Summary

The article examines the relationships between various initiatives, including OER, that are intended to open up education.

Kerres takes a critical look at the current discussion about Open Educational Resources and questions their contribution to Open Education. In doing so, he argues that the variety of opening tendencies cannot be subsumed under a single idea of openness in education. The central question here is to what extent the availability of resources represents a contribution to participation in educational processes. Critical perspectives on OER are also taken up. Kerres hereby presents a text that takes a differentiated view of the purely positive connotation of openness and raises negative implications of truncated considerations. Finally, these ambiguities are to be fed into the discussion of educational science.