Openness as the key factor to support education in times of crisis

Abstract

Although the COVID-19 pandemic is hijacking headlines and rush hours, this is not the only crisis. Either because of natural disasters or human-made catastrophes, we learn to live with this type of events, unfortunately. In this context, Education usually takes a toll. Learners, teachers, university professors, parents and academic managers need to get up-to-speed in order to adapt their regular flow and methodology to a different mindset and to an adapted skillset. They migrate or re-enforce the ability to teach, learn and manage into an online or blended setting. Open Education, Open Science and Open Innovation become now a useful, if not the most powerful, approach to overcome the obstacle of unexpected and unwanted scenarios. Thanks to an open approach every member of the educational community can use, create, edit and share content, policies, access, technology and long list of benefits, including large amounts of data. This paper provides a few clues towards a seamlessly integration of formal and informal online contexts, blended into the open.