The danger of building walls around scientific knowledge: implications for higher education teaching and learning in the era of open science

The research process is undergoing a paradigm shift toward openness, revolutionizing the way research outputs are shared, accessed, and utilized. This shift promotes transparency and accelerates scientific discovery and development, as appropriate dissemination of research enhances global knowledge exchange. This is so because scientific knowledge is the foundation upon which societies build progress, yet access to this knowledge remains a privilege rather than a right. Specifically, there is a concerning trend of building walls around scientific knowledge, impacting higher education teaching and learning. This conceptual paper argues that limiting access to research creates educational inequities, stifles innovation, and undermines the potential of open science to democratize knowledge. This goes against the principles of open science, which advocate free and open sharing of scientific knowledge to maximize its impact. The paper presents the implications of restricting access to scientific knowledge in higher education teaching and learning (including online and distance learning, MOOCs, OERs, etc) and advocates for open science practices, including a proposed “open science pedagogy model” grounded in the concept of openness and transparency to better enhance teaching and learning in higher education.