History of the OU

Should a public figure or institution be brave enough to wish, with the poet Robert Burns, ‘to see oursels as ithers see us’, the cartoonist’s art is likely to remind them of another adage: be careful what you wish for. 

The British Cartoon Archive at the University of Kent provides a window onto the ways in which people and organisations have been portrayed through the ages.  As a national institution, The Open University hasn’t evaded capture by the caricaturist’s ink.  This group of cartoons evokes an evolving pen portrait in which the ‘University of the Air’ lived up to its name in at least one respect: it was difficult to pin down in a visual medium.  With no substantial image of its own, the OU was not so much used as a target for satire in its own right, as a means for cartoonists to satirise some of their more ’usual suspects’.  Groups of people and themes caricatured via their association with the OU included politicians, television, students, changing social mores and class aspiration.

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In collaboration with the Royal Shakespeare Company, the BBC and World Shakespeare Festival, The Open University is responsible for a new production of Julius Caesar which is set in a modern African state. The stage version has received excellent reviews. The Daily Telegraph called it a ‘production of great pace, panache and originality’. The television version is to break conventions. Shot alongside the stage rehearsals and during the actual theatrical run in Stratford-upon-Avon it features a Royal Shakespeare Company cast. The academic consultant on the programme was Dr Edmund King of The Open University. This production follows in the footsteps of previous OU ventures with Shakespeare.

In a few days Asa Briggs will launch his book which includes material on his relationship with the OU. This is a good moment to reflect on three contributions that he has made to the OU. (more…)

Just published is Alexandra Okada, Teresa Connolly and Peter Scott (eds.), Collaborative Learning 2.0: Open Educational Resources, IGI, Hershey, USA, 2012. This is a collection of the latest research, trends, future development, and case studies on how to use OER and Web 2.0 for collaborative learning.

The publisher explains that ‘the purpose of this handbook is to understand how OERs and Web 2.0 can be deployed successfully to enrich the collaborative learning experience and ensure a positive outcome in terms of user generated knowledge and development of skills’.  

The editors work at the OU and there are several chapters by OU staff including one by Andy Lane and Andrew Law. Their ‘Collaborating over rich media: the Open University and the BBC partnership’ has nine references, two of which are items on this blog. Furthermore, those seeking ‘Additional Reading’ are invited to visit the History of the OU website.

On 10^th September 1963, the day after Wilson announced his plans for a university of the air, at the Labour Party conference (as part of his ‘white heat of technology’ speech) the Daily Mail’s Emmwood (John Musgrave-Wood) poked fun by reference to popular programmes of the period, including Coronation Street.

The Daily Mirror’s Stanley Franklin compared (image not featured here) the plan to the ‘hot air’ talked by the Tories, indicating if not the paper’s support for the OU then at least its continual deriding of the Conservatives. Vicky (Victor Weisz) in the Evening Standard focused on another concern of the period, violence on TV. The cartoons can be found in The British Cartoon Archive is located in Canterbury at the University of Kent’s Templeman Library and online here.

This from Bournemouth:  

Thursday May 3rd 2012 ‘Addressing the Audience: European Historical Perspectives’,  The Centre for Broadcasting History, Bournemouth University  

Broadcasting History and Media History more generally have tended to focus on institutions and production rather than the audience. There are obviously methodological challenges in studying audiences of the past but there is nothing to stop a consideration of how audiences were imagined and spoken to, and that will be our main theme. This informal one day gathering brings together British and European scholars to exchange ideas and research. It also reflects the ‘European turn’ in media history which has been a feature of recent research projects and publications. We have invited media historians from the universities of Utrecht, Lund, Hamburg, Maastricht and Roskilde to share research and ideas.  We invite papers on the history of audience address (British or European) however that is interpreted. The following key note speakers are confirmed; Patrik Lundell, University of Lund & Kate Lacey, Susex University. Contributions are welcome from academics and researchers interested in the history of broadcasting (radio and television but other media historians are welcome to join us) as well as doctoral students, archivists and curators.  

ABSTRACTS: Please send abstracts of less than 250 words before 2nd April to  

kmcdonald@bournemouth.ac.uk<mailto:kmcdonald@bournemouth.ac.uk> (Kathryn McDonald)  

This from Edge Hill:  

The Centre for Learner Identity Studies 4th Annual Conference, themed around ‘Identity, State, Education’ is to take place at Edge Hill University on July 11th-13th 2012. The call closes on the 28th February. See http://www.edgehill.ac.uk/clis/conferences  

We are hoping that the conference will provide opportunities for a wide range of issues to be discussed, ranging from curriculum and pedagogy to policies and structures. We welcome contributions from researchers at all stages of their careers and the call is for paper, symposia and roundtable presentation abstracts. The conference aims to explore the changing role of the state in the provision of mass education from national and international perspectives and to consider the impacts on structures of educational provision, delivery and governance of a range of pressures, including, for example, marketization, neo-liberalism and globalisation.  

This from Rhodes University, Grahamstown, South Africa: 

Since its inception in 1998, the Higher Education Close Up (HECU) Conference has distinguished itself among conferences with a focus on higher education for its interest in research methodology, in particular qualitative approaches which afford fine-grained analysis of higher education practices. Over the five conferences themes have included: assessment, academic literacies, professional development, management and change, quality assurance and the student experience. Consistent with this focus, HECU 6 is an opportunity to reflect upon higher education research from a theoretical and methodological perspective.  

Higher Education Close Up 6 Conference, 11 – 13 July 2012. The theme of the HECU6 conference is ‘Challenging Dualisms in Higher Education Research and Practice’.  Research and practice in higher education abounds with dualisms, in the HECU 4 conference, for example, Paul Ashwin identified problems associated with the dualism of structure and agency, other such dualisms include quantitative/qualitative, essentialist/non-essentialist, macro/micro, academic/vocational.  At this conference four dualisms are considered in the Thinkpieces of the keynote speakers: 

Theory/practice 

Reason/Emotion 

Essentialism/Social Constructionism 

Culture/Agency 

Conference participants are invited to submit abstract that speak to these dualisms in the Thinkpieces. https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A0=HIGHER-EDUCATION-CLOSE-UP 

This from Saint Andrews:  

Function, form and funding: What are universities for – and who should pay for them?.  An international conference hosted by the University of St Andrews, UK 29 – 31 August 2012  

To mark the 600th anniversary of the foundation of St Andrews University, the School of History and the Institute of Scottish Historical Research are joining with the International Commission for the History of Universities to host an international conference on the theme of ‘Function, form and funding: What are universities for – and who should pay for them?’  

The conference theme is intended to allow for an exploration of both the historic and contemporary function of university education and the extent to which its academic purposes have been, and still are, driven by broader economic, social and political issues.   

Details: http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/ishr/ICHU/index.htm  

Within a few years of OU broadcasts starting the BBC broadcast two half-hour sketch shows entitled ‘Half-Open University’. Written by Andrew Marshall, David Renwick and John Mason these parodied Open University programmes. The first one paid homage to an OU ‘Environmental Science’ course. The cast consisted of Timothy Davies, Chris Emmett, Christine Ozanne and Nigel Rees. The writers were Andrew Marshall, John Mason and David Renwick, and the producer was Simon Brett. It was broadcast on Radio 3 during a Bank Holiday weekend on 25 August 1975. Characters included Dr Fiona Parody and Professor Jim Einstein. You can hear part of it here. The second broadcast which mocked the presentation of history, was broadcast on 1 December 1976.  

Was this affectionate mockery one of the first signs that the OU was on its way to becoming a national treasure? If you have other examples of the OU as the butt of humour, do let us know.    

OU television programmes were made at Alexandra Palace, North London, between 1971 and 1981 and then were made at a brand new production centre built at Walton Hall. Although Ally Pally was where the first public television transmissions were made, by the time the OU came along it had only used for news broadcasts for many years and once BBC TV News moved to the TV Centre in 1969 it faced closure. The OU helped preserve its use but, from 1977, when worked started on the new studios in Milton Keynes, the relationship was destined to end. (more…)

Fred Gray (a speaker on the 29th November forum) has edited a new book, ‘Making the future. A history of the University of Sussex’. This beautifully-illustrated account of the first fifty years of the university (1961-2011) consists of chapters by almost 70 different authors. Here are the voices, and the varied and well-presented images, of former and current staff and students. Their narratives are framed by Fred Gray’s introductions his overview and his account of continuing education (the field in which he became a professor).  

The theme of the liberalism of the sixties and seventies runs through the book as does the engagement with the distinctive and original curriculum. There are some parallels to be made with the OU, the influence of Asa Briggs on both places being one of them and the ‘early leavers’ scheme is another. One might also compare it to the University of Twente (founded 1961 as the first campus university in the Netherlands it insisted that engineers study social sciences) and it also influenced Kent, Lancaster, UEA, Stirling, Essex, York and Warwick.  (more…)