(i.e., individual) OER (Weller 2012), but the same may be said of open scholarship, open access publishing and MOOCs. In part, this is an argument for sustainability; such approaches work well over a long period when they don’t rely on large, centrally funded projects to deliver them, and instead they become a by-product of everyday practice. It is also an argument for ownership, which relates more specifically to the battle for open. If MOOCs are only developed through high-end productions featuring superstar academics, or if OERs are only delivered from large projects out of elite institutions and these are simply accepted wholesale, then academia does not take ownership of any of the issues or opportunities they offer. They remain a practice of others imposed upon the education sector, rather than one owned by it.
One other problem of open education is not lack of engagement, but over-zealous implementation. As discussed above, open education is undoubtedly a political movement, and as with any such movement, there are hardliners in its midst. These are often well intentioned and take a stance on openness that does not permit any of the reinterpetation of the term we see with openwashing. However, as with the open source movement, this can lead to a form of openness Stalinism, where people are outed for not being open enough. Ultimately this is alienating for many academics who don’t want to be forced into open practice through fear or bullying. Openness can quickly become a stick with which to beat people, and the danger of this mindset is that openness is reduced to a narrow checklist. Perhaps the most exciting aspect of open practice is that it allows for experimentation and diversity, and it would be a false victory to replace one monopoly of behaviour with a new one.
Openness and access to a global network brings with it a new set of moral considerations. Openness can be used to justify
