Openness has been identified with many innovations in education and educational technology, but remains under-theorised. This presentation will argue that openness is best understood as a kind of absence of restriction or impediment. With a clear connection to issues of freedom, integrity and autonomy openness introduces several layers of complexity to the ethics of teaching and learning. These will be described and explored through case studies, with practical approaches to dealing with the risks of openness outlined. If you want a teaser for the presentation, please watch this short video where Robert talks about openness and ethics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZHNSdUzDHc

1. The Ethical Complexities of Openness
PIL Unit's Network for the Exchange of Experience (PILSNER)
16th October 2017
Dr. Robert Farrow
Institute of Educational Technology
Learning and Teaching Innovation (LTI)
The Open University, UK

2. What will this presentation cover?
History and theory of openness in education
Understanding openness
Ethical problems and complexities related to open educational practices
Developing a framework for understanding ethical challenges of openness
Key themes emerging from Open Education 2017

3. History of open education
• Peters and Deimann (2013) have demonstrated that the history of openness can be
understood to stretch back before the institutionalization of education, even if the language
of open was not always used.
• Ancient knowledge transmission through apprenticeship
• Guttenberg printing press (1450s)
• Monastic tradition gave way to university institutions
• Emergence of the public sphere (Habermas, 1962) and public university systems

4. History of open education
By the 1960s the open education movement had begun
to coalesce around the idea of disestablishing cultural,
economic and institutional barriers to formal education.
The Open University in the UK was founded in 1969 to
widen access to higher education by disregarding the
need for prior academic qualification, and using the
communication technologies of the time to ‘open up’
campus education though a “teaching system to suit an
individual working in a lighthouse off the coast of
Scotland” (Daniel et al., 2008).
upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/bf/Louisbourg_Lighthouse.jpg

5. The ethics of open education
“When educational materials can be electronically copied and
transferred around the world at almost no cost, we have a
greater ethical obligation than ever before to increase the
reach of opportunity. When people can connect with others
nearby or in distant lands at almost no cost to ask questions,
give answers, and exchange ideas, the moral imperative to
meaningfully enable these opportunities weighs profoundly.
We cannot in good conscience allow this poverty of
educational opportunity to continue when educational
provisions are so plentiful, and when their duplication and
distribution costs so little.” (Caswell, Henson, Jensen & Wiley,
2008)

6. History of open education
• Industrialisation brought the rise of popular literacy and establishment of public libraries
and distance education
• In the 20th century we have seen an extension of the belief that education is a right that
can be extended to all
• It is mistaken to see this as a linear historical progression: (Peters & Deimann, 2013:12)
observe 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”.

7. The open paradigm in education
A range of cultures, behaviours, practices and technologies from educational contexts may
be described as ‘open’, including access to education or published research, policies,
teaching methods, software, data sets and other educational resources.
Over the last decade – primarily in the form of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC) and
Open Educational Resources (OER) – the open education movement has expanded
opportunities for education worldwide.
Yet as opportunities for accessing educational materials increases, so higher education (in
the West, at least) has increasingly seemed to be in a crisis of funding shortfalls, massive
student debt, and a lack of graduate employment. This has led some to ask whether open
education is the saviour of traditional education, or the herald of its demise.

8. “Open approaches are featured in the mainstream
media. Millions of people are enhancing their
learning through open resources and open courses.
Put bluntly, it looks as though openness has won.
And yet you would be hard pressed to find any signs
of celebration amongst those original advocates.
They are despondent about the reinterpretation of
openness to mean ‘free’ or ‘online’ without some of
the reuse liberties they had envisaged. Concerns
are expressed about the commercial interests that
are now using openness as a marketing tool.
Doubts are raised regarding the benefits of some
open models for developing nations or learners who
require support. At this very moment of victory it
seems that the narrative around openness is being
usurped by others, and the consequences of this
may not be very open at all.”
(Weller, 2014: 14)

9. A ‘deeper’ ethics of care?
As openness increasingly enters the mainstream there is concern that the more radical
ethical aspirations of the open movement are becoming secondary. Wiley (2015) for instance
argues for a ‘deeper’ understanding of open ethics as a form of being with an ethic of care
and sharing rather than a set of duties (such as a requirement to use open licensing)

10. Open education: the moral mission
Most people who advocate for open education believe it is the right thing to do
- Improving access to education as a moral mission
- Voluntarily investing time in promoting OER
- For many practitioners the ethical dimensions of open education are crucial
- Even if the goal is prudential/pragmatic (e.g. only to save institutional funds or improve grades) there remains
a normative dimension
Also grounded in international human rights legislation & agreements
- Paris Declaration on OER (2012)
- United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948)
- The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (United Nations, 1966)

11. Open education: a force for
exclusion?
A review of 68 empirical studies, systematic reviews and reports on MOOC (Rolfe, 2015)
suggests there is “a paucity of literature” addressing the socio-ethical dimensions, noting that
despite the rhetoric of improving access “we are at a point where social inclusion is polarised
toward the more privileged” (Rolfe, 2015, p. 65)
Unequal access to communications technology, unequal distribution of basic study skills, and
unavailability of resources in certain languages mean that open approaches can act as a force
for exclusion rather than inclusion (Emmanuel, 2013; Laurillard, 2014; Perryman, 2013)
World Development Report 2016: Digital Dividends

12. http://www-
wds.worldbank.org/external/default/WDSContentServer/WDSP/IB/2016/01/13/090224b08
405b9fa/1_0/Rendered/PDF/World0developm0l0dividends0overview.pdf

13. “[T]he information society has been brought about
by the fastest growing technology in history […]
No previous generation has ever been exposed to
such an extraordinary acceleration of technical
power over reality, with corresponding social
changes and ethical responsibilities”
Prof. Luciano Floridi
(Professor of Philosophy and Ethics of Information at the
University of Oxford)

14. • Contextualist, not essentialist – there is no such thing as ‘open’
• Defines itself against a status quo that restricts some activity:
open lets you do X by removing a barrier to X
• Fundamentally oriented towards freedom
• But what kind of freedom?

15. Negative Liberty: the absence of
(external) restrictions on activity; freedom
from interference
Positive Liberty: the capacity to act on
the basis of one’s free will; implies rational
agency, autonomy, active choice
Distinction made by Fromm (1941)
and Berlin (1958)
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/81/Statue_of_Liberty_from_ferry.JPG

16. Characteristics of Constellation Method
• Always reconstructive and historical
• Begins with actually existing examples of practice
• Intimately related to how language is used
• Move beyond binary judgements (e.g. open or not?)
• Anti-essentialist: “the constellation of moments is not to be
reduced to a singular essence; what is inherent in that
constellation is not an essence.” (Adorno, 1973:104)
• Recognises historical contingency without over-simplification
or relativism
• Constellation does not prohibit possibility of other
constellations, nor future re-interpretation
• Reflective open practice
11.Farrow,R.(2016).“ConstellationsofOpenness”in
Deimann,M.andPeters,M.A.(eds.)ThePhilosophyof
OpenLearning:PeerLearningandtheIntellectual
Commons.NewYork:PeterLang.

17. Open Education and Critical Pedagogy
Farrow, R. (2017). Open Education and Critical Pedagogy.
Learning, Media and Technology 42(2).

18. Image:https://www.flickr.com/photos/lemasney/5211610431/

19. Research beyond the institution
In open contexts, teaching and research are increasingly taking place outside institutions
Novel use of open, publicly available datasets
Application of new methods to legacy data
Use of online mechanisms for dissemination (social media, etc.)
Weller (2013) terms this ‘guerrilla research’ – no collection of primary data; further
permissions are not required
Examples include:

20. Research beyond the institution
http://www.katyjordan.com/MOOCproject.html

21. http://blog.ouseful.info/2009/04/02/visualising-mps-expenses-using-scatter-plots-charts-and-maps/

22. http://www.theguardia
n.com/news/datablog/
2009/apr/03/mps-
expenses-
houseofcommons

23. Coal Run (Ohio) Map Mashup
Mapping mash-up overlaid city
boundaries, water supply lines,
and house occupancy by race
Showed almost all the white
households in Coal Run have
water service, while all but a few
black homes do not
$11m in damages from the city of
Zanesville and Muskingum
County (2008)
http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2014/02/16/bittersweet-water.html

24. http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/04/how-big-data-harms-poor-
communities/477423/

25. To find out whether the psychological states of its users
can be manipulated Facebook ran a study which involved
showing users either only ‘positive’ or ‘negative’ status
updates and seeing whether this would affect their mood (it
did).
Expert opinion is divided over the acceptability of
Facebook’s actions.
• What are our expectations of use of online
information?
• Can we reasonably consent to our own harm?
• What role is technology playing in the pedagogical
situation; of what should we be aware?
• Mirror with ethical responsibilities around distance
learning
Facebook: ‘Emotional
Contagion’ Study

26. Panama Papers!
Image: https://pixabay.com/static/uploads/photo/2016/04/05/07/41/panama-1308874_960_720.jpg

27. Framework for an Ethics of Open
Education
Openness always increases complexity and reduces predictability
Though we have some expectations of behaviour, we aren’t yet at a point where we could
professionalize an ethics for open education
It is not possible to prescribe guidance for the multitude of scenarios where openness might
make an ethical difference
We lack adequate terminology for describing and assessing the ethical significance of
openness
The framework is developed in order to facilitate identifying and reflecting on normative
elements of open interventions in teaching and research

28. Constructing the framework
The study examines ethical guidance for research from the British Educational Research
Association (BERA), the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC); and the British
Psychological Society (BPS)
Not a systematic review & the choice of sources is somewhat arbitrary – although the full
paper explains the genealogy (Nuremburg Code, Belmont Report) shared by other guidance
(e.g. National Institutes of Health)
Textual analysis identifies the following shared principles:

29. Respect for autonomy

30. Avoid harm / minimize risk

31. Full disclosure

32. Privacy & Data Security

33. Integrity

34. Independence

35. Informed Consent

36. Principles of ethical intervention
Respect for participant autonomy (fair treatment; recognizes human dignity)
Avoid harm / minimize risk
Full disclosure (interventions should be understood by those affected)
Privacy & data security (respect for confidentiality)
Integrity (meeting recognized professional standards)
Independence (objectivity)
Informed consent

37. Resources from philosophical ethics
Normative Theory Definition of ‘Good’ Focus
Deontological Fulfilment or discharge of moral
obligations
Responsibility, intention & duty
Consequentialist Acting to promote best
outcomes
Consequences and outcomes
Virtue Ethics Flourishing (eudemonia) Individual character and ‘well-
being’
Developing practical wisdom
(phronêsis)

38. The framework

39. The framework is intended to complement existing institutional processes for ethical
approval
For ‘guerrilla’ researchers the framework can encourage focus on professional standards
Even where institutional guidance is available it may not reflect what is possible with open
technologies
Ultimately, practitioners to continue to reflect on issues themselves and practice their own
autonomy and phronêsis as researchers and educators

40. phronēsis
phronēsis
aristotle
ethical, practical reason developed through reflective experience

41. Farrow, R. (2016). A
Framework for the Ethics of
Open Education. Open Praxis,
8(2).
http://dx.doi.org/10.5944/openpr
axis.8.2.291

42. Destroying Open Education
https://tinyurl.com/destroyopeneducation
OpenEd17: The 14th Annual Open Education Conference
https://imgur.com/gallery/4e7EH

43. Equity

44. Social Justice

45. How can we destroy open education?
https://tinyurl.com/destroyopeneducation
Walled gardens / working in silos
Being dogmatic about what qualifies as ‘open’ – or insufficiently strict
Forgetting the human element; concentrating too much on ‘systems’
Defund important initiatives; fail to expand funding base
Writing policies without understanding the ethos of open
Failure to protect net neturality
Territorialization of open education
Ignore issues of collection, ownership and processing of data
Pay lip service to diversity while failing to hear all voices
‘Forced’ openness which is mandated or imposed

46. oerhub.net
@oer_hub
philosopher1978.wordpress.com
@philosopher1978
Thanks for listening!