Open Technology, Content and Knowledge --Implications for Higher Education

A kind e-mailer, Arun, alerted me through an e mail to World Association of Online Education, that there is freely available access on the Web for

The Collective Advancement of Education through Open Technology, Open Content, and Open Knowledge
Edited by Toru Iiyoshi and M. S. Vijay Kumar
Published by the MIT Press, September 2008

The website introduction to the book includes the following:
"These essays by leaders in open education describe successes, challenges, and opportunities they have found in a range of open education initiatives. They approach—from both macro and micro perspectives—the central question of how open education tools, resources, and knowledge can improve the quality of education."
Quote from http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2&tid=11309, retrieved October 25, 2008.

Electronic versions of the book are made available under a Creative Commons license, thanks to support of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of
Teaching.

Here is a link to the concluding chapter: "New Pathways for Shaping the Collective Agenda to Open Up Education," in which Toru Iiyoshi and M.S. Vijay Kumar recommend the following

"As the idea and practice of open education expand, it becomes increasingly critical to undertake systematic and systemic studies to better understand and clarify the transitions from traditional roles of educators and institutions to those needed to be effective in this ecology of technology-facilitied open education. ....One of the most significant aspects of the changes in front of us is the promise of blended learning environments that involve optimal combinations of the physical and virtual, and integrate conventional pedagogical methods with innovative network-based learning to deliver quality educational opportunities."

Other recommendations include:

"Change Education's Culture and Policy ...Recontextualize Roles and Values,"
"Make Open Education Solutions Sustainable,"
"Make Practice and Knowledge Visible and Sharable,"
"Build the Commons through the Collectivity Culture"

The authors go on to write:
"We encourage all involved in any aspect of developing and delivering education to heed this palpable "open" movement that is afoot, presenting the opportunity to redefine, rethink and rearticulate educational practice at several micro and macro levels--courses, programs, institutions or even nations."
Quotes are from http://mitpress.mit.edu/books/chapters/0262033712chap28.pdf, retrieved October 25, 2008