About Open Degree
Open Degree is the public standard for learning. It is a shared, open standard that makes skills, outcomes, and credentials portable across schools, platforms, and careers, and a single free, open-source graph of concepts built on that standard through crowdsourcing.
Why it exists
Section titled “Why it exists”Skills do not travel well. A course finished on one platform means little on another. A credential from one school is unreadable to an employer who uses different words. Learners repeat what they already know because nobody can see what they can do.
Open Degree fixes the language problem. It breaks knowledge into the smallest concepts worth learning, states each one as something you can do, and maps how every concept relates to every other, so a learner can jump to the one they need instead of the course that contains it. Each concept is tied to an evidence-based assessment and can be certified by a verifiable micro-credential the learner truly owns. When learners, educators, and employers describe learning the same way, progress is recognized anywhere.
Open source education
Section titled “Open source education”Open Degree is built the way open-source software is built. Anyone can ask for a concept, fill a stub, write a course, design an assessment, or review someone else’s work. Concepts nobody has written yet exist as stubs, so the graph grows where people reach for it, and every gap is remembered for the next person. Everything is published under an open license, versioned, and free forever. It is a nonprofit commons, with free AI tooling planned to help contributors author, align, and review.
The eCollective family
Section titled “The eCollective family”Open Degree is part of eCollective, whose education pillar rests on two complementary projects:
| DIY Degree | Open Degree | |
|---|---|---|
| Tagline | Learning at the Speed of Need | The Public Standard for Learning |
| What it is | A gamified learning engine | A free, open-source graph of concepts and the standard it is written in |
| Sources | Accepts many teachers and course sources | Is one source, available to any platform |
| Learner experience | Quickly find the best options, piece together a degree, demonstrate learning, stay motivated | Jump to the concept you need, learn it, prove it, see what is next, and earn portable credentials |
| Model | Product | Nonprofit commons |
Open Degree will be one of the many teachers and course sources a learner can select on DIY Degree, and its graph is there for any platform to walk node by node. It is offered on the same open terms to every platform.
Get involved
Section titled “Get involved”See Get Involved for what you can do today, and Contributing for the mechanics.