technologists and researchers to be “willing to be on the edge of what’s possible” (Scanlon, 2026) and use our creativity and skillset to counter starting points of ‘that’s not possible’. The Open University has always been there to push the boundaries of possibility, innovation is institutionally embedded, as evident through the numerous examples shared by Scanlon, but also as I witnessed firsthand with a tour of their XR studios on campus. 

Institutional innovation 

Robin DeRosa and colleagues from the Open Education Network based at the University of Minnesota discussed the tension that exists in many institutions between top down models and grassroots approaches to educational innovation (DeRosa, et al., 2026). When it comes to open education, DeRosa spoke of the flawed top down approaches to mandating openness that contradict the spirit and values of open education, in particular how open approaches are about choice. At the grassroots level, it’s challenging to navigate institutional barriers without the top down support, such as sponsors and policies that enable open education. One of DeRosa’s points that struck a chord with me is the idea of innovation not being placed on individuals, but innovation being led at institutional level. If the expectation of innovation is placed on individuals, then it’s likely to be without additional time, funding or recognition. Essentially innovation comes at a cost and it’s about whether individuals or the institution bear that cost. 

Openness within contextual constraints

There were numerous examples of open education resources (OER) in use, from open textbooks through to resource libraries. One case that was particularly innovative and resonated with Scanlon’s earlier call to find solutions where others have said it’s not possible was shared by Kate Huth. Addressing the challenge of teaching in remote or resource-absent locations, Huth (2026) described offline OER servers deployed to locations such as Indonesia and Tanzania. My layperson interpretation is ‘good bits of the internet in a box’, allowing a wide range of curated resources aligned to local curricula to be provided to schools. There were some interesting lessons learnt, including how teachers preferred such boxes (essentially laptops running a server) to be locked down in a way that they couldn’t be repurposed for other uses (so preserved integrity and technical performance). There was also pedagogical support built in, with guidance on the use of resources and approaches to lessons with the OERs, noting that many teachers in target locations didn’t have formal training. The support models varied too, with some philanthropic provision being one-off and others providing ongoing maintenance. The issue of bandwidth, file size and resource types continue to come up. There’s a craft to asset creation that is often missed when resources, such as bandwidth, drive space and processing power, are not scarce. Perhaps in the development of OERs for truly global use, there needs to be a level of proportionality to asset size.

As a complement to the skills aspect of OER creation, two PhD presentations from the University of Ibadan, Nigeria explored the relationship between digital skills and OER adoption. Wale Iyinolakan (2026) described a large-scale study (thousands of undergraduate students across multiple institutions), which showed how educational outcomes were positively correlated to the use of OERs and how digital self-efficacy correlated to perceived value of OERs. With digital skills, access and agency as requirements for OER use, the argument is clear in terms of the impact of a digital skills divide on educational attainment. Complementing this study, Esther Jatto (2026) presented research on factors that limit OER use and creation. For example, among the over 500 PhD students surveyed, there is apprehension about releasing and using content openly, in part due to a greater understanding required of options through creative commons licensing, but also in finding and legitimately reusing open assets ethically. The context for this work is also interesting with an expectation of PhD students to be proactively creating and sharing OER as part of programme or funding requirements. 

There are parallels with Prof. Olaf Zawacki-Richter’s (2026a) remarks in the second conference keynote that the challenge in online and digital education remains digital equity. This extends beyond access to the skills required to engage, participate and contribute. I found the framing of Zawacki-Richter’s argument compelling, with reference to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and education underpinning and enabling several of the other goals.

“Goal 4. Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all.”

(UN, 2015)

In order to provide such opportunities of education, there needs to be the infrastructure and capabilities, along with the development of individuals to have agency in their own learning.

Third space working

Increasing access to education and teaching practices is a form of openness and another long-standing project, presented by Gabi Witthaus, demonstrated this in resource-limited and hostile environments. To achieve this programme of work, mutual understanding of culture is the basis for collaboration. Witthaus (et al., 2026) explained how approaching co-design projects with a view of working not just cross-culture, but in a third-space hybrid culture, provides a framing for working together without imposing one culture on another.

The idea of ‘third space’ professionals in higher education is not new (White, et al., 2020) and has informed how I think about my practice as a learning technologist, learning designer and leader. I’m an educationalist but neither an academic nor completely disconnected from academic decisions. Two cultures, discipline-based languages and ways of working cross-over in a lot of my work. It is this idea of two cultures intersecting that underpinned Witthaus’s reflection on co-design course development projects for displaced communities and those at (serious) risk when engaging in education (Kennedy, et al., 2026). When I first heard of international co-design projects a few years back I admit I had serious reservations about how such approaches, informed by European educational epistemology, were being truly collaborative and accepting other cultural perspectives on education. However, the models have evolved and it is reassuring to see Witthaus’s work using social theories of hybridity progress such projects with the awareness of dialogue, language, hierarchies and building trust. The approaches have explored ways to “connect local knowledge with globally recognised pathways” (Witthaus, et al., 2026).

I reflect on how when I am designing learning for new audiences, to keep in check how much I bring my own idealistic vision of education. Design is based on dialogue, not one-way processes, engaging with the context of learners that may be so different from our own experience. That engagement requires an openness to be challenged on our own educational theories, evidence grounded in specific contexts that can’t be generalised and conscious receptiveness to alternative perspectives. This is how all involved in co-design find agency.

“The value of hybridity will depend on whether it expands or diminishes persons’ capacity for agency.”

(Bauhn and Fulya Tepe, 2016, p. 350 cited by Witthaus, et al., 2026).

The OER AI debate

Human agency was a common theme in the discussions across various sessions. This factor in the context of educational practice has become more important since potential erosion of agency due to automation, generative artificial intelligence (Gen-AI) and more broadly an increasingly unstable socio-political environment that is manifesting online. Zawacki-Richter (2026a) offered three perspectives on the OER AI intersection that moved beyond the argument of consumptive Gen-AI harvesting open education knowledge and impacting our perception of truth. 

• AI for OER: AI is used as a tool to create, discover, evaluate and integrate OER.
• AI as OER: AI models, tools and workflows are made openly available as OER.
• OER for AI Literacy: OER support understanding, critical use and responsible engagement with AI.

(Zawacki-Richter, 2026a)

There are opportunities here to use AI effectively and the idea of AI (code, agents, templates) as OERs could support more critical adoption by highlighting the strengths and limitations. I think one challenge is how to keep up to date with both shifting expectations of what is acceptable use of AI and the AI technology itself. Another challenge is how AI models do or don’t reflect the full range of global human knowledge and perspectives.

Evgenia Falenkova (2026) presented the work taking place at Lorain County Community College with a strong student voice adopting a critical approach to Gen-AI. The collaborative research project with student Katherine Komar (Komar, 2025), offered awareness of impacts of AI use such as “flattening of cultural differences”, behavioural changes in avoiding in-class clarification questions by checking responses on mobile phones instead, and a feeling that every time AI is being used they are ‘teaching it for free’. Effective use of Gen-AI was clouded with unclear rules and policies, but a helpful consideration was whether you were adopting the role of ‘observer’ or ‘trainer’ to responses through Gen-AI (I offer a slightly different interpretation of passive or active use). Falenkova was keen to point out that thinking about AI as ‘good or bad’ isn’t the question to explore, but instead ‘when’ to use AI or not is more critical to decide. 

“We cannot afford bad use of AI.”

(Falenkova, 2026)

Exploring the use of OERs in Gen-AI outputs, or rather the lack of trust and clarity of how Gen-AI tools are using OERs, Javiera Atenas (at al., 2026) offered a few suggestions to improving governance: transparent provenance of source material, human validation (not just about verifying truths, but also countering biases), public interest infrastructure. Drawing on Atenas’s provocation, I observe the way educational institutions (if not government agendas) are pushing for adoption of AI in both administrative, support and instructional capacity, as they do not want to be seen as a slow adopter, or less than competitor institutions, not embracing AI. Yet in that framing, criticality is missing and the voices of challenging questions, including how rights of staff and students are protected, how AI influences decisions and what the cost (financial and environmental) of AI adoption is, are dismissed as obstructive. Educational institutions are built on the knowledge and expertise of it’s people, however we are now in an age where the value of people and human interpretation is being conflated with speed, outputs, but not necessarily quality.

Educational quality 

I define quality in a simplified way as how well a learning design, course or learning asset supports outcomes and engagement (Cornock, 2024). One recommendation presented by Atenas is that OERs don’t need a defined learning outcome, as it is the choice of the educator how a particular asset is used. I see this as an example of open pedagogy. I appreciated that perspective as a learning design is a purposeful combination of interaction and content, therefore it is entirely plausible to disconnect an asset from an activity outcome. However, for assets that are themselves an activity (an instructional video, task or assessment), having a learning outcome at inception will give the asset a clear focus. 

Drawing upon extensive work in online and digital education, Zawacki-Richter signposted an OER quality framework which emphasised both pedagogical and technical criteria (Zawacki-Richter, et al., 2023). This type of framework can be applied to all digital media assets, enabling a balance of quality in terms of outcomes and engagement, with production values. Quality of institutional approaches to online and digital education can go beyond course experience and development standards. Aligning again to social justice and the opportunity to provide education to wider audiences, Zawacki-Richter discussed “digital educational equity… conceptualised [through] access… use… skills… participation… outcomes… [and] agency…”. Here then quality is not just the educational experience, but the relationship to the broader context and educational opportunity, exploring systematic and structural influences and interactions at the micro, meso and macro level (Zawacki-Richter, et al., 2026). For me, quality is therefore about judgement, analysing and then deploying or applying knowledge to achieve goals within a particular context, with particular constraints. From an educational perspective, quality is about how a design accommodates the variety of learners and how responsive the educational experience is to their needs.

Finding agency 

As a concluding thought, one of the repeating themes of the conference was how openness resides within an online and social media-based political-influencer context that appears to be closing respectful debate, dismissing scientific method and evidence. There are concerns about outsourcing thinking to AI at the detriment of critical thinking. There are risks associated with not knowing the truth behind what we now read or see through digital media. Knowledge cannot be fully open with a whole range of contextual constraints.

Sandrine Favre presented the theoretical framing for her research, drawing on Deimann’s (2025) ‘contested imaginaries’ of open education. Essentially, an argument that three motivations or rationales for the open education movement have either not been realised or are more complex in reality: education for all, modernising educational systems and societies, innovating teaching and learning practices. Favre’s position, echoing sentiments from other presentations too, is that “access is necessary but it is only a means, not an end in itself.” (Favre and Class, 2026). The final plenary session at the conference drew together a few themes that resonated, such as the need for shared vision with multiple interpretations of openness, a focus on human agency and, crucially, a realisation that it may take generations for the open education movement to become normalised and integrated fully in worldwide education. 

The shift in emphasis from just focusing on asset creation, towards the broader capabilities required to derive impact from open education was clear. To break out of the imposed contexts of post-truth and AI pervading the online space, learners and educators need appropriate skills and opportunities to innovate. The critical thinking that comes with creativity and innovation, being able to make judgments of appropriate and ethical content development and use, are key human skills that enable us to navigate increasingly complex and messy world narratives. Education is a fundamental need for humanity to achieve. Not in the sense of attainment or outputs, but through the process of learning, interacting and meaning-making that educational experiences provide. Open education is a way to offer agency to many people, given the right conditions, skills and access. 

“Let’s not give up.”

(Zawacki-Richter, 2026a)

Initial reflections

• Day 1 #OER26 (LinkedIn Post)
• Day 2 #OER26 (LinkedIn Post)

Links discovered at #OER26

• Learning Design Cross Institutional Network
• Open Education Network  
• OERSI  
• OOFAT (open, online, flexible and technology-enhanced education) Models
• Twillo

References

1. Atenas, J., Havermann, L., Nascimbeni, F. (2026). ‘Open educational practices as digital public goods: Promoting resilience, equity and innovation in higher education ecosystems’, ALT OER26, Open University, Milton Keynes, UK, 22-23 June 2026.
2. Cornock, M. (2024). Defining quality in online education: outcomes and engagement.
3. Deimann, M. (2025). Imaginaries of Openness in Education, Digital Inclusive Learning Materials (DILeMa), 1(1), 134-145. https://doi.org/10.11576/dilema-7563 
4. DeRosa, R., Grosz, T., Lauritsen, K. and Thees, B. (2026). ‘Community-driven systemic change’, ALT OER26, Open University, Milton Keynes, UK, 22-23 June 2026.
5. Falenkova, E. (2026). Presentation as part of ‘Reimagining Openness: Insights from the DOERS AI+OER Project’,  ALT OER26, Open University, Milton Keynes, UK, 22-23 June 2026.
6. Favre, S. and Class, B. (2026). ‘Bildung and epistemologies of the south: a promising horizon for open education?’, ALT OER26, Open University, Milton Keynes, UK, 22-23 June 2026.
7. Huth, K. (2026). ‘Making things local, the why, what and how’, ALT OER26, Open University, Milton Keynes, UK, 22-23 June 2026. 
8. Iyinolakan, W. (2026). ‘Beyond borders: ICT self-efficacy, perception and use of open educational resources, and academic performance among undergraduates in Nigerian Universities’, ALT OER26, Open University, Milton Keynes, UK, 22-23 June 2026.
9. Jatto, E. and Abioye, A. (2026). ‘Beyond access: How doctoral students in Nigeria engage with open educational practices’, ALT OER26, Open University, Milton Keynes, UK, 22-23 June 2026. 
10. Kennedy, E., Chase, C., Pherali, T., Witthaus, G., Laurillard, D., Chan, M.L, Tyrosvoutis, G., Hlaing, S.P.A.M., San, S.S., Win, N. and Charoensukaran, W. (2026). ‘Open access collaborative co-design in action: Reimagining teacher professional development for crisis-affected contexts’, British Journal of Educational Technology, 57(3), 797-821. https://doi.org/10.1111/bjet.70054
11. Komar, K. (2025). ‘In the age of AI: How students and professors use artificial intelligence – And whether it’s worth the price’, The Collegian, Lorain County Community College.  https://collegian.lorainccc.edu/2025/11/08/the-age-of-ai/
12. Scanlon, E., (2026). ‘Teaching, learning and researching in the open’, Keynote Presentation, ALT OER26, Open University, Milton Keynes, UK, 22-23 June 2026.
13. UN (2015). Sustainable Development Goals. https://sdgs.un.org/goals 
14. White, S., White, S. and Borthwick, K. (2020). Blended professionals, technology and online learning: Identifying a socio-technical third space in higher education, Higher Education Quarterly, 75(1), 161-174. 
15. Witthaus, G., Pherali, T., Chase, E., Tyrosvoutis, G., Kennedy, E. and Laurillard, D. (2026). ‘Equity through co-design: Building just and open teacher development pathways in crisis settings’, ALT OER26, Open University, Milton Keynes, UK, 22-23 June 2026.
16. Zawacki-Richter, O., Müskens, W. and Marin, V.I. (2023). ‘Quality assurance of open educational resources’, in: Zawacki-Richter, O. and Jung, I. (eds), Handbook of Open, Distance and Digital Education, Singapore: Springer Nature. 781-799. https://link.springer.com/referencework/10.1007/978-981-19-2080-6 
17. Zawacki-Richter, O. (2026a). ‘OER, sustainability, and AI in open, distance, and digital education (ODDE)’, Keynote Presentation, ALT OER26, Open University, Milton Keynes, UK, 22-23 June 2026.
18. Zawacki-Richter, O. (2026b). Towards a Systems Based Framework for Digital Education Equity in Open, Distance and Digital Education. Open Praxis, 18(2), 381-397. https://doi.org/10.55982/openpraxis.18.2.1243

Acknowledgement

My attendance at OER26 was funded by the University of Leeds in my role as Head of Online Learning. I am a trustee of ALT.