Openness and the Future of Higher Education We are pleased to present this very topical issue of the International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning (IRRODL) on openness. Notions of open scholarship, open access publication, open educational resources, tuition-free institutions, and open source software continue to gain popular, research, and commercial interest. Thus, I was very pleased to receive an email 18 months ago from David Wiley offering to guest edit a special issue of IRRODL on openness. He and his colleague John Hilton III coordinated a call for proposals and had over 25 responses. From these, 12 were selected for full paper development, and 8 survived peer review and appear as the contents of this issue. Brigette and I would like to thank David and John for their considerable efforts in very actively managing the editorial work involved. I am sure you will join me in congratulating David and John as well as the authors for contributing to this very important and timely special issue. Finally, links are provided to the archived recordings of 5 sessions presented by Athabasca University as part of our Open Access Week celebrations. Enjoy! Terry Anderson Editor, International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning NOTE: The MP3 versions of the articles will be published in one week. Table of Contents Editorial Research Articles | Open Textbook Proof-of-Concept via Connexions |
| | Judy Baker, Joel Thierstein, Kathi Fletcher, Manpreet Kaur, Jonathan Emmons | | | Peer-To-Peer Recognition of Learning in Open Education |
| | Jan Philipp Schmidt, Christine Geith, Stian Håklev, Joel Thierstein | | Open Access Week |