Access to knowledge and information are fundamental human rights that every individual should enjoy. In the competitive higher education world, educational resources are significant intellectual property, and that was the core reason why access to these materials was a privilege to professors and students (Karaganis, 2018). Bearing in mind that everyone has a right to knowledge and information is a right of all humans, open education is a significant facilitator towards fulfilling these rights.

From the assigned readings, I have noticed that different institutions and approaches have been put in place to facilitate the access of information for the good of professors, students, and society at large. There have been notable collaboration in raising awareness about and promoting positive attitudes towards open education. Individuals and institutions use the internet to share digital resources free of technical, financial, and legal barriers (Gilliard, 2016). I have also noticed that different concerned organizations are making efforts not only to provide open education resources but also to facilitate learning by integrating cultural aspects and development of enterprise, which makes the learners feel that the knowledge is contributing to personal growth.

Despite that open education provide many benefits, for example, broader participation in education, and improvement of students’ satisfaction and performance ((DeRosa & Jhangiani, 2018), I am wondering how these approaches are tackling the obvious challenges of developing a collaborative online community and ensuring that the content available in the platforms is of high quality. Besides, some individuals who are willing to learn might be living in areas where internet connection is erratic, and some do not have gadgets that access the network. Without measures to address these issues, I wonder how open education is beneficial to the broader society.

I have been inspired by the efforts made by different platforms to promote access to learning. Through the open education platforms, and individuals can access educational materials from any corner of the world, repeatedly and at any time if the individual has access to the internet. Besides, I have been inspired by the fact that with internet access, a learner can enjoy substantially reduced costs of learning materials as compared to the traditional course packs and textbooks.

 

References

Karaganis, J. (2018). Shadow Libraries: access to knowledge in global higher education (p. 320). The MIT Press.

Gilliard, C. (2016). Digital Redlining, Access, and Privacy | Common Sense Education. Retrieved from https://www.commonsense.org/education/articles/digital-redlining-access-and-privacy

DeRosa, R., & Jhangiani, d. (2018). Open Pedagogy. Retrieved from https://press.rebus.community/makingopentextbookswithstudents/chapter/open-pedagogy/