Open Air

Making amends: OpenLearn new release

July 22nd, 2008 Posted by: l.dewis

As the OpenLearn “Stage 2″ phase draws to a close and many of the team who set the project up move onto pastures new, its good to see the innovation continue. Back in the early days we knew there were two features that would make the site more appealing to users:
1. Something that recognised learners efforts and time on the site;
2. An easy way to edit OpenLearn study units in the LabSpace.

And so now I proudly present the latest version of OpenLearn which offers both.

Firstly, the “Statement of Activity” is a printable report that shows what a learner has viewed on the site. It’s accessed from the learner’s myLearningSpace and looks like this:

Ok, so if you can read it, you’ll see I’m a lazy OpenLearner but if my links are working hopefully you’ve got the picture

I think this could have several uses – as a motivation to keep studying (if like me you love to see your name in print), as a way to see how far you are through a study unit and as evidence to mentors/employers of your informal study. So it’s not a degree certificate, or even abuse proof (you can click on a page, go make a cup of tea, come back and file your nails and the report will look the same as if you sat there for 10 minutes studying) but its something. In the next release we’ll develop this so when you return to the site you can jump straight back to the last point you were at in a study unit.

Secondly and most impressive, is the new editing interface – our way of making amends for having launched a site that made it difficult to make amends to our content. We want you to edit and change our content but can you use XML please, we said, batting our eyelashes and looking meek. The answer was a resounding “No!” and we listened.

From today it’s easy as pie to change Open University course materials to suit you.

If you want to make a change to a study unit on the LabSpace all you have to do is:
1. Enter the study unit
2. Make a copy of the unit for revising
3. Turn editing on
4. Get going in a WYSIWYG editing interface (or switch to HTML view)

Look out for this:

And soon you’ll be laughing manically, looking for your swivel chair and a cat to stroke as you take over the OUniverse with the super simple editing interface:

Once you’ve saved your changes a ‘Revise this unit’ button appears on the page. If other people want to make changes they can click on this, agree to a scary notice that they will not abuse the power bestowed upon them (”I promise to take over the OUniverse responsibly while laughing manically and stroking my evil cat”), and then make edits themselves.

And so we are one more step closer to the vision of Dr Marshall Smith of The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation who said at the OpenLearn launch in 2006,

“The legacy of this wonderful gift by the OU-UK to the world will be not only be extraordinary original content – it will also be the many future generations of derivative content developed and tested and retested by untold numbers of students, teachers and others around the world.”

Entry Filed under: Innovation, Web 2.0, oer