Does Open Recognition Supersede Open Education?

Abstract

To better understand what makes education "open," researchers at the European Commission's Joint Research Center (JRC) developed Opening Up Education: A Support Framework for Higher Education Institutions. The framework identifies 10 key dimensions of open education: access, content, pedagogy, recognition, collaboration, research, strategy, technology, quality, and leadership.  Yet only two—pedagogy and research—explicitly refer to openness. The others are described in relation to open education, but without a consistent conceptual grounding in what "openness" actually entails. This inconsistent approach suggests that, paradoxically, "open education" could be implemented without ensuring that all its dimensions are themselves open.  

 The treatment of recognition in the JRC framework is emblematic of this limitation:

Recognition in open education has two meanings: a)  the process, usually carried out by an accredited institution, of issuing a certificate, diploma, or title which has formal value; b)  the process of formally acknowledging and accepting credentials, such as a badge, a certificate, diploma, or title issued by a third-party institution. These credentials should attest that a set of learning outcomes achieved by an individual has been assessed by a competent body against a predefined standard. (Santos, 2016, p.26)

At the time of its publication in 2016, we can't fault the authors for not referencing Open Recognition—the concept was only emerging. But this was a missed opportunity to articulate what openness in recognition could mean beyond institutional certification. Had the authors used a more consistent definitional approach, they might have contributed to shaping a more nuanced understanding of recognition that includes informal, community-driven, and participatory forms of value creation and acknowledgment.

 To address this conceptual gap, we focused on an alternative: reframing the original 10 dimensions of open education as ”The Ten Dimensions of Open Recognition.” Rather than assuming recognition as an outcome of education, this version considers recognition as a generative process interwoven with how learning, contribution, and value are understood and made visible.

• Open Access: Openness in access means that every individual and organization has the right and opportunity to participate in the recognition of themselves and others.
• Open Content: Openness in content highlights the legitimacy of diverse forms of knowledge and the recognition of their creators, regardless of formal credentials.
• Open Pedagogy: Openness in pedagogy acknowledges recognition as both a condition and a consequence of learning, where learners are also co-creators, and recognition fuels agency, creativity, and transformation.
• Open Education: Openness in education calls for the integration of informal, non-formal, and formal learning, along with flexible recognition practices that bridge diverse learning spaces.
• Open Collaboration: Openness in collaboration values the co-construction of recognition ecosystems, inviting all stakeholdersto contribute to open recognition ecosystems.
• Open Research: Openness in research supports transparent, participatory inquiry into recognition practices, encouraging the dissemination and reuse of data, methods, and findings.
• Open Strategy: Openness in strategy requires the inclusive design of recognition systems and policies across micro, meso, and macro levels.
• Open Technology: Openness in technology involves using open-source, interoperable tools that support distributed, learner-, and community-led recognition ecosystems.
• Open Quality: Openness in quality demands that recognition processes be transparent, contextual, and meaningful, with standards adapted to diverse recognition modalities.
• Open Leadership: Openness in leadership invites participatory, accountable governance of recognition ecosystems, embracing diverse voices, and recognition spaces.

As discussed in this session, this reframing invites us to move from a narrow vision of “Open Education” toward a broader paradigm of open recognition. It challenges us not only to ask what can be open, but also to interrogate what is kept closed, and whether those boundaries are justified.

The current Open Education Framework's treatment of recognition---focused largely on institutional certification---reflects a conceptual blind spot. In most formal systems, recognition is ”after the fact”: students learn, and only then are they deemed eligible for validation. This sequential logic ignores the epistemological entanglement between learning and recognition.

• Recognition as Learning: Rather than just recognizing learning outcomes after the fact, recognition itself can be a learning experience;
• Learning as Recognition: Conversely, learning can emerge from acts of recognition---of others, of oneself, of a community's shared knowledge or practice.

 In this integrated view, learning and recognition are not sequential steps but iterative and reciprocal processes. This reconceptualization supports more dynamic, inclusive, and participatory ecosystems in which recognition is not a reward, but a condition of growth, belonging, and co-creation.

Shifting the focus from open education to open recognition allows us to reimagine recognition not as a passive validation of institutional learning, but as an active, generative process—a way of doing education. In this reframed perspective, recognition is not merely the endpoint of a formal path---it becomes the very practice through which education happens by seeing, valuing, and naming what matters, together. Recognition moves from being about education to being education Itself—participatory, relational, situated. It becomes a vehicle through which individuals and communities co-construct meaning, identity, and social value.

True openness does not stop at content or access. It requires us to open up the systems by which worth is conferred, and belonging is made visible. It means making recognition itself open—to all people, all contexts, and all ways of knowing. Only then can we truly say that education has become open in form and foundation: not just a system to be accessed, but a world to be co-created.

Keywords: open education, open recognition, recognition of learning, informal learning, participatory recognition, recognition ecosystems

Reference

Santos, Andreia & Punie, Yves & Castaño-Muñoz, Jonatan. (2016). Opening up Education: A Support Framework for Higher Education Institutions. https://data.europa.eu/doi/10.2791/293408.