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Cin is an OU student currently studying some micro-credentials alongside her Access module. She is a Central Committee Representative on the Access Board of Studies and on the Access and Open Academic Committee (Learning, Teaching and Assessment). She is also the 2022-2025 elected Student Officer for the RAISE network (Researching, Advancing, and Inspiring Student Engagement).

As part of Student Voice Week we had a great session focused on Open and Access students entitled Navigating your Journey as an Open and Access student.  We had a solid turn out with students from across many different subjects and from all levels of experience. We saw brand new students getting ready to start Access in February, across all undergrad levels and right through to Open post-grad students joining us. Continue reading “Student Voice Week – Navigating your Journey”

Prof. John Butcher is Director for Access, Open & Cross-curricular Innovation at the Open University.

 

I was asked to write a blog for the Open qualifications blog site at the precise moment when my colleagues knew I was unlikely to refuse…

Picture the scene, a new pub by the canal in Milton Keynes, on a September evening, and I had just delivered my inaugural lecture in the Berrill Theatre on the Walton Hall campus.  I was in the pub with a few kind colleagues who wanted to celebrate the occasion with me – and because a lot of my lecture was about achievements within a team and being open to new opportunities. Continue reading “Being open: not just a qualification?”

Gina Sharp is Stakeholder Engagement Manager for the Access, Open and Cross-curricular Innovation team at the Open University.

 

I was lucky enough to be able to travel to the Open University graduation ceremony in Harrogate last weekend to be on the registration desk.  This is the second time I’ve worked at a graduation ceremony and to be honest it’s a little bit addictive! Continue reading “Graduation Ceremony – the reason why we do what we do!”

Mary Keys is a Senior Manager in Access, Open and Cross-curricular Innovation and is responsible for the BA or BSc Open Degree qualification. In this post, Mary reflects on her time since starting in this role sharing some of the highlights over the last 18 months.

 

I am the Senior Manager for the Open Programme at the OU.  This was originally going to be a blog reflecting on my new job (which I started in Jan 2021!) and then it was going to be a blog reflecting back on the first 12 months of my new job.  Now, 18 months on, I am fully aware that I shouldn’t really be calling it a new job anymore!  Continue reading “A uniquely ‘Open’ role”

My advice is have a Bryan Mathers graphic for every point you want to make.

In 2019 I became the Director of the Open programme at the Open University. The open programme covers our ‘Open’ qualifications, such as the Open degree. When the OU was founded, you could only get an open degree, there were no named ones. This was part of the deliberate policy to imagine a new type of university and education. The OU’s first VC, Walter Perry put it like this: Continue reading “25 Years of OU – 2019: The Open Programme”