Open education in closed-loop systems: Enabling closures and open loops

Abstract

University systems maintain prohibitive closures that constitute a closed-loop system: opaque academic practices, control of what counts as knowledge, financial and social exclusion, and the perpetuation of privilege. Yet this closed-loop system is also governed by adherence to values around education as a public good, openness, and authenticity, and education as a vehicle for social mobility. The closures and openings created with such systems are in tension. Open education in universities is entwined in these tensions. In this paper, we differentiate between prohibitive closures and enabling closures. We define enabling closures as closed loops of activity that allow for openings both at the boundaries of the university and within. It is through these enabling closures that universities can adhere to open education as accepted policy and practice. As such, in this paper we explore how open education sits in tension with closed technological and increasingly commercialized educational infrastructures in higher education.