Innovation as a distributed, collaborative process of knowledge generation: open, networked innovation

The last several decades, the world has witnessed the advent of a variety of ‘open’ movements, promoting open source code, open standards, open learning, open educational resources. These movements have all initially been underpinned by moral arguments, referring to their contribution to the common good. However, sooner or later, pragmatic arguments have always been adduced, referring to the practical benefits of openness. Open innovation is odd, in that it refers to practical benefits mostly and moral arguments are seldom heard. Yet, as I will argue in this paper, viewing open innovation from a moral stance, will reveal several other benefits. I will rely on an analogy between open learning and open innovation to substantiate this claim. I will briefly discuss a recent development in open learning, networked learning, which is interesting precisely because better than ever it blends moral and practical values. This networked view, I surmise by analogical reasoning, holds significant promises for open innovation. I will elaborate this by providing some details on what such a networked view of open innovation could look like.