Developing Innovative Systems for Supportive Open Teaching Practices in Higher Education

Openness has become a key feature in the discourse and practice of higher education in recent years as has its potential to drive innovation in teaching and learning practices. More often this discourse refers to the processes involved in learning such as in the phrase open and distance learning. Much less attention has been paid to the processes in teaching. The advent of the internet and its capabilities for enabling the publishing and sharing of digital content, the extraordinary growth in online, educationally-focussed content and the introduction of open licensing for such content have all combined to create new ways of developing and delivering teaching materials and systems, both amongst teachers and institutions. This paper reviews the factors involved in the more open systems for teaching that is resulting from this potential for innovation and discusses the implications of those factors and these innovations for educational systems in general.