Alexander Mikroyannidis (The Open University, UK) has co-authored a journal editorial on the current state and the future of openness in education. The editorial is entitled “Openness in Education as a Praxis: From Individual Testimonials to Collective Voices” and has been published in the latest issue of the Open Praxis journal. This has been a collaborative publication organised by Aras Bozkurt, and it comprises a reflection of the views of several renowned experts in the field of open education, including Maha Bali, Catherine Cronin, Maren Deepwell, Martin Ebner, Robert Farrow, Leo Havemann, Alan Tait, Martin Weller, and more.
Alexander’s contribution to this editorial is focused on the instrumental role of openness in addressing the needs of lifelong learners and job seekers to upskill or reskill. The emergence of novel decentralisation technologies, particularly Blockchain and Web 3.0, offers opportunities to transform open education and open upskilling/reskilling, by influencing how open educational content is produced and shared, as well as by equipping lifelong learners and job seekers with open and immutable accreditation.
Alexander has led a successful pilot for facilitating lifelong learning using blockchain technologies, in the context of the QualiChain project. In particular, he has been in charge of deploying and evaluating decentralised education and employment qualifications with learners and educators within various lifelong learning contexts. The outcomes of this work indicate that decentralisation technologies hold great potential towards revolutionising open education and lifelong learning.
