Reviews of literature often summarize research within a given field to provide succinct information about state of the art as well as gaps for future research to address. In educational research, such information includes different positions within a field; for example, theoretical positions underpinning empirical studies. Such theoretical…

The term open education has recently been used to refer to topics such as Open Educational Resources (OERs) and Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). Historically its roots lie in civil approaches to education and open universities, but this research is rarely referenced or acknowledged in current interpretations. In this article the antecedents of…