that teachers, learners and institutions can fully explore this potential. Imagine an American History textbook with the latest news from the 2016 election, or a math tutorial that incorporates local landmarks into word problems. Imagine a lecture attended by hundreds of thousands of people across the globe, or a peer-to-peer exchange between Canadian students learning Mandarin with Chinese students learning English. All of this and more is possible when the pathways for technology in education are fully open

Studies show that 93% of students who use OER do as well or better than those using traditional materials, since they have easy access to the content starting day one of the course.

Open Education encompasses resources, tools and practices that are free of legal, financial and technical barriers and can be fully used, shared and adapted in the digital environment.

The foundation of Open Education is Open Educational Resources (OER), which are teaching, learning, and research resources that are free of cost and access barriers, and which also carry legal permission for open use. Generally, this permission is granted by use of an open license (for example, Creative Commons licenses) which allows anyone to freely use, adapt and share the resource—anytime, anywhere. “Open” permissions are typically defined in terms of the “5R’s”: users are free to Retain, Reuse, Revise, Remix and Redistribute these educational materials

Edinburgh, Scotland

Before we dive in, take a moment to consider the uniqueness of online learning. For instance, while we believe most of you will be joining us from here in Madison, Wisconsin, we also know that you may be participating from places near and far, using the power of the internet. In this light, we hope that by providing a brief look at our ‘place’ in and around Van Hise Hall, we are offering a useful context for our culture and geography. And we hope to hear from you as we move through the course–about the topic at hand, of course, and also a little bit about your own place on campus or on your side of the world.