This document summarizes a presentation on open education given by Dr. Andreas Meiszner of UNU-MERIT. The presentation outlines several key benefits of open education, including allowing a greater range of inputs beyond just the educator, enabling more personalized learning, and facilitating greater sharing of knowledge resources. Financially, open education could allow for cost sharing, reduction, and higher value through approaches like collaborative course production and unbundling of services. However, open education is also complex with more stakeholders and uncertainty, and challenges the status quo, so there may be resistance to change from those worried about threats to funding models or individual jobs. The presentation concludes by suggesting easy starting points for opening up education, from just

1. 'The Why and How of Open Education‘
Session One: Towards Suitable Concepts
By: Dr. Andreas Meiszner, United Nations University UNU-MERIT – The Netherlands
Workshop on “The Why and How of Open Education: Concepts and Practices”
OKCon 2011, June 31st – Berlin, Germany

4. ... and more in detail Open Education allows for:
• A greater range of inputs – not just from the educator, but from all contributors so the
collective is the source of knowledge, not one individual
• A more personalized learning experience – learners can gather the elements of knowledge
they require – but skip what they know already.
• Greater sharing of knowledge – in traditional higher education much of the previous
input is lost, whereas in Open Education the dialogue, resources, and outputs remain as
learning resources.
• Peer production – active engagement in producing something with a set of peers is a
powerful motivational and educational driving force.
• Real activities – engaging in legitimate activities that are not restricted to an artificial
university setting also provides valuable experience.
• Peer support – a large support network provided voluntarily by peers in a collaborative
manner nearly 24/7.
• The whole is greater than the sum of its parts – all individual actions and activities add a
value to the educational experience

5. ... and from a financial perspective Open Education could allow
for:
• Cost Sharing; e.g. through joint course production and delivery
• Cost Reduction; e.g. through avoidance of replications or through an increased
transparency of processes
• Higher Value for Money; e.g. a better learning experience for students
• New Revenues; through unbundling traditional education services or through new
services

6. ... so why then ‘NOT’ to engage at Open Education?
• It is more complex; more stakeholders, less control,etc.
• It is ‘new’; thus more uncertain and humans generally tend to avoid change…
• It might be a threat, to current funding and business models, to the institutes strategy, to
ones own job, etc.
• It could challenge the ‘status quo’; academia might (further) loose the monopole on
providing higher education.
• It might be a totally pointless undertaking that would never work out in practice – so why
being the first risking it…

8. For the start: Make your content available! It’s perhaps not
education, but a pre-requirement!

9. Very easy: Just Open Up your course and let others OBSERVE!

10. Pretty easy: Just Open Up your course and let others
PARTICIPATE!

11. Equally easy: Let your students INTERACT with others from
Academia or Industry

12. Not that easy, but still feasible: Develop & Deliver an Open
Course together with others

13. Even less easy, but APPARENTLY still feasible: Set up an OPEN
University

14. And last but not least: confer degrees or certification for Open
Learning!

15. Thank you for your attention!
Dr. Andreas Meiszner,
United Nations University
UNU-MERIT
meiszner@merit.unu.edu