A plea for opening education with open source software

Abstract

The technological infrastructure that is used for creating, sharing and remixing open educational resources can influence their design considerably. The infrastructure therefore deserves more attention than before. The «action plan» of the second OER world congress seems to support this claim. It mentions several actions that should be taken, and many of them directly or indirectly rely on technical infrastructure – however, it doesn’t mention actions related to the technical infrastructure itself. Still, it is more than just a tool that implements pedagogical thoughts. It can also be a vehicle that transports its underlying values. Since open source software shares many values with open education, it should take precedence over closed software. This article pleads to do so and uses the open software H5P as an example to demonstrate how it supports many actions that are intended to open education. Furthermore, the article arguments that the similarity of their values is more than just an aesthetic gimmick, but can even contribute to their diffusion.