OER: opening doors and breaching boundaries

The white paper on higher education (BIS, 2011) refers to the government’s social mobility strategy, Opening doors, breaking barriers (HM Government, 2011). The expressed aspirations of the OER (open educational resources) community resonate with the white paper’s three central challenges: attaining sustainability; improving the learner experience; and taking responsibility for social mobility. Lee (2008), writing of the potential of OER, recalls the actions of the eponymous Jude the Obscure, whose anger at exclusion from university led him to graffiti the closed gates of ‘Biblioll College’ (Hardy, 1895). However, while both groups agree that change is necessary, there is little common ground in mapping solutions to opening doors to HE.