is the key to many of these. Succeeding in this, however, requires firstly engaging with the changes, and secondly taking ownership of the changes and not allowing them to be dictated by external forces, either through vacillation or a short-term desire to simplify matters. Below we shall consider analogy with the green movement, which demonstrates that the value of openness will not be lost on others.
Why Openness Matters
In the preceding sections I hope I have started to convince you that openness has been largely victorious as an approach. By victorious I do not necessarily mean that all academics and students have it at the forefront of their minds, but one aspect of open education or another touches upon the practice of both learners and academics, be it students using open resources to supplement their learning, or academics publishing open access journals. There is undoubtedly still a lot more that open education needs to do before it affects all aspects of practice, but the current period marks the moment when open education stopped being a peripheral, specialist interest and began to occupy a place in the mainstream of academic practice. If you are still unconvinced, then this will be explored further in chapters 3 to 7. I now want to set out an argument regarding its significance and why you should care about the arguments around openness. There are two main reasons that openness in education matters: opportunities and function.
Under ‘opportunities’ there are many sub-categories that can be listed, but I will focus on just one example here, as other opportunities are explored throughout the book. One significant opportunity that openness affords is in the area of pedagogy. In The Digital Scholar (Weller 2011) I set out how digital resources
