Peter and Diemann (2013) propose a longer historical perspective, highlighting aspects of open education in the Middle Ages with the founding of universities which ‘contained in them the idea of openness, albeit by no means comprehensive. This period highlights “open” as learner driven, resting on a growing curiosity and increasing awareness of educational opportunities.’ Open education can be traced through the 17th century with coffeehouses and then into the industrial revolution with schools and working clubs. Their overview of this broader history of openness is shown in Figure 9.
This longer historical perspective has some illuminating lessons for the current debate. The authors conclude that, ‘Historical forms of openness caution us against assuming that particular configurations will prevail, or that social aspects should be assumed as desired by default. … After a period of open movements many times there have been slight but important shifts from “pure” openness towards “pretended” openness, i.e., some aspects have been modified to offer more control for producers and other stakeholders.’
This illustrates that openness has always been perceived as problematic, and one of its principle difficulties is that it operates against an individual’s and, more significantly, an organisation’s need to control. Where there are issues of control, there is undoubtedly a political aspect. Peters and Britez (2008) are blunt about this in their book on open education, opening with the statement, ‘Open education involves a commitment to openness and is therefore inevitably a political and social project.’ It is possible to argue, as the open source community do, that openness is simply the most efficient way to operate, and there is some truth in that, for instance the argument for learning objects and OERs makes this case. But even if that is so, a degree of politics follows.
