The Learning in an Open World programme establishes and supports the Open University's reputation as a leading provider of open access to online learning through international collaboration, innovations in research approaches and effective dissemination. The research focus is to understand why openness is important to the future of learning, identify those activities that need to be supported and show how evidence of impact can influence policies and decisions. Research in this programme includes the filtering of evidence and targeted extraction of themes, evaluation and experimentation in open approaches and establishing an international role to help bring out lessons and conclusions. Learning in an open world seeks to establish projects that reflect the strengths of the institute in accessibility, design and pedagogy and to analyze and apply the results from such projects to benefit the OU and education sector.
The main areas of research activity are:
- Open Educational Resources, practices and policy
- Open Science and participatory learning
- Open Research including ethics
- Learning Design/Open Design
- Accessibility of learning systems
- Evaluation of learning systems
- Open access publishing
This programme has a good record of major grants from US Foundations together with EU support through both the Lifelong Learning Programme and framework programme. A broader base for funding will be addressed and externally supported.
Aims in the period 2013/14 include:
- Develop a further major proposal for OER work beyond 2014
- Extend the range of work associated with the Programme
- Work across IET Programmes to enhance research impact and profile
- Seek opportunities in the revised EU Programmes for collaborative projects
- Seek external funding for work on accessibility
- Work closely with the Development Office and Open Media Unit on the profile of research in open education across the OU
Watch this short video of Professor Patrick McAndrew talking about Learning in an Open World:
Non-flash version of the video (for iPad and other users)
(download the PDF transcript of this video)
Current projects include:
- ARV13
- CATALYST
- OER Research Hub
- Open Education Innovation & Incubation
- METIS
- RCUK School-University Partnership
- OER institutional research for Open Media Unit
- iSpot Garfield Weston
- iSpot BES
- Editorship - JIME
- Inquiry for Learning Design
- Editorship - Open Learning journal
Completed projects include:
- Open Learning: Bridge to Success (Next Generation Learning Challenges funded project)
- OULDI (OU Learning Design Initiative)
- OLnet (Open Learning network) - use and reuse of Open learning resources
- OER and Cloudworks case study (HE Academy)
- SCORE microsites (SCOREMS)
- TRACK OER
- xDelia (Xcellence in Decision-making through Enhanced Learning in Immersive Applications)
- EU-funded OPAL OER project (IET is one of 7 international Open Educational Quality Initiative (OPAL) partners - promoting innovation and better quality education and training using open educational resources).
- Personal Inquiry
- Open Learning Design Studio (open learning curriculum design) MOOC (Massive Open Online Course)