Digital technologies are radically changing the landscape of education and training. Open educational resources (OER), ‘Massive Open Online Courses’ (MOOCs), and the question of how to recognize open learning in formal education are challenging traditional models and practices.

These global changes are having an increasing impact on education and training institutions, teachers, learners and publishers, among others. With the introduction of MOOCs in recent years and the uptake of open education resources, open education at large and its quality have become an issue of major importance for education and training institutions, policies and professionals. Studying and learning have evolved from closed to open processes, which demand greater self-organization skills, higher levels of media literacy and new models of support and organization. Education institutions, professionals, policy makers, public authorities for formal education as well as non-formal training providers and learners are discovering the benefits of opening up learning opportunities.

However, quality evaluation and development models have not yet matured enough in order to provide guidance for open learning models to all stakeholders how to shape content and learning environments or provide effective support for institutions and educators. Uncertainty is growing as to whether the new open learning environments are fit to lead the European learning revolution needed for the 21st century. In order to make open learning and education more relevant and feasible for organizations as well as learners, innovations have to be combined with well-proven learning traditions and flexible quality standards. In addition new models for recognition of open learning are needed: education institutions need a better understanding of how open education processes can contribute to excellent learning and high quality education provision, and certification schemes need to incorporate more flexible concepts of open education.

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