Business and Sustainability Models in Open Education: Concepts and Examples in 2012

Business and Sustainability Models in
Open Education

Concepts and Examples in 2012

June, 2012

Andreas Meiszner, PhD
United Nations University | UNU-MERIT | CCG
The Netherlands

The openED project has been funded with support from the European Commission. The content reflects the views only of the author,
and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use, which may be made of the information contained therein. | openEd 2.0
505667-LLP-1-2009-1-PT-KA3-KA3MP

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Version Information: June 19th 2012 v3.1

ii

Table of Content

1 Introduction ................................................................................................................ 1
2 Open Education, OE Services and sustainability ....................................................... 2
3 A historic perspective: Education services and WTO GATS .................................... 3
4 Open Education service concepts and supportive market spaces .............................. 4
4.1 Open Education service concepts........................................................................ 4
4.2 Possible examples of Open Education services .................................................. 5
4.3 Supportive market spaces.................................................................................... 6
5 Sustainability Challenges: The Absence of an OE Service Infrastructure and
perceived Lack of Business Models ................................................................................. 7
6 Comparison of openED concepts against further OE cases....................................... 8
6.1 Case 1: openED ................................................................................................... 9
6.2 Case 2: openSE.................................................................................................. 12
6.3 Case 3 UNUOpen (UN University)................................................................... 15
6.4 Case 4: MITx / EdX (MIT & Harvard) ............................................................. 18
6.5 Case 5: Coursera (Stanford) .............................................................................. 21
6.6 Case 6: Udacity (Stanford) ................................................................................ 24
6.7 Case 7: Saylor Foundation ................................................................................ 27
6.8 Case 8: OERu .................................................................................................... 30
6.9 Case 9: ict@innovation FOSS Business Training Programme ......................... 33
6.10 Case 10: Khan Academy................................................................................. 35
6.11 Case 11: UoP (University of the People) ........................................................ 38
6.12 Case 12: FTA (Free Technology Academy) ................................................... 41
6.13 Case 13: P2PU (Peer to Peer University)........................................................ 44
7 Reflections................................................................................................................ 47
7.1 Cost per student by OE component part............................................................ 47
7.2 Extension of regular course offerings (combined) vs OE as a parallel
undertaking ................................................................................................................. 48
7.3 Currently existing OE business models & service concepts ............................. 49
Annex - List of section 6 secondary sources .................................................................. 51
References ...................................................................................................................... 52

List of Figures

Figure 1 OE value chain for the learning industry (Source: ELIG, 2011) ....................... 5
Figure 2 Cost per student by OE component part; variable, fixed and cost neutral....... 47

1 Introduction
There are a number of pathways and measures to allow for the sustainability of Open
Education (OE) and they do depend on the respective OE scenarios. Donations,
advertisements, or commission on sales are all viable and well-established means of
revenue generation, and they are applied successfully within and outside of the
education sector. In addition to this OE further potentially allows for cost-sharing and
an added value for money, and for the provision of OE services (Meiszner, 2011). Cost-
sharing means to optimize the use of the resources at hand and might be for example
achieved through sharing the cost for the production and maintenance of open
educational environments, related open educational resources or through shared online
learner support. The openED project shows as a example how such a sharing might be
realized in practice and how educational institutions can co-produce and co-deliver a
course, including how support provision and course facilitation can be equally
distributed amongst the participating educational institutions. OE further can provide an
added value to traditional educational offerings and therefore could allow for a higher
value for the same cost involved, or in the best-case even cost savings (Meiszner, 2011).

Another possible mean to allow for sustainability of OE, and at a scalable rate, is seen
to lay in the development and provision of OE services and as will be the focus of this
report. In the following this report will provide a brief theoretic introduction into the
thematic field of OE services, to then compare OE concepts, which have been
developed and partially also tested within the openED project, against other currently
emerging OE cases from across the globe. As will be shown within the final reflective
section of the report, there are a number of common characteristics within all of such
attempts. But perhaps more importantly from a sustainability perspective; all of such
cases do indicate that OE services are still at its very beginning and that they appear to
be at this point in time often limited to the basic and most obvious OE service concepts,
namely an individual learner assessment and certification against fees. As will be
discussed within this report, OE services do are however not limited to learner
assessment and certification against fees. The possible OE value chain that the
unbundling of the traditional formal education package and the institutional detachment
of education in theory do withhold is still to be explored.

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2 Open Education, OE Services and sustainability
Over the past years the traditional formal education domain has been subject to a
process of opening up resulting in an ever-blurring border between the formal and the
informal and allowing traditional formal education to take advantage of the
opportunities that participatory Web 2.0 provides (Meiszner, 2010, Weller & Meiszner
2008). Such blurring of borders can be seen both in the use of informal approaches
within formal education and release of formal content for less formal use.

Over the past years the traditional formal education domain has also started to take more
and more advantage of the practicing and authentic learning opportunities that Web 2.0
based real-life context environments provide (Meiszner, 2010). This development bears
the potential to systematically bring together traditional formal higher education offers
and theoretic subjects, and from across higher education institutions, with practicing and
authentic learning opportunities within real-life context environments that Web 2.0
provides. Such developments indicate an immense potential to better support learners,
but they also change the context of what is to be understood as traditional formal higher
education, and what current or future technologies might need to support. At present
there is for example a clear absence of concepts and technical solutions that would
allow for education design and provision across technologies and detached from a
single education provider. Even in the case of supportive licensing for underlying open
educational resources, and the access opportunity to educational communities, the
disconnection of the respective technical solutions and environments has turned out so
far to be a serious challenge. As a matter of fact current technological solutions are
typically not designed or intended to allow for education across higher education
institutions, nor to allow all type of learners to learn at any institution of their choice,
nor to engage with students from such institutions, nor to obtain support from such
institutions. Commercial approaches like Amazon for the retail sector or Sourceforge
for software developer community do provide some insights on how Open Education
Ecosystems might be perceived. Amazon and Sourceforge both offer examples that
bring together competing commercial enterprises within their environments, which in
the traditional formal higher education domain do not exist. Thus there is the need to
advance knowledge in such new forms of collaboration in the education sector and to
contribute towards specifications that emerging Open Education Ecosystems would
need to meet.

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Based upon those challenges and opportunities that OE potentially withholds, the EU
LLP funded openED project has been developing and testing a number of new and
service based OE concepts that potentially would allow OE to become sustainable in the
future. An underlying assumption of such concepts has been that the detachment of
education from a single education institution also would go along with an unbundling of
the typically bundled education package. This is to say that within the traditional formal
education system a given education institution typically would be the single education
provider to their learner population. This starts from initial admission and access to
physical or virtual infrastructures, the education itself in form of access opportunities to
learning resources, classes, tutorials and so forth, followed by subsequent assessment
and evaluations of learners, and commonly ending with recognition and formal
credentials of learning outcomes. However, within an OE context this situation might be
very different since traditional formal education offers can be provided from across
higher education institutions, and under involvement of authentic real-life context
environments that the Web 2.0 provides. From a sustainability perspective this allows
for the unbundling of the traditional education package and to realize cost-savings and
an optimized use of resources, a higher value for money, or for the provision of OE
services to the learner itself, or also to education provider. In the following such new
and service based OE concepts will be further discussed.

3 A historic perspective: Education services and WTO GATS
The understanding of education as a service is not a novelty itself, and as exemplified
for example within the World Trade Organization’s ‘General Agreement on Trade in
Services’ as following shown.

The World Trade Organization’s ‘General Agreement on Trade in Services’ (GATS)
entered into force in 1995. One of the components of this agreement, and a perhaps
highly controversial one, has been on ‘Education Services’. The European Students’
Union (ESU, nd) has been arguing for example that education is a public good and that
it should be made available to society at large, but that it is not a good to be consumed
by those only that are privileged as they can afford to pay for it. Apart from those
certainly well justified debates, what the GATS show is that education has been
considered as being a service for already more than one decade. The rise of the ICT and
the Web are therefore perhaps less a cause for education services, but an enabler to
provide those more efficiently and across borders. Very much in line with the GATS

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notion of education as a service one further can observe a steady rise in the education
service market at which private market actors offer those components of education that
can be digitized or delivered at a distance or through networked environments. In 2007
CNET (2007), a popular online news service, noted that education would be the next
big growth market and in April 2011 the FTSE1 100 publishing and education group
Pearson (US) acquired New York based Schoolnet for $230 million in cash. Schoolnet
is a fast-growing education technology company that aligns assessment, curriculum and
other services to help individualize instruction and improve teacher effectiveness. The
undertakings of such private market actors are well aligned with the recommendations
of the UNESCO Report “Towards Knowledge Societies” (2005) that suggest that “the
pillars on which genuine knowledge societies can be built consist of a better valuation
of existing forms of knowledge to narrow the knowledge divide; a more participatory
approach to access to knowledge; and a better integration of knowledge policies” (2005,
p.188). Though Pearson, as a private for profit undertaking, might not be guided by the
objective of building up knowledge societies, the case of Schoolnet provides some
evidence for the validity of the UNESCO report recommendations with regards to
synergies, participatory approaches and consistent policies. The information above
illustrates that education services are not immature, but a well-established sector in
many parts of our education systems. The recent ‘opening up’ of the higher education
sector therefore provides perhaps just the necessary stepping-stone to enable the
provision of OE services.

4 Open Education service concepts and supportive market spaces

4.1 Open Education service concepts
The unbundling and institutional detachment of the traditional formal education
package provides the opportunity to develop services around the respective education
component parts. Component parts of the traditional formal education package that have
been identified alongside the openED project included ‘Open Content’, ‘Open Degrees’,
‘Open Assessment’, ‘Open Learning’, ‘Open Tutoring’, ‘Open Technology’, and ‘Open
Communities’. Each of such component parts allows for the development and provision
of services that might be provided to the learner itself, but also to education provider.

1
FTSE: an independent company jointly owned by The Financial Times and the London Stock Exchange.

4

OE services might be described as an ‘on-demand’ concept at which services are
provided around freely available educational offers, such as courses and programmes,
and perhaps also with free basic support provision. OE services therefore might be close
to a ‘Freemium business model’ at which basic products or services are available free of
charge, while charging a premium for advanced features, functionality, or related
products and services. OE services are nonetheless not limited to a ‘Freemium business
model’ and the ultimate business model will also depend on the respective national
education systems and the funding models in place.

As such OE services are a possibly financial viable mean to allow for the sustainability
of OE. As such OE services are also offering a business opportunity for private market
actors and as depicted within Figure 1.

Figure 1 OE value chain for the learning industry (Source: ELIG, 2011)

4.2 Possible examples of Open Education services
OE services might be provided as well to learners as to education providers. Examples
of educational services for learners could include formal assessment, certification, local
in-class support, study groups, online tutoring, or mentored internships. Services for
education providers might include training, course and program development, (cloud)

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hosting and maintenance, online assessment and certification systems, online spaces to
provide tutoring, billing systems, physical ID verification and assessment control.

The offering of such services thus potentially would allow (higher) education
institutions and third party education providers to generate revenues and as such to
allow for sustainability.

4.3 Supportive market spaces
OE Service concepts are not entirely unrelated to those ones that are already offered
within the traditional formal education system. Moreover, OE service concepts would
provide clear incentives to education provider such as higher education institutions to
deliver course, programs or services through supportive OE market spaces. Altogether
such OE market spaces could also benefit other sustainability components, such as cost-
sharing through co-authored production of courses, programs and other types of
resources, numerous localization opportunities, or joint support provision. To provide
such services would nonetheless require the establishment of supportive market space
infrastructures that then would allow for the offering of such services from across
education institutions and real-life context environments that the Web 2.0 provides. The
unbundling of the traditional education package could then allow education providers as
well as learners to customize education. Learners could decide the preferred mode of
study, be it the traditional one, be it a mix of traditional and peer studying with service
subscriptions from one or more providers, or be it learning for free. With this, such an
education market space would follow common market principles in which supply and
demand determine the price, and in which high quality education could potentially be
provided at local economic rates. The openED project has been conceptualizing and
testing such a market space approach and the results suggest that the joint offer of
education from across institutions and competition at a service level might not be a
conflict in itself. A conflict potential nonetheless, and as experienced within the
openED case, might lay within the incompatibility of national legal frameworks that are
at current in place with OE service and market space concepts. The OERu presented
within section 6 and that is currently under development is pursuing a similar approach,
by bundling strength across the participating higher education institutions for
curriculum design, the joint use of supportive virtual infrastructures (e.g. for learner
support), and by allowing participating education institutions to provide services to their
local and also virtual distributed learner population. Given that the OERu is still at its

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very beginning it is however not known if national legal frameworks that are at current
in place are of an equal challenge to be overcome as experienced within the openED
case.

5 Sustainability Challenges: The Absence of an OE Service Infrastructure and
perceived Lack of Business Models
At this point in time the concept of Open Education, as well as of Open Education
Services, is still in its infancy and there is the absence of well-established market
principles and concepts. The European Learning Industry Group (ELIG), as an openED
project partner, has been carrying out a number of stakeholder consultations. The
findings of such consultations (ELIG, 2011) highlighted in this regard that looking at
similar market approaches, notably the Open Source Software one, shows that such new
models are initially often confined to the specialist and fringe development
communities. In this Open Source Software case commercial software companies long
looked on Open Source Software, but did not embrace the concept and failed to see how
Open Source Software could support their highly commercialised world. Twenty years
on, Open Source Software is routinely behind many consumer and industrial products,
such as satellite boxes, smart phones, PCs, etc.

ELIG has further been carrying out a survey across the breadth of the learning industry
(ELIG, 2011) that shows that there are clear indications that the commercial learning
industry has not yet fully engaged with Open Education (OE). The commercial
hesitation to adopt OE is in large part due to a perceived lack of associated new
business models. Despite this perceived lack of associated new business models,
education services are nonetheless already well established for more then a decade as
has been detailed within section 3. What might be thus indeed a novelty is to provide
services within an OE setting that is characterized by institutional detachment, the
unbundling of the traditionally bundled education package into its component parts, and
the larger number of stakeholders that might act as education provider. This certainly
does require a certain infrastructure to support the offering of such services and as has
been discussed within section 4. The comparison of currently existing OE case that is
provided within the following section suggest however that such supportive
infrastructure does not exist at this point in time.

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6 Comparison of openED concepts against further OE cases
The openED course has been implementing and testing a OE service infrastructure
aimed at enabling third party education providers to offer services to the course
participants, be it for free or against fee. This service infrastructure had been
implemented alongside the openED piloting phase and it has been considering a limited
number of services such as in-class support, virtual tutoring, and marked assessment
and certification. During the openED piloting phase a number of OE service providers
have been offering services for the course, though at this point in time remains unclear
to which degree those services have been actually used and whether or not the
implemented service infrastructure and approach does workout as envisioned and could
be ultimately taken further from a research project level into a more formal and
mainstream education context.

Given that OE and OE services are still at a relatively early stage the openED concept
can also not be compared against well-established and mature OE cases, which do not
exist at this point in time. However, and to allow for a better understanding on the
potential applicability of the openED concepts and its service infrastructure this section
will compare a number of currently emergent similar OE initiatives. The purpose of this
comparison is thus to gain a better understanding on the state of the art of OE concepts
and service approaches and to identify similarities and deviations.

The following provided information has been collected via desktop research within the
investigated OE case websites or via third party sources as detailed within the Annex
‘a’.

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6.1 Case 1: openED
Characteristics / Cases openED
Maturity Research
Country Europe
Funding Grant (EU, EACEA).
Stakeholder Higher Education Institutions,
Adult Education Provider,
Web based communities and social spaces.
Formal / Non-formal Formal and non-formal.
education approach
Traditional, Parallel or Combined approach of traditional and open learning. One course many provider / many provision modes concept.
Combined approach (e.g.
one course many
provider / many
provision modes)
Education materials Use of educational materials from participating education provider.
Use of educational material now available for free on the internet.
Collaborative development of curriculum and course design.
Localizations / Yes, but no supportive technology in place
Versioning
Modularity Yes, course broken down in modules.
Bundling of education Unbundled, broken down in component parts (course design, lectures, support, assessment, certification, etc.).
package
Institutional attachment Detached from single institution.

Training of Trainers Yes, short training course.
Programme
Technology Available and adapted OSS & web based technologies.

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Licenses (Content & Open licenses.
technologies)
Pedagogy Online versions of university level courses.
Problem, inquiry, collaborative based learning.
Learning, Tutoring, Online chat (IRC) sessions organized by the course team from participating education institutions.
Support and Forum based support provided by peers and as required by the course team from participating education
Communities institutions.

(Re-)Use/Integration of Directory for/with learner assignments, including grading and evaluations.
(A) learning outcomes
(assignments, tests, etc.)
and/or (B) internship
reports
Use/Integration of (A) Yes, such as Scribd, Slideshare, etc.
real life learning
environments and/or (B)
internships
Portability of learning No.
and outcomes
Track of learning No.
pathways within internal
and external learning
environments
Assessment Yes. Open Evaluation and Rating system for submitted assignments. Both, peer-assessment and assessment via OE
service provider (fees might apply).
Degrees / Credentialing / Yes, automated Self-Print certificate or formal recognition via OE service provider (fees might apply).
Recognition

10

Quality Assurance Responsibility of participating education institutions and based on their respective quality assurance mechanisms.
System for rating and evaluation of the quality of third party OE service provider.

Service Concepts & Cost-sharing, higher value for money and OE services to learners such as:
Business Models - Formal assessment
- Certification
- Local in-class support
- Study groups
- Online tutoring.
Other
URLs www.open-ed.eu

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6.2 Case 2: openSE
Characteristics / Cases openSE
Maturity Research
Country Europe
Funding Grant (EU, EACEA).
Web based communities and social spaces, including OSS developer communities (via internships).

Formal / Non-formal Non-formal practice based approach focusing on authentic and real life learning.
education approach
Traditional, Parallel or Combined approach of traditional and open learning.
one course many
provider / many
provision modes)
Use of educational material from real-life learning environments (OSS developer communities).
Localizations / Yes, but no supportive technology in place
Versioning
Modularity Yes, materials are made available by tasks and/or by learning objectives.
Bundling of education Unbundled, focused on non-formal component parts (internships, p2p knowledge exchange, shared 2nd level
package support etc.).

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Training of Trainers Yes, short training course.
Programme
Technology Available and adapted OSS & web based technologies.
Licenses (Content & Open licenses, but support of closed licensed third party offers.
technologies)
Problem, inquiry, collaborative and project based learning.
Learning, Tutoring, Forum based support provided by peers and as required by the course team from participating education
Support and institutions.
Communities Access to support system of embedded authentic real-live environments (e.g. OSS developer communities).

(Re-)Use/Integration of Directory for/with learner internship project reports, including grading and evaluations.
(A) learning outcomes Directory for/with learner assignments, including grading and evaluations.
(assignments, tests, etc.) Directory with learning resources from authentic real-live environments (e.g. OSS developer communities).
reports
Use/Integration of (A) Use/Integration of authentic real-live environments (e.g. OSS developer communities) as part of a virtual
real life learning internship.
internships
Portability of learning Yes, via Portable Education Portfolios (PEPS) that allows for single sign on across learning spaces and leveraging
and outcomes of all types of data across such spaces (3).
Track of learning Yes, via Portable Education Portfolios (PEPS) that allows for single sign on across learning spaces and leveraging
pathways within internal of all types of data across such spaces (3).
environments
Assessment Yes. Open Evaluation and Rating system for submitted internship reports. Both, peer-assessment and assessment
via OE service provider (fees might apply).

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Degrees / Credentialing / Yes, automated Self-Print certificate.
Recognition


Service Concepts & Cost-sharing and higher value for money through bundling of 2nd level and peer support and learner generated
Business Models contents.
Other
URLs www.openSE.net

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6.3 Case 3 UNUOpen (UN University)
Characteristics / Cases UNUOpen (UN University)
Maturity Concept
Country Global
Funding Conceptual phase only.
Web based communities and social spaces,
public and private sector entities (via internship programme).
Formal / Non-formal Formal traditional course based education approach,
education approach non-formal practice based approach focusing on authentic and real life learning.
Traditional, Parallel or Combined approach of traditional and open learning. One course many provider / many provision modes concept.
one course many
provider / many
provision modes)
Localizations / Yes, via supportive technologies (analogue to Amazon / Sourceforge concepts).
Versioning
Modularity Yes, to support re-bundling and education provision in multi contexts, across institutions and collaborative/jointly.

Bundling of education Unbundled, broken down in component parts (development, lectures, support, assessment, certification,
package internships, p2p knowledge exchange, shared 2nd level support, etc.).


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Training of Trainers Yes, via partnership & training programme.
Programme
Technology Two core technologies. (A) Higher level technological OE system framework analogue to Amazon & Sourceforge
concept that integrates available third party technologies (e.g. common OSS & proprietary LMS systems, Content
repositories, web based technologies, etc.) and allows for multi-technology support. (B) Portable Education
Portfolios.
Licenses (Content & Open licenses, but support of closed licensed third party offers.
technologies)
Problem, inquiry, collaborative and project based learning.
Learning, Tutoring, Online lectures or support chat (IRC) sessions organized by the course team from participating education
Support and institutions.
Communities Forum based support provided by peers and as required by the course team from participating education
institutions.
Remote participation opportunities at classroom based lectures for online learners within the courses of
participating education institutions.
Access to support system of embedded authentic real-live environments (e.g. OSS developer communities).
(Re-)Use/Integration of Directories for/with learner assignments and internship project reports, including their grading and evaluations.
(A) learning outcomes Directory with learning resources from authentic real-live environments (e.g. OSS developer communities).
reports
Use/Integration of (A) Yes, flexible embedment options to integrate authentic real-live environments into courses or programmes.
real life learning
internships
Portability of learning Yes, via Portable Education Portfolios (PEPS) that allows for single sign on across learning spaces and leveraging
and outcomes of all types of data across such spaces (3).

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Track of learning Yes, via Portable Education Portfolios (PEPS) and through OE software system framework (4).
environments
Assessment Yes. Open Evaluation and Rating system for submitted assignments and internship reports. Both, peer-assessment
and assessment via OE service provider (fees might apply).

Degrees / Credentialing / Yes, automated Self-Print certificate based on Portable Education Portfolios (PEPS information and formal
Recognition recognition via OE service provider (fees might apply).

System for rating and evaluation of the quality of third party OE service provider.

Service Concepts & Cost-sharing and higher value for money through bundling of 2nd level and peer support and learner generated
Business Models contents.
Traditional funding and sustainability models for traditional course & program delivery.
OE services to learners and to third party OE service provider via marketplace concept, incl. commission on sales
and shared revenues:
Learner perspective:
- Formal assessment
- Certification
- Local in-class support
- Study groups
- Online tutoring
Provider perspective:
! Commission on service fees generated through UNU Open
! Course & Programme hosting & update services.

Other
URLs n/a

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6.4 Case 4: MITx / EdX (MIT & Harvard)
Characteristics / Cases MITx / EdX (MIT & Harvard)
Maturity Under development
Country USA
Funding Own funding ($60 million).
Stakeholder Transformational partnership of MIT and Harvard in online education to collaborate to enhance campus-based
teaching and learning and build a global community of online learners (1).

Formal / Non-formal Formal traditional course based education approach.
education approach
Traditional, Parallel or Parallel. Enriching traditional on-campus experience while offering high level online education to learners around
Combined approach (e.g. the world (1).
one course many
provider / many
provision modes)
Education materials Use of educational materials from MIT and Harvard.
Localizations / No.
Versioning
Bundling of education Traditional version bundled; Open version bundled.
package
Institutional attachment Attached to single education institution.

Training of Trainers No.
Programme

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Technology Online learning platform that [envisioned]:
• organizes and presents course material to enable students to learn worldwide
• features interactive instruction, online laboratories and student-to-student and student-to-professor
communication
• allows for the individual assessment of any student’s work and allows students who demonstrate their mastery of
subjects to earn certificates awarded by MITx
• operates on an open-source, scalable software infrastructure in order to make it continuously improving and
readily available to other educational institutions, such as universities and K-12 school systems.
Licenses (Content & Open and closed licenses.
technologies)
Pedagogy Online versions of university level courses (1).
Learning, Tutoring, Video lesson segments, embedded quizzes, immediate automated feedback, student-ranked questions and answers,
Support and online laboratories, and student paced learning.
Communities
(Re-)Use/Integration of Homework can be published at the course wiki.
reports
Use/Integration of (A) No
real life learning
internships
Portability of learning No
and outcomes
Track of learning No
environments

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Assessment Yes, automated and optional (against fees) personalized.
Degrees / Credentialing / No course credit, degree or certificate from the universities involved. Instead, successful students can hope for a
Recognition signed letter of completion from their well-known instructor or a certificate from the organization (e.g. MITx
brand label) (1).
Non-formal recognition possible via badges.


Service Concepts & Yes, via MITx /EdX brand name, and assessment/credentials against fees.
Business Models
Other The edX platform will enable the study of which teaching methods and tools are most successful. The findings of
this research will be used to inform how faculty use technology in their teaching, which will enhance the
experience for students on campus and for the millions expected to take advantage of these new online offerings.

URLs http://www.edxonline.org

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6.5 Case 5: Coursera (Stanford)
Characteristics / Cases Coursera (Stanford)
Country USA
Funding Funding ($16 million) from Doerr & Sandell
Stakeholder For profit start-up founded by two Stanford University computer science professors, Coursera is partnering with
that school, as well as Princeton University, the University of Michigan and the University of Pennsylvania to offer
classes in disciplines including computer science, medicine, literature and history.

education approach
Traditional, Parallel or Parallel, HEI university-level education.
one course many
provider / many
provision modes)
Education materials Lecture videos, which are broken into small chunks, and integrated quiz questions.

Localizations / No
Versioning
Bundling of education Open version bundled.
package
Institutional attachment Attached to participating education institutions.

Training of Trainers No
Programme

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Technology Coursera’s learning management service (LMS) platform can be used internally by universities to revamp their
online course programs. The plan is to shake up how most college classes are typically run — with long, boring
lectures. Ng and Koller believe that short online video lectures and interactive assignments, provided with
Coursera’s LMS, will open up more time in classrooms for discussions, case studies, and more riveting
presentations that will keep students engaged (9).

Licenses (Content & All content or other materials available on the Sites, including but not limited to code, images, text, layouts,
technologies) arrangements, displays, illustrations, audio and video clips, HTML files and other content are the property of
Coursera and/or its affiliates or licensors and are protected by copyright, patent and/or other proprietary intellectual
property rights under the United States and foreign laws.

Learning, Tutoring, There is a Q&A forum in which students rank questions and answers, so that the most important questions and the
Support and best answers bubble to the top. Teaching staff will monitor these forums, so that important questions not answered
Communities by other students can be addressed.
Where essays are required, especially in the humanities and social sciences, the system relies on the students
themselves to grade their fellow students’ work, in effect turning them into teaching assistants.

(Re-)Use/Integration of No, though in principle possible since assignments are systematically collected and stored (including their
(A) learning outcomes evaluations).
reports
real life learning
internships

22

and outcomes

environments
Assessment Peer-evaluation. To participate in peer evaluation one must first submit an assignment, and to receive credit for
completing an assignment one must also complete the peer evaluation. That means that an assignment will be
reviewed by about five other people.

Degrees / Credentialing / Statement of Accomplishment that one earns based on the work submitted
Recognition


Service Concepts & Business Model still under development. One of their main backers, the venture capitalist John Doerr, a Kleiner
Business Models investment partner, said via e-mail that he saw a clear business model: “Yes. Even with free courses. From a
community of millions of learners some should ‘opt in’ for valuable, premium services. Those revenues should
fund investment in tools, technology and royalties to faculty and universities.” (6).

Other
URLs http://www.coursera.org

23

6.6 Case 6: Udacity (Stanford)
Characteristics / Cases Udacity (Stanford)
Country USA
Funding Funding ($5 million (8)) from Charles River Ventures (5) and corporate partnership with Pearson VUE (7).

Stakeholder For profit start-up founded by three roboticists who believed much of the educational value of their university
classes could be offered online.
education approach
Traditional, Parallel or Parallel, non HEI university-level education.
one course many
provider / many
provision modes)
Localizations / No
Versioning
Bundling of education Open version bundled.
package

Training of Trainers No
Programme
Technology Online learning platform to use the economics of the Internet to connect some of the greatest teachers to hundreds
of thousands of students all over the world.

24

Licenses (Content & Freely available materials, unclear licensing.
technologies)
Learning, Tutoring, Video lessons.
Support and Forum (Q&A) based support provided by peers and as required by the course team.
Communities Recorded answers by the course team of selected questions.
Life office hours with course team.

(Re-)Use/Integration of No
reports
real life learning
internships
and outcomes
environments
Assessment Yes, automated.
Degrees / Credentialing / Badges to recognise actions that benefit the community. For initial AI course: Students get a letter with their grade
Recognition and class rank, signed by the professors in the name of the professor (5).

Quality Assurance Responsibility of participating educators.

25

Service Concepts & Business Model still under development. One possibility would be to double as a recruiting agency for tech
Business Models companies and engineering firms, says Stavens. Rather than granting credentials that students might use to impress
employers, Udacity could cut to the chase by headhunting within its student body on behalf of companies,
matching students to jobs and collecting recruiting fees (5).
Other
URLs http://www.udacity.com

26

6.7 Case 7: Saylor Foundation
Characteristics / Cases Saylor Foundation
Country USA
Funding Saylor Foundation funding and donations.
Stakeholder Faculty and peer-review teams from various higher education institutions to package primarily open license
educational materials into degree level programs. Saylor is collaborating with both p2pu and the University of the
People to create and share courses, and some of Saylor's math courses come from the Khan Academy. Thus there
seems to be a community working with some cooperation towards similar goals (1).

education approach
Traditional, Parallel or Parallel, HEI college level education.
one course many
provider / many
provision modes)
Education materials Use of educational material now available for free on the internet. They repackage this material into majors, and
incorporate it into their individual educational approaches (1).

Localizations / No
Versioning
Bundling of education Not applicable as content only
package
Institutional attachment Not applicable as content only

27

Training of Trainers Not applicable as content only
Programme
Technology Online content repository
Licenses (Content & Except where otherwise noted, content is licensed
technologies) under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
Pedagogy Rather rudimentary in terms of use of pedagogy and technology compared to what one finds in well funded online
programs (1).
Learning, Tutoring, Any person can sign up for a course at any time, and it does not appear that there is any peer learning involved at
Support and present (1).
Communities
reports
real life learning
internships
and outcomes
environments
Assessment No
Degrees / Credentialing / It is not clear whether Saylor intends to offer a degree to students who succeed in passing the prescribed courses
Recognition (1).

28

Quality Assurance Responsibility of participating educators.
Service Concepts & Donations and grants
Business Models
Other
URLs http://www.saylor.org

29

6.8 Case 8: OERu
Characteristics / Cases OERu
Country New Zealand (Global)
Funding Hewlett Foundation funding and donations.
Stakeholder The OER university is a virtual collaboration of like-minded institutions committed to creating flexible pathways
for OER learners to gain formal academic credit. Current network HEIs are University of Southern Queensland
(AU), Otago Polytechnic (NZ), Athabasca University (CA), Gujarat Open University (IN), Empire State College
(US), Nelson Marlborough Institute of Technology (NZ), NorthTec (NZ), Open Polytechnic (NZ), Southern New
Hampshire University (US), Thompson Rivers University (CA), University of Canterbury (NZ), University of
South Africa (SA), University of Wollongong (NZ), Thomas Edison State College (US), University of the South
Pacific (FJ).

education approach
Traditional, Parallel or Parallel, HEI university-level education with the option of obtaining credentials by participating HEIs.
one course many
provider / many
provision modes)
Education materials Courseware from network HEIs and other open-education material found on the Internet.

Localizations / Unclear, still under discussion.
Versioning
Modularity Yes
Bundling of education Unbundled. Local training provider decide about the type of services offered to their learning population.
package

30


Training of Trainers Yes, via wiki based guidelines and/or workshops.
Programme
Technology Open Source licensed core technologies (notable MediaWiki), which needs to be integrated with the LMS systems
of partnering HEIs (currently Blackboard, Moodle, myUnisa, Sakai). At current OERu is less focusing on
technology development, which appears to take on an equal importance within the wider OERu framework
amongst e.g. content, pedagogy, support, assessment, certification, etc.

Licenses (Content & Open licenses for OERu.
technologies)
Pedagogy Currently under development.
Learning, Tutoring, Currently under development. Intended use of volunteering system, including peer to peer support currently under
Support and test and based on Askbot Q&A forum software.
Communities
(Re-)Use/Integration of Currently under development and therefore unclear, though open assessment is named and thus could potentially
(A) learning outcomes allow for re-use / integration of learning outcomes.
reports
Use/Integration of (A) At current apparently not foreseen.
real life learning
internships
Portability of learning Currently under development and therefore unclear; but in principle would need to be available to allow for
and outcomes assessment and credentials via partner HEIs.

31

Track of learning At current apparently not foreseen.
environments
Assessment Yes, peer assessment as well as personal assessment via partner HEIs.
Degrees / Credentialing / Yes, via partner HEIs
Recognition

Quality Assurance Responsibility of participating HEIs.
Service Concepts & Yes, assessment and certification against fees are foreseen.
Business Models
Other
URLs http://wikieducator.org/OER_university

32

6.9 Case 9: ict@innovation FOSS Business Training Programme
Characteristics / Cases ict@innovation FOSS Business Training Programme
Maturity Production
Country Africa / Germany
Funding Capacity building grant via German GIZ programme.
Stakeholder Volunteers from different backgrounds, incl. HEI and professional education educators

education approach
Traditional, Parallel or Parallel, professional level education. One course many provider / many provision modes concept.
one course many
provider / many
provision modes)
Education materials The educational programme of ict@innovation is a collaborative production and exploitation process based on
open licensed course materials.
Localizations / Yes, with the possibility of feeding back localized versions into the ict@innovation portal.
Versioning
Modularity Yes
Bundling of education Unbundled. Local training provider decide about the type of services offered to their learning population.
package

Training of Trainers Yes, via training programme
Programme
Technology Open Source licensed LMS systems based on Drupal and Dokeos.
technologies)
Pedagogy Case based learning.

33

Learning, Tutoring, Self and peer support for online learning. Tutor based support for local learning population (either in-class or
Support and online).
Communities
(Re-)Use/Integration of Partially via potential availability of past assignments / tests within the LMS system.
reports
Use/Integration of (A) Yes, via associated mentored internship programme.
real life learning
internships
and outcomes
environments
Assessment Within the responsibility of local education provider.
Degrees / Credentialing / Within the responsibility of local education provider.
Recognition

Quality Assurance For course delivery within the responsibility of local education provider.
For programme design within the responsibility of participating educators.
Service Concepts & For the overall ict@innovation programme: Volunteering and added value / cost sharing amongst volunteers. For
Business Models the individual volunteer / local training provider: Fees for in-class support, assessment, certification, etc.

Other
URLs http://www.ict-innovation.fossfa.net/

34

6.10 Case 10: Khan Academy
Characteristics / Cases Khan Academy
Maturity Production (Advanced)
Country USA
Funding Donation from Ann Doerr, large grants from Google ($2 million) and the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation ($1.5
million).
Stakeholder The Khan Academy is a not-for-profit with the goal of changing education for the better by providing a free world-
class education to anyone anywhere.
All of the site's resources are available to anyone. It doesn't matter if you are a student, teacher, home-schooler,
principal, adult.
Formal / Non-formal Topic based education approach.
education approach
Traditional, Parallel or Combined approach of traditional and open learning. Traditional education, notably teachers, can make use of the
Combined approach (e.g. system and have unprecedented visibility into what their students are learning and doing on the Khan Academy.
one course many
provider / many
provision modes)
Education materials Over 2700 10-20 minute long videos on a huge number of K-16 subjects. Most videos are made by the founder
Salman Khan, but some come from other sources (1).

Localizations / Yes, e.g. translation to other languages.
Versioning Plan to allow teachers around the globe to use the Knowledge Map to build their own courses and also have access
to the in-depth analytic tools Khan Academy is providing at the back-end, but the content must be put up to Khan
Academy’s non-commercial public domain (10).
Modularity Yes
Bundling of education Unbundled, since only some component parts are offered (e.g. Full courses or programmes are not supported).
package

35


Training of Trainers Yes, sort of including guidance to the teacher through real-time metrics and reporting on student performance.
Programme
Technology Open Source licensed LMS system.
technologies)
Pedagogy Individualizing learning by replacing one-size-fits-all lectures with self-paced learning.
Taking a mastery-based approach to learning critical knowledge and skills.
Creating collaborative learning environments with students solving problems together and tutoring one another.
Using focused coaching by the teacher to address students' individual needs.

Learning, Tutoring, Student can access a number of tools that help to visualize progress and the growing knowledge map. Similarly,
Support and teachers who use Khan material can get class statistics (1). Support is available e.g. via Q&A forums, custom self-
Communities paced learning tools, or a custom profile, points, and badges to measure progress.

reports
real life learning
internships
and outcomes

36

Track of learning Yes, via portfolio system.
environments
Assessment Automated tests for open learning. Teachers can access all of their students' data to support their assessments by
summary of class performance as a whole or diving into a particular student's profile.

Degrees / Credentialing / Badges and points for open learning.
Recognition

Quality Assurance Responsibility of KA.
Business Models
Other Teachers and coaches can access all of their students' data. You can get a summary of class performance as a
whole or dive into a particular student's profile to figure out exactly which topics are problematic. The class profile
lets coaches glance at their dashboard and quickly figure out how to best spend their time teaching.
Khan Academy empowers teachers by giving them access to the data they should've had for years.

URLs http://www.khanacademy.org

37

6.11 Case 11: UoP (University of the People)
Characteristics / Cases UoP (University of the People)
Country USA
Funding $1 million seed funding through founder.
Stakeholder University of the People (UoPeople) is the world’s tuition-free, non-profit, online academic institution dedicated to
opening access to higher education globally. Based on the principles of e-learning and peer-to-peer learning,
coupled with open-source technology and Open Educational Resources, UoPeople is designed to provide access to
undergraduate degree programs for qualified individuals, despite financial, geographic or societal constraints.
UoPeople has partnered with Yale University for research, New York University to accept students and Hewlett-
Packard for internships.

education approach
Traditional, Parallel or Parallel, HEI university-level education.
one course many
provider / many
provision modes)
Education materials Basic course material is assembled from open educational materials, some from the Open Courseware Consortium
(1). Course designers who modify and enhance the materials. An in house group develops assessment standards for
the degrees (1).

Localizations / No
Versioning
Modularity Information not available.
Bundling of education Bundled
package

38

Institutional attachment Attached to single institution, though partnership developments under preparation (e.g. NYU, US).

Training of Trainers Apparently for volunteering academics.
Programme
Technology Online learning platform (access to registered students only).
Licenses (Content & Unclear
technologies)
Pedagogy To look at a course one apparently needs to matriculate in order to do so (1). Peer to peer learning is considered
core to the approach, so students in a course are divided into groups of 20-30 that work together online on weekly
assignments. Each group has an instructor who facilitates the peer to peer process by e.g. assuring that it is
working towards correct outcomes, and suggesting other sources of information as needed (1).

Learning, Tutoring, UoPeople operates on a limited budget without sacrificing the quality of education by employing collaborative and
Support and open-source e-learning. UoPeople embraces peer-to-peer and collaborative learning to provide university-level
Communities programs to a global student body. Within the online study communities, students share resources, exchange ideas,
discuss weekly topics, submit assignments and take exams.

(Re-)Use/Integration of Unclear
reports
Use/Integration of (A) Partnered with Hewlett-Packard for internships.
real life learning
internships
Portability of learning Unclear
and outcomes

39

Track of learning Unclear
environments
Assessment Personalized assessment.
Degrees / Credentialing / Students who successfully complete the degree requirements are awarded a bachelor's degree by the University of
Recognition the People. The University is not accredited, but the website says that it is seeking accreditation at this time (1).

Quality Assurance Responsibility of UoP and based on their respective quality assurance mechanisms.

Service Concepts & UoPeople offers tuition-free education, and presently charges only a nominal Application Processing Fee of
Business Models between $10-$50 that is adjusted on sliding scale based on the economic situation in each applicant’s country or
place of residence. In the future, UoPeople plans to implement Exam Processing Fees of between $10-$100 that
will operate on the same sliding scaled as the Application Processing Fee.

Other
URLs http://www.uopeople.org/

40

6.12 Case 12: FTA (Free Technology Academy)
Characteristics / Cases FTA (Free Technology Academy)
Country Europe
Funding Grant (EU, EACEA); Revenues; Donations
Stakeholder The Free Technology Academy is hosted by the Free Knowledge Institute (FKI). The founding partners are the
FKI and two European universities: the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (Spain) and the Open Universiteit of the
Netherlands. The Associate Partner Network adds to the founding base with a widespread network of organisations
that share a common interest in offering courses in the area of Free Technology.

education approach
Traditional, Parallel or Parallel, HEI university-level education with the option of transferring to full degree programmes of participating
Combined approach (e.g. HEIs.
one course many
provider / many
provision modes)
Education materials The educational programme of the Free Technology Academy is a collaborative production and exploitation
process based on open licensed course materials.
Localizations / No
Versioning
Modularity Yes
Bundling of education Bundled
package

Training of Trainers Yes
Programme

41

Technology The software used in the FTA virtual campus is Free Software and is built upon an Open Standards framework.

technologies)
Pedagogy Online versions of university level courses. A course methodology based on group debates, individual and group
assignments and peer and tutor feedback.
Learning, Tutoring, Online tutored sessions organized by the course team from participating education institutions, peer
Support and learning/support
Communities
reports
real life learning
internships
Portability of learning Partially, via transfer of credits to participating HEIs.
and outcomes
environments
Assessment Tutor based assessment
Degrees / Credentialing / Certificate that is recognized by participating HEIs.
Recognition


42

Service Concepts & Learners interested in a certain topic form a group of peers willing to take part in a self-organised course and
Business Models commit to contribute an agreed tuition fee to cover the course's costs. Discounts can be obtained by the group
when reaching a certain number of participants.

Other
URLs http://ftacademy.org/

43

6.13 Case 13: P2PU (Peer to Peer University)
Characteristics / Cases P2PU (Peer to Peer University)
Country USA (Global)
Funding Grants from various donors
Stakeholder Volunteers from different backgrounds, incl. HEI educators. At P2PU, people work together to learn a particular
topic by completing tasks, assessing individual and group work, and providing constructive feedback. The Peer 2
Peer University is a grassroots open education project that organizes learning outside of institutional walls and
gives learners recognition for their achievements. P2PU creates a model for lifelong learning alongside traditional
formal higher education. Leveraging the internet and educational materials openly available online, P2PU enables
high-quality low-cost education opportunities.

Formal / Non-formal Non-formal, topic based education approach.
education approach
Traditional, Parallel or Parallel. p2pu as an institution equivalent that provides a space for asynchronous discussions with other students
Combined approach (e.g. (2). One course, one environment, potentially many provider.
one course many
provider / many
provision modes)
Education materials Courseware from leading universities and other open-education material found on the Internet. Volunteers, who
are expected to have some background in the subjects, submit ideas for courses, create syllabi of open courseware,
and organize group study (2).

Localizations / No
Versioning
Modularity Yes, topic focus.
Bundling of education Relatively seen unbundled since a variety of providers offer different components of the education package.
package

44


Training of Trainers Not dedicated, but number of guidance available to providers/volunteers.
Programme
Technology Online learning environment by thematic area.
technologies)
Pedagogy Varies by offer.
Learning, Tutoring, Volunteer teachers guide students working in groups through open courseware (2).
Support and
Communities
(Re-)Use/Integration of Varies by offer.
reports
Use/Integration of (A) Varies by offer.
real life learning
internships
Portability of learning Potentially via Mozilla Open Badges Backpack.
and outcomes
Track of learning Potentially via Mozilla Open Badges Backpack.
environments
Assessment The communities work on tasks, then assess individual and group work, and provide feedback.p2pu awards badges
for achievement as part of the Open Badges project (1).

45

Degrees / Credentialing / Open Badges Project to recognize skills, achievement, and learning beyond the classroom, issued by organizations,
Recognition courses and communities (1).

Quality Assurance Responsibility of participants.
Business Models
Other
URLs http://p2pu.org

46

7 Reflections
The foregoing sections provided a comparative overview of the OE concepts that have been
developed and partially also tested within the openED project against other currently
emerging OE cases from across the globe. This comparative overview is providing a number
of insights with regards to the maturity and state of the art of OE itself and also on possible
avenues towards allowing for the sustainability of OE and as following reflected on.

7.1 Cost per student by OE component part
Component parts of the traditional formal education package that have been identified
alongside the openED project included ‘Open Content’, ‘Open Degrees’, ‘Open Assessment’,
‘Open Learning’, ‘Open Tutoring’, ‘Open Technology’, and ‘Open Communities’. The cost
per student for each of such component parts, within an OE setting is seen to vary and as
depicted within Figure 2.

Figure 1 Cost per student by OE component part; variable, fixed and cost neutral

Learning in general is a self-directed action and therefore understood as being cost neutral
from an education institution perspective. Equally ‘Open Learning’ might be considered as
being cost neutral, since no institutional resources are consumed by learning as such. The cost
of developing and maintaining ‘Open Content’ and ‘Open Technology’ might be overall
considered as being fixed costs and therefore such cost potentially significantly decrease on a
per learner base as larger as the student population becomes. ‘Open Communities’ alone, and

47

analogue to the ‘Open Learning’ case, might be at first considered as being cost neutral.
However, within an OE setting ‘Open Communities’ likely would require some type of virtual
environment to be in place and at which such a community could be established. Thus ‘Open
Communities’ might come along with a fixed cost component, as is the case for ‘Open
Content’ and ‘Open Technology’. In addition to this ‘Open Communities’ might come along
with a variable cost component since communities typically require for some type of
community support staff and the demand for such staff will be in some way proportional to
the community size. As the Open Source Software case shows nonetheless, the need for
formally employed support staff might be reduced to some degree through the involvement of
non-paid volunteers and through peer support. ‘Open Tutoring’, and analogue to traditional
tutoring, can be overall considered as being a variable cost component, though the cost of
‘Open Tutoring’ per learner like decreases with the number of learners since much of the
support that tutors within an OE setting provide could be preserved and thus remains to be
available to other learners. Finally, ‘Open Assessment’ and ‘Open Degrees’ are believed to
constitute rather variable cost positions and that do not decrease significantly per learner and
are therefore cost that are independent from the number of learners involved. In line with this,
assessment and certifications against fees has been considered as a sustainability model by
some of the cases presented in section 6. It remains to be seen however if such services alone
are sufficient to cover all of the cost positions that are depicted within Figure 2.

7.2 Extension of regular course offerings (combined) vs OE as a parallel undertaking
The cases of MITx / EdX, Stanford Coursera, Stanford Udacity, Saylor Foundation, OERu,
ict@innovation, UoP, Free Technology Academy and P2PU presented within section 6 are all
examples for OE as a parallel undertaking. This is to say that those OE cases are not carried
out as an extension of the traditional formal education system of the respective education
institution, but that they constitute a parallel effort that is partly or largely disconnected from
the institutions traditional formal education system. In comparison to this, there are a number
of Open Courses (Meiszner 2010, 2011) that show how OE can be integrated into the
traditional formal education system and at which OE is thus only an extension of it, but not a
parallel effort that the institution undertakes. Integrating OE as an extension into the
traditional formal education system however is also impacting the cost involved, since the
traditional formal education element can be funded by traditional means and therefore lowers
the cost for the OE extension. In addition to this the OE element potentially provides a higher

48

value for money and in particular to the traditional formal learner population (Meiszner
2010). OE as a parallel undertaking on the other hand has a very different starting point, since
very likely no traditional formal education element has been in place that could be extended
and re-used, or where cost could be shared across the traditional formal and the OE elements.
As a result of this the initially required resources and efforts are likely higher for OE as a
parallel undertaking then it would be the case once integrating OE as an extension into the
traditional formal education system. This assumption of higher initial cost is also supported
by the above cited OE cases from section 6, which all feature a significant amount of initial
investment, which has not been observed in the case of Open Courses (Meiszner 2010).

7.3 Currently existing OE business models & service concepts
The 2011 survey that has been carried out by ELIG across the breadth of the learning industry
(ELIG, 2011) has shown that there are clear indications that the commercial learning industry
has not yet fully engaged with Open Education (OE). The commercial hesitation to adopt OE
is in large part due to a perceived lack of associated new business models.

The cases presented in section 6 do however show that this perceived lack of associated new
business models is not a real lack and that OE business models and service concepts already
exist or that they are currently under development though still not covering the full potential
value chain as introduced at section 4. OE business models and service concepts that can be
seen at section 6 are: MITx/EdX and UoP intend to provide, respectively provide already,
assessment and certification services against fees, Stanford Coursera is considering to offer
premium services, Udacity considers a headhunting success fee to be paid by employers,
analogue to the openED case the OERu is considering to provide a variety of services to
learners and that in the OERu case are provided by partnering HEIs against fee, FTA is using
a tuition fee based business model, and UNUOpen considers the full range of services to be
provided as well to learners as to education providers.

Though all of such concepts are still at the very or relative early stage, they all provide an
insight on possible business models and service concepts that might be adopted to allow for
the sustainability of OE.

As a concluding note it might be highlighted that none of such cases presented within section
6 indicates that up to now the respective national education systems does support OE in the
same way as it support its traditional formal education counterpart. This is an important

49

observation in so far as in many countries education is largely public funded and thus
constitutes a part or the entirety of the business and sustainability model of national education
institutions. If OE would be equally considered by national education systems then this again
might change the type of business models and lower the burden for OE to become sustainable.

50

Annex - List of section 6 secondary sources
Secondary sources used in section 7:
1 http://www.changinghighereducation.com
2 http://chronicle.com/article/Open-Access-Courses-How-
They/131677/?sid=wc&utm_source=wc&utm_medium=en
3 http://www.slideshare.net/andreasmeiszner/peps-portable-education-portfolios-
outline-use-case
4 http://www.slideshare.net/andreasmeiszner/oe-systems-andlearninganalytics
5 http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2012/01/24/stanford-open-course-instructors-
spin-profit-company
6 http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/18/technology/coursera-plans-to-announce-
university-partners-for-online-classes.html?_r=1
7 http://www.linkedin.com/in/davidstavens
8 http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303299604577326302609615094.ht
ml
9 http://venturebeat.com/2012/04/18/coursera-raises-16m/
10 http://bigthink.com/ideas/41180?page=all

51

References
CNET, (2007), ‘The next big growth market: education’, CNET News Service, Michael
Kanellos, 11 May 2007, viewed 25 May 2012, <http://news.cnet.com/8301-10784_3-
9718610-7.html>.

ELIG, (2011), ‘Open Education: a wake up-call for the learning industry? Is open education
fundamental to a sustainable learning industry or a noble but commercially flawed cause?’,
White Paper 2011, ELIG - the European Learning Industry Group.

ESU, (nd), ‘Gats and Education’, The European Students’ Unions, viewed viewed 25 May
2012, <http://www.esib.org/index.php/issues/Commodification/88-gats-and-education.html>.

Meiszner, A. (2011), ‘The Why and How of Open Education - With lessons from the openSE
and openED Projects’, United Nations University, UNU-MERIT, The Netherlands

Meiszner, Andreas (2010), “The Emergence of Free / Open Courses - Lessons from the Open
Source Movement”, submitted for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy, Centre for Research in
Education and Educational Technology, Institute of Educational Technology, The Open
University, UK

UNESCO. (2005). ‘Towards knowledge societies: UNESCO world report’. Paris: UNESCO
Publishing

Weller J.M. and Meiszner A. (2008) ‘Report on the effectiveness of a FLOSS-like learning
community in formal educational settings’, FLOSSCom Project, 2008.

52

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