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Rh it enters a different state. Resilience then can be viewed as the distance from a threshold. Taking our example above, one way of interpreting the anxiety or hype around MOOCs is that they are proposed as a factor that could push universities into a different state (one where they cease to exist in some scenarios, or radically alter their business models). In this interpretation, one could argue that universities have successfully maintained the conservation phase for the past 200 years or so. Walker and Salt propose that an end to the conservation phase is inevitable and that ‘The longer the conservation phase persists the smaller the shock needed to end it.’

Rapid growth and conservation represent the ‘fore loop’ in the adaptive cycle, when a system is maturing, but it is inevitably followed by the back loop of release and reorganisation. Is open education the ‘small shock’ required to cross the transition for universities into the release phase?

As they suggest, it is important to look across scales, not at one level of granularity, so maybe the university, or ‘education’ is the wrong level to focus on. Higher education is a complex, multi­-faceted offering, comprising teaching, research and social function. Rather than view it as one system, it is perhaps better viewed as a combination of smaller, interconnected ones. In this view, openness may well act as the release and reorganisation of a particular element within a university or the system as a whole. For example, publishing is one element of the overall academic system, and here the advent of open access could be seen to be pushing the existing system into release mode. This is a period where new models are developed, existing companies and roles are altered, and it enters a reorganisation phase. What will emerge then is a very different type of academic publishing system.