ABSTRACT
A number of people have thought that defining or conceptualizing open education presents a number of problems. Professor Bernard Spodek, for example, writes: 2
Too often in hearing a description of what open education is, one is tempted to respond, 'Yes, that's part of it.' Every definition seems to overlap with other definitions, but no one definition presents a full enough characterization. This results from the fact that open education represents an open system of thought, one that is constantly being modified...
Since open education is such an elusive phenomenon, it has often been suggested that the best way to define it is to state what it is not. This eliminates the confusion between open education and other approaches to education without defining out the range of approaches that can legitimately bear that label.
Partial definitions and overlapping definitions are seen here as being problematical; they do not provide 'full enough characterizations.' It is claimed that because of the changing nature of open education, because it is an 'open system of thought' because the phenomenon is 'elusive' a negative definition is to be preferred; such definitions, it is claimed, do not define out 'the range of approaches that can legitimately bear that label.'