What is Open Education?
Open education is the philosophy that knowledge is a public good and should be freely shared without barriers. In practice, it involves making the materials, methods, and other building blocks of education free for anyone to use, adapt, and share.
Open education has developed over more than two decades into a global movement and a recognized field of practice, backed by a growing body of research, high-quality open content, and active communities around the world.
Components of Open Education
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Open Educational Resources
Open educational resources are teaching and learning materials that are free for anyone to use, share, and adapt. They carry an open license that gives permission to retain, reuse, revise, remix, and redistribute — helping make education more accessible and flexible.
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Open Educational Practices
Open educational practices are ways of teaching and learning that use open resources, engage in open pedagogy, and invite collaboration beyond the classroom. They emphasize participation, transparency, and learner agency to make education more engaging and effective.
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Open Educational Systems
Open educational systems include the technology, policies, and frameworks that make sharing and collaboration in education possible. It includes open platforms, standards, and tools that are accessible, interoperable, and designed to support participation and innovation.
Principles of Open Education
The following principles are common among major open education declarations and definitions. While these concepts have been practiced by communities throughout human history, modern technology makes it possible to apply them in new ways.
Human Rights: recognition that education is a human right for everyone
Access: seeking the elimination of barriers to knowledge and educational opportunities (financial, legal, technical)
Sharing: leveraging technology to share knowledge as a public good for others to build upon
Collaboration: working together to create and co-create knowledge
Agency: empowering learners and educators to shape their experiences
The philosophy of open education applies when barriers are imposed on knowledge that is meant to be shared, while respecting limits based on privacy, security, and tradition.
Benefits of Open Education
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Open educational resources replace costly textbooks and course materials with free, openly licensed alternatives. Lowering the cost of learning reduces financial strain on students and improves course completion and retention rates. The open textbook publisher OpenStax alone has saved students $3 billion.
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Open educational practices give faculty the freedom to adapt materials, design innovative assignments, and engage students as co-creators. This leads to deeper learning, more relevant coursework, and stronger student outcomes. Read how one professor engaged students to build their own materials.
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Investing in open educational infrastructure builds sustainable systems for sharing knowledge, fosters collaboration across disciplines, and positions institutions as leaders in student success and educational access. OER was recently named a High Impact Practice by AAC&U.
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Open education keeps knowledge in the public sphere, encouraging lifelong learning and ensuring publicly funded research and teaching benefit everyone. Read the Cape Town Declaration.
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Open approaches allow course materials to be tailored for students with different backgrounds, preferences, and circumstances — from adding accessibility features to including local and contemporary examples. This flexibility helps every student engage with the material and succeed.
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Open education makes it easier to keep curriculum current with industry needs, connect students to real-world projects, and teach the skills employers value — preparing graduates to succeed in a rapidly changing economy. Read more about how one professor leveraged OER to remove access barriers for nursing students.