The design of educational material has a history of allowing people to present an individual expert view (the researcher as academic teacher) and a published base of knowledge (the academic teacher as text book writer). As learning has moved online and has now become more open a new dynamic of communication is emerging from the teacher to the learner, from the teacher to the teacher, and from the organisation to the world. In exploiting these new dynamics there are changes in motivations for creating and designing materials, but are there also chances to embrace a new creativity? In this paper we use an activity theoretic approach to look at three sources of evidence for impact from taking an open approach to learning resources. First impact on an organisation to identify its role as an enabler for creativity and change. Second on the educator and the way reuse of content allows selection of new patterns of design. Third impact is on the learner as open educational resources blends content with social. The cases present evidence that seeing open resources as change agents can lead to the release of creativity for organisations, for teachers and for learners.

Keywords

creativity · activity theory · openlearn · OLnet · OER · Open Educational Resources