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 In 2005 Tim O’Reilly outlined eight principles of web 2.0, which characterised the way tools were developing and being used. This included sites such as Wikipedia, Flickr and YouTube. Some of the principles turned out to be more significant than others, and some related more to developers than users, but they encapsulated a way of using the internet that shifted from a broadcast to a conversational model. This set of developments would later combine with social media such as Twitter and Facebook.

In terms of open education, the web 2.0 movement was significant for two major reasons. Firstly, it decentralised much of the engagement with the web. Educators didn’t need to get approval to create websites; they could set up a blog, establish a Twitter account, create YouTube videos and share their presentations on Slideshare independently. This created a culture of openness amongst those academics who adopted such approaches, and this would often lead to engagement with open education in some form. We shall look at this in more detail in chapter 7 when online identity is considered. Secondly, it created a context where open and free were seen as the default characteristics of online material. Users, be they educators, students, potential students or the general public, had an expectation that content they encountered online was freely accessible.

Coalescing Principles

From these three main s­trands – ­open universities, open source and web 2.­0 – ­a number of principles coalesce into the current open education movement. From open universities we have the principles of open access and removal of barriers to education. This was restricted to a particular interpretation of open education, however, and closely allied with particular national