What's mine is yours - open source as a new paradigm for sustainable healthcare education

Free and open access to information, and increasingly digital content and tools, is one of the defining characteristics of the Internet and as such it presents a challenge to traditional models of development and provision of educational materials and activities. Open source is a particular way of giving access to materials and processes in that the source material is available alongside the finished artifact, thereby allowing subsequent adaptation and redevelopment by anyone wishing to undertake the work. Open source is now being developed as a concept that can be applied in settings outside software development (Kelty 2005), and it is increasingly being linked to moral and ethical agendas about the nature of society itself (Lessig 2005). The open source movement also raises issues regarding authority challenging the role of the expert voice. The imperative of open source and associated economic and social factors all point to an opportunity-rich area for both reflection and development. This paper explores the open source phenomena and it will consider ways in which open source principles and ideas can benefit and extend the provision of a wide range of healthcare education services and activities.