Promotional Information

This important volume brings together the thoughts of many educators, technologists, philanthropists, and legal scholars who are among the leaders of the Openness movement in education. Reading it is essential for anyone who believes that education is an important, empowering, and democratizing force in the modern world, and that substantial economic efficiencies could be garnered by sharing educational content and scholarly materials at minimal cost through the World Wide Web. -- Charles Vest, President Emeritus, MIT This book is probably the most comprehensive collection of writings to date on the open education movement. It paints a picture of numerous experiments and roads started upon in an arena that is still in its infancy but which offers many major possibilities for transformation of education. Where these roads lead and which are most fertile are still unanswerable questions. But there is no better starting point than this book. -- C. Judson King, Director, Center for Studies in Higher Education,University of California, Berkeley This is a very welcome and timely publication... Although it seems paradoxical, the opening up of education is a bold approach, and one that will challenge the status quo and destabilize educational models, institutions, those who make them work, and who work within them. However, creating a culture of learning...is essential in emerging knowledge societies. The three sections of the book put forward much to consider,illuminate many issues and, in the end challenge the reader to consider thepossibility and the implications of open [education]. There is a wide rangeof voices from the community of those convinced that open is preferable toclosed. -- Susan D'Antoni, Director, Virtual Institute of the UNESCO InternationalInstitute for Educational Planning Whether we realize it or not, improving the cost and scale of quality education is the challenge that underlies all other challenges to the human race. The significance of this groundbreaking book is that it elucidates new business models and technologies that are needed to support educators worldwide in creating the breakthroughs needed. -- Robert Abel, CEO, IMS Global Learning Consortium This exceptionally engaging book interprets Open Educational Resources through references that range from King Lear to YouTube. By presenting the OER movement in all its glorious confusion and rich variety it compels the reader to help it grow from "robust early adolescence" to adulthood. It challenges the developing world to appropriate this most promising innovation for the purposes of mass formal education instead of letting it under-perform as merely a mechanism for the educated elite to facilitate informal learning by the less fortunate. -- Sir John Daniel, President & CEO, Commonwealth of Learning

About the Author

Toru Iiyoshi is Senior Scholar and Director of the Knowledge Media Lab at the Carnegie Foundation.

John Seely Brown is the former Chief Scientist at Xerox and Director of its Palo Alto Research Center (PARC). He is currently Independent Cochair for Deloitte's Center for the Edge, advisor to the Provost at University of Southern California. He is coauthor of The Social Life of Information and other books.

Steven R. Lerman is a faculty member of the Civil Engineering Department at MIT and affiliated with its Center for Transportation Studies.

Shigeru Miyagawa is Professor of Linguistics and Kochi-Manjiro Professor of Japanese Language and Culture at MIT. He is the author of Why Agree? Why Move? Unifying Agreement-Based and Discourse-Configurational Languages (MIT Press).

Reviews

For anyone interested in the openness movement or in changes to the educational system, Opening Up Education is worth perusing. The book is freely available online with links to individual chapters, making it easy to cite and share.—Jean-Claude Bradley, Nature