The Current Status of Open Education Practices in Japan

Open educational resources (OERs) and massive open online courses (MOOCs) are being developed and utilized in higher education institutions across the globe. Activities related to OERs in tertiary institutions (22.4%) are higher than those in primary or secondary institutions (UNESCO 2012a, b). As of July 2019, a total of 1071 organizations in 248 countries participate in the development and dissemination of OERs (OER World Map 2019). As of 2018, over 900 universities offered MOOCs, 101 million individuals enrolled, and over 11,000 courses were created (Class Central 2019). A survey of faculty members of higher education institutions in the United States found that one-third were aware of OERs, wished to take advantage of them, and recognized them as equal in quality to traditional educational resources (Allen and Seaman 2014). Many higher education institutions utilize OERs daily as learning materials in the form of open textbooks or supplemental materials. Moreover, the movement of open educational practice—called “Open Pedagogy”—is evolving (EDUCAUSE 2018). Introducing learner-centered design to use OERs for not only substituting publishers’ textbooks but also “interacting” with open-licensed textbooks in the learning process by editing or revising them has become widespread among educational practitioners (DeRosa and Robison 2017). The OER movement has expanded on a global scale, led by international organizations like UNESCO, which has organized the World OER Congress twice and promotes the creation and introduction of OERs in K-12 and post-secondary education based on its declaration (UNESCO 2012a, b) and recommendation (UNESCO 2018).