Open educational resources (OER) offer many benefits, but they need to be well designed and embedded within a rich learning environment to be effective.
The increasing availability of OER, open textbooks, open research, and open data means that in the future, almost all academic content will be open and freely accessible over the Internet.
As a result, students will increasingly look to institutions for learning support and help with the development of skills needed in the digital age rather than with the delivery of content. This will have major consequences for the role of teachers/instructors and the design of courses.
OER and other forms of open education will lead to increased modularization and disaggregation of learning services, which are needed to respond to the increasing diversity of learner needs in the digital age.
MOOCs are essentially a dead end with regard to providing learners who do not have adequate access to education with high-quality qualifications. The main value of MOOCs is in providing opportunities for non-formal education and supporting communities in practice.
OER, MOOCs, open textbooks and other digital forms of openness are important in helping to widen access to learning opportunities. But ultimately, these are enhancements rather than a replacement for a well-funded public education system, which remains the core foundation for enabling equal access to educational opportunities.
