The emergence of teaching materials and processes as open educational resources (OER) in higher education in the 21st century is part of the much larger social movement towards ‘opening up’ what was previously ‘closed’ to all except a limited number of people who paid for access to or use of information and services. Initially OER was understood as sharing specific ‘products’, but it now thought of as including the underlying pedagogical ‘practices’. That academics and student tutors want to share their intellectual capital openly with the rest of the world is at the heart of the OER movement. Archer’s (2003) notion of the ‘active agent’, offers some insight into why academics (or students) in HEIs may decide to (or not) use and share OER, and how they might respond in an institutional environment which inhibits or encourages the practice of sharing.