This document summarizes discussions from several international workshops focused on open education ethics. The workshops used various formats and processes to discuss how openness in education could potentially be "destroyed" or broken open in unintended ways. Suggestions included focusing only on certain regions, viewpoints or languages, ignoring issues of diversity and equity, and assuming universal access to technology. Participants also discussed how to improve open education by increasing inclusion, collaboration across borders and languages, accessibility, and student involvement in creating open educational resources.

1. A synthesis of
several international
workshops around
open education
ethics
Maha Bali
Catherine Cronin
Christian Friedrich
Arthur Gill Green
Christina Hendricks
Rajiv Jhangiani
Jamison Miller
Scott Robison
Sukaina Walji
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

2. #breakopen 1. Review the sessions, format, and process
2. Present synthesis of responses
3. Present synthesis of proposed actions
4. Resources and gratitude
More info on how to use this template at www.slidescarnival.com/help-use-presentation-template
This template is free to use under Creative Commons Attribution license. You can keep the Credits slide or
mention SlidesCarnival and other resources used in a slide footer.
2

3. 1
Sessions,
Format, and
Process
3

4. 5 Sessions:
OpenEd17 - Anaheim
How do we destroy the open
education movement?
OER 18 - Bristol
Breaking open: Conversations
about ethics, epistemology, equity
and power
CC Summit 2018 - Toronto
How might we destroy the open
education movement?
OE Global 2018 - Delft
How do we destroy the open
education movement?
FoL - Vancouver
How to Ruin an Open Education
Initiative at your Institution
OER18
4
OEGlobal
Festival of Learning
CC Summit
OpenEd1
7

5. Format Inclusion
Intentional design to
include remote/virtual
participation when
possible (for 3 of 5
sessions).
Used Zoom with its
breakout rooms to
facilitate remote
group participation.
TRIZ
http://www.liberatings
tructures.com/6-
making-space-with-
triz/
Inverts the traditional
inquiry approach to
encourage critical and
playful thinking.
Anonymity
Contributions
encouraged without
attribution,
photographs of
sessions not
promoted.
5

6. Process Iterations
Differing approaches
based on the time &
space constraints.
Two sessions in
Europe with greater
global participation
included
“provocations”
authored by open
education scholars
from a variety of
contexts.
Virtual
Engagement
Virtual participants
were given facilitating
roles to deepen their
presence and
involvement.
OpenEd17 session
was co-lead by a
virtual participant.
OER18 and OEGlobal
sessions included
reading provocations.
Structure
The first session was
the most highly
structured, and the
session benefited
from that structure.
When the structure
was loosened, fewer
comments were
recorded and outputs
diminished.
6

7. 2
How can we
destroy + what
are we already
doing?
7

8. How can we
destroy/break
openness?
⊙ If we were invested in ensuring the open
education movement isn’t open, how would
we do it?
⊙ How do we use openness to exclude and/or
oppress marginalized individuals,
communities, knowledge systems?
⊙ How could you destroy an open education
initiative at your institution?
And what are we already doing that
looks like this?
8

9. How can we
destroy/break
openness?
Lack of diversity, inclusivity
⊙ Ensure OER and open edu focus on only a
few:
○ Parts of the world
○ Viewpoints, specific voices/people
○ Languages
⊙ Care more about “open” than equity
⊙ Focus mostly on higher education
⊙ Don’t involve students in open edu efforts
⊙ Be uninviting to people new to open edu
9

10. How can we
destroy/break
openness?
Technology
⊙ Assume everyone has equal access to tech,
high speed internet
⊙ Make adaptation difficult technologically
Narrow definitions
⊙ Require a single definition of what counts
as “open” (resources, practices, etc.)
⊙ Require a single kind of license
⊙ Require that openness be mostly or
exclusively about licenses
10

11. How can we
destroy/break
openness?
Other
⊙ Take more than you give (re: contributing
OER)
⊙ Use proprietary platforms
⊙ Commercialize OER
⊙ Ignore issues of privacy and data collection
⊙ Make use of OER mandatory
11

12. How can we
destroy/break
openness?
Open Ed 17 & CC Summit had more about:
⊙ Licenses: focusing on one kind; don’t
attribute correctly
⊙ Universal Design for
Learning/accessibility & open
⊙ Infighting w/in open ed community
OER 18 and OE Global 18 had more about:
⊙ Who is the “we” in this discussion?
⊙ Global North/South, language differences
⊙ Who loses out economically w/OER?
12

13. 3
What can we
do differently?
13

14. What can we
do moving
forward?
14
Focus on including underrepresented voices and views
Collaborate:
⊙ across regional and language divides
⊙ across areas within the institution
⊙ between institutions
Integrate universal design for learning in OER creation
Involve students in OER creation via open pedagogy
Increase support for creating & using OER
Develop a sustainable model for supporting OER work
Visit PollEv.com/rajivjhangia448 or
Text RAJIVJHANGIA448 to 37607

15. 15
Visit PollEv.com/rajivjhangia448 or Text RAJIVJHANGIA448 to 37607

16. 4
Resources +
Gratitude
16

17. https://blogs.ubc.ca/openeducationethics/
https://towards-openness.org/
Taskeen Adam
Maha Bali
Karen Cangialosi
Catherine Cronin
Robin DeRosa
Christian Friedrich
Arthur Gill Green
Christina Hendricks
Cheryl Hodgkinson-
Williams
Rajiv Jhangiani
Suzan Koseoglu
Thomas Mboa
Jamison Miller
17
Our thanks
Rosario Passos
Tara Robertson
Scott Robison
sava saheli singh
Sukaina Walji
Martin Weller