The OpenEdu framework is proposed as a foundation for developing insight and inspiring vision. It can also be used as a tool for developing a position on open education, by adapting the frameworks' propositions whenever needed. It was designed to help higher education institutions in Europe to make strategic decisions on open education.
By defining open education and both its core and transversal dimensions, the framework promotes transparency in practices and proposes a common understanding of open education.
Open education is often understood as open educational resources (OER) and at times as open research data.
The framework, however, seeks to promote a more holistic approach to open education. It proposes that contemporary open education goes beyond OER and open research outputs to embrace strategic decisions, teaching methods, collaborations between individuals and institutions, recognition of open learning and different ways of making content available. Contemporary open education is mostly enabled by ICTs and hence, there is endless potential for innovation and reach.
Its main characteristic is that it shows the dynamism of open educational practices, and that there is no single correct way of doing it. Rather, open educational practices can involve focusing on openness in specific dimensions of the framework, or target as much openness as possible in all of the 10 dimensions.
Whether the first or the latter option is chosen, open educational practices in higher education remains bound by all the dimensions, which will always interact with one another, to a greater or lesser extent.
The full framework can be found in the annex of the following publication, which also presents the research process followed to its design:
