Ramirez-Montoya (2020) recently presented a review of literature pertaining OER and educational innovation, noting that although definitions of openness vary across sectoral spaces, the crossover between openness and innovation is an area of increasing interest. A core part of the story of open educational resources is that they can be used to create spaces for innovation in teaching and learning (Orr et al., 2015; Pitt & Smyth, 2017; Weller et al., 2015). As Coughlan et al. (2018) argue, there has been a lack of detailed analysis of the specific function of OER as a driver of innovation, and a single model has not yet captured the multi-faceted relationship between openness and innovation.

This presentation will present an overview of several major theories of innovation as they relate to contexts of open education, making clear connections to open educational practice and showing how innovation theories can apply to OER. The presentation is likely to be of interest to practitioners wishing to have a stronger theoretical and practical understanding of how OER can support innovative practice.

• Task-Artefact Cycle (Carroll, Kellog & Rosson, 1991)
• The diffusion of innovations theory (Rogers, 2010)
• SAMR framework (Puentedura, 2006; Orr et al., 2015)
• Cyclic Innovation Model (Berkhout, 2007)
• Forms of innovation in OER (Coughlan, Pitt & Farrow, 2018)

This work contributes to the European Network for Catalysing Open Resources in Education (ENCORE+). ENCORE+ is a pan-European Knowledge Alliance funded under the Erasmus+ programme. The project will run from 2021 to 2023 to support the modernisation of education in the European area through OER.