During topic 2 we discussed the different merits of openness. It came to my mind that there might be a risk that openness comes in conflict with the privilege of an expert position. To some extent, an expert position comes with some level of exclusivity in the knowledge gained by the expert and the way it is being communicated. Experts may often communicate in different forums, but they get to choose where and when, about what, and they may adapt their discourse to who is in the room. When putting teaching sessions online, eg as part of a MOOC, all information is out there and can hardly be removed. Therefore, there might be a conflict between openness and an expert position. In the long run, perhaps even that expertise as such could be threatened by openness, for example if tips are provided to let newcomers become experts or even take shortcuts to the expertise (if any such shortcuts exist). Of course, it is not a general truth that openness may threaten the expert position, but it may at least be felt so by the expert, who might then be reluctant to sharing her/his knowledge with an open community. Therefore, before engaging in online teaching, a teacher might want to ask her/his self whether or not this activity might create a risk for her/his expert position. The risk might be pretty low or even inexistant at undergraduate and graduate levels, but perhaps that at a post-gradual level or between peers this risk might exist. To some extent this risk is covered by the protection of intellectual property and especially plagiarism, in case another scholar would use the research developed by a colleague without citing her/him. This problem, and the solutions that may be brought to it, are not peculiar to online teaching, but seem to be exacerbated in a digital context. Perhaps that it may be wise to communicate on novel research while it has already been published, contrary to what we sometimes see in conferences where researchers test their ideas at a draft level, ie before publishing. By so doing, the expert can ascertain that there is no risk of plagiarism and loss of expert position.

More generally, ie apart from the risk of plagiarism, there are no clear arguments in favour of a loss of expert position. In contrast, digital learning tools may help promote the dissemination of ideas and the name of a researcher, thus potentially increasing her/his expert position. Also, there are some fields where there are no possible shortcuts, ie where the communication of knowledge does not deprive the listener from the need to do the ground work to learn the basics.

Therefore, openness does not seem to generally be in conflict with expert position. However, there might be such a risk in case where research has not yet be published.