There is much talk about openness in education. Most of us by now are familiar with open learning, and many could describe their use of open source software such as Moodle, Mahara, Linux or Open Office. Many can also articulate what open educational resources look like, and have knowledge of Massive Open Online Courses - otherwise known as MOOCs. How many though, are familiar with the concept of open scholarship?

There is a complex interplay between openness, scholarship and digital technology. As some writers such as Robin Goodfellow argue, it is an impossible triangle to reconcile. Others such as the Council for Australian University Librarians are more optimistic, suggesting that open scholarship is achievable, not least in the aim of open collaboration and development to promote openness in all aspects of education. For me, open scholarship is a state of mind - it is a choice each educator needs to make as to how open they wish to be, along an entire spectrum of scholarly activities. Some educators for example, are closed in their sharing of content, but are open to collaboration with other educators. True openness is where content is shared freely, all work is attributed fairly, and where educators also open themselves up for dialogue, collaboration and constructive criticism. True open scholars are those who have aspirations to be global educators, promoting free learning for all, reaching out and connecting with other educators and learners everywhere, with the aim of participating fully in their worldwide community of practice. The link below takes you to a short video I recently made on some of my own views on open scholarship.

"Knowledge is like love. You can give it away as much as you like, but you still get to keep it."


Photo by Richard Croft


Open scholarship by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.