Open Education Business Models: Configurations and Sustainability

Whilst previous chapters have considered the nature and benefits of open education (OE) initiatives, a fundamental question remains as to the sustainability and viability of such practices over the medium to long term.

The existing literature suggests a considerable diversity of models of OE in organisational and funding terms, and there is the need to gain a better understanding of the distinctive pathways to sustainability that are linked to specific organising and funding logics.

However, this very diversity and the insufficiently developed notion of sustainability in this context hamper the efforts aimed at categorising and comparing different models, and this chapter considers these questions in more depth.

To this aim, we analyse and categorise the main funding arrangements by first identifying the key components of each distinctive OE system in the Section ‘System Elements’, whilst reflecting in parallel on the notion of sustainability.

In the Section ‘System Configurations’, we offer a detailed description and analysis of the most prominent funding models of OE to illustrate the diversity of funding arrangements and distinctive organisational logics underpinning them. We explore the logic of these business models by unpacking each distinctive form of organising around four key aspects: customer offer, value chain configuration, funding and profit formula, and strategic positioning.

In the Section ‘Sustainability’, we seek to refine our understanding of the concept of sustainability in the context of OE, giving due consideration to non-economic definitions of this concept and to some of the core objectives attached to OE. We suggest that sustainability can be ultimately apprehended and defined through a number of key variables.

The section ‘Open Education: Motives and Implications’ examines the motives behind the OE movement, its wide-ranging implications, and considers how OE fits in with the trends in the higher education (HE) sector as a whole. We discuss the future for this radical innovation, emphasising the central role of communities of practice and the need for institutional support. We argue that the development of sustainable communities is the fundamental basis of any OE model and that reflexivity is required in order to ensure the sustainability of this innovative practice. Similarly, the systematic development of collaborative practices and networks between the main actors at community, institutional and national levels is considered key to the development and embedding of OE initiatives within the overall educational sector.

The concluding section brings together the various strands of our argument on the nature and characteristics of the various OE business models, their sustainability and the way forward.