Our web programmer study program to which I give my courses has been open for many years. As a result of that (and hopefully the quality of the courses) it is one of the most popular study programs at Linnaeus university.The study program is open in many ways but not fully open. Open to potential studentsAs a result the information about the study program is more complete and easily available compared to other educations we provide. This makes it much easier to share information with potential new students and they can themselves search and get a feel for what the courses in the program will contain before even applying. They can listen to recorded lectures, watch lectures live, browse last year's assignments and in some cases take part of course evaluations (depending on course and individual teacher). They cannot however participate in exams and hand in assignments. Since I give courses with rather generic names it is quite common that students apply to a course but has no idea on the course content or if it is a course for them, that way it is really good that they can take part of last years course material to form an informed opinion before committing to the course. Open to slow studentsThere are always some students that for some reasons do not finish the courses in time, since the material is kept open and available they can use it and hopefully finish the courses next time it is given. Open to alumni studentsWe have also noticed that a lot of our old students return to our courses after the course finished. They do that for several reasons: sometimes to give something back, perhaps giving a guest lecture. Sometimes they come back to check some details they need in their work or in their hobby projects. I have also been contacted from students that read the study material or listen to the lectures to take part of material in courses that was not part of their study program but they felt an interest in but never wanted to commit to. Some old students give the material to their colleagues at work so that they can brush up on subjects. This makes opening up the material a service to the society. Open to the publicI have on a handful of occasions been contacted by citizens that have found my material through other means (I guess google) and are grateful for it being there. They are open learners that perhaps have a hard time studying at the speed we give the courses. I try answer their questions (if time exists) and usually try to motivate them to find and apply to a study program.
Openness and sharing in a Swedish context
In Sweden, teachers own the copyright to the learning resources they produce. This makes sharing these resources easier for teachers who want to do so. But it also makes it impossible for universities to implement policies about sharing against the wills of individual teachers.
The principle of public access to informationis very strong in Swedish legislation, and gives the public far-reaching rights to information about what happens at state universities (who make up an overwhelming majority of Swedish universities). Among other things, the public have a right to attend lectures (as long as there is enough physical space for them to do so). This could be used as an argument for openness in education.
Swedish is a minor language. This constitutes a problem for courses given in Swedish, since there just isn’t that much open educational resources in Swedish out there. And, for courses given in English, it may be the case that most pedagogical resources focus on, for example, American phenomena from American perspectives. However, the relative scarcity of resources in Swedish makes sharing such resources all the more important.
Responsible sharing
Some students (quite a few, actually) have “protected identities”. They may, for example, be hiding from abusive partners. When opening up teaching to the public it is important that the identities of these students remain protected. They should not be seen in film clips, their names should not appear etc.
Not only students with protected identities need to be protected when educations become more open. In seminars it is OK to be wrong. Testing ideas out is an imoprtant aspect of learning. However, not everyone is happy about putting their ignorance on display. It can be hard enough to be wrong in a seminar group consisting of your fellow students. If the seminar is filmed and published on youtube the problem becomes much bigger.
There are also examples when teachers need to be protected. Academics invited to Swedish universities from countries such as Turkey or China may be comfortable speaking relatively freely in a classroom. If what they say is published openly, however, they may fear repercussions in their home countries.
Potential risks
Openness may be problematic in other ways than the ones mentioned above. One risk is that educational resources are used in the wrong way. One rather funny example of this is that an authentic syllabus has appeared in a Swedish novel, in which it was presented as being writted by a mad professor...