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Institute of Educational Technology > Research & Innovation > Research Projects > OU Learning Design Initiative (OULDI)

OU Learning Design Initiative (OULDI)

Project website/blog

http://www.open.ac.uk/blogs/OULDI/

OULDI

What research questions the project addresses, aims & themes

CompendiumLDThe aim of the OULDI-JISC project was to implement, evaluate and revise a range of learning design tools, approaches and resources that have been developed for the enhancement of formal and informal curriculum design practice. The project has consisted of five interlinked strands of work focused on developing: processes and workshops to support design; new representations of curriculum designs; online social space for sharing learning design experiences; software for visualising student learning experience/teachers designs; and environments to promote communities of practice.

Our key research and development questions are:

  • In what ways can the efficiency and effectiveness of time spent designing learning be improved?
  • How can we capture and represent practice; and in particular innovative practice?
  • How can we provide 'scaffolds' or support for staff creating learning activities, which draw on good practice and make effective use of tools and pedagogies?
  • What does a quality design process look like?

At the Open University the project has sought to engage at both the strategic and cross-faculty level and in-situ through four unit or faculty pilots. Yet the project has also reached beyond the university, delivering pilots at four other UK universities, building an online global community of educational practitioners and disseminating materials and research. The project secured a grant from JISC in 2008 for £300,000 and has been offered a further award of £25,000 for follow-on dissemination until 2013.

How the research questions are addressed by the project (methodology and activity/environment)

Information Literacies facilitation cardsThe project has used an extensive range of research methodologies including: post-test/-trial questionnaires, stakeholder interviews, case study methodologies, material ethnography, participatory analysis, web use analytics, blog/video and email analysis, user and expert usability testing, visual image capture, narrative analysis, social object network analysis and student feedback. For further details of the overall project approach see our project plan http://www.jisc.ac.uk/whatwedo/programmes/elearning/curriculumdesign/ouldi.aspx. Explanations about how specific research questions are addressed are given in our reports and publications.

Findings and outputs

  • We have demonstrated that it is possible to achieve success in changing or improving the process, practice and perception of curriculum design yet this requires a combination of elements working together: selection of effective design tools, well configured institutional and informal design processes, proper opportunity for collaboration, reflexive working, staff with adequate tacit knowledge, etc.
  • We have customised OU-originated visualisation software to make it more usable in a learning design context. This software has been named CompendiumLD. We have also used this opportunity to explore how learning design can be represented, the benefits of doing so, and barriers to the use of visualisation technologies (Brasher et al .2008 http://oro.open.ac.uk/15783/, Brasher et al. 2011 http://www.ld-grid.org/resources/tools/compendiumld)
  • Our work has been based on extensive research and review of existing formal and informal design processes (for example, Cross et al. 2009 http://oro.open.ac.uk/32037/, Mundin et al, 2010, Cross 2011). We have delivered and achieved may additional outputs which are detailed further in our blog

Project impact

Due to the scale, duration and impact of the project, the project represents an important contribution to what has been a four year period of significant change in how 'design' is theorised, understood and practiced in the HE sector. The five institutions participating in this project collectively account for one in every five students enrolled in Higher Education in the UK.

  • Strategic Impact: Learning design has moved up the strategic agenda especially in relation to the perceived new challenges and complexity associated with using new technologies and learning online. For example, the OULDI project has contributed two of the five Curriculum Business Model representations that, via the CBM project, will be given to and used by all new modules being developed.
  • Operational Impact: Our focus on the business process of design has been timely and in general well received by managers. Our early baseline review and visual representations of the production process has resulted in revisions being made to the process guidance provided by the university.
  • Institutional and inter-faculty Variation: our eight pilots have enabled us to explore the differences in design practices and processes between different academic faculties, between academic faculties and other university units, and between different universities.
  • Effective trial of how communities use 'community space': Cloudworks has demonstrated itself to be a successful place for: open sharing of conference and workshop discussions and resources; promoting and raising visibility of project work or individual views; and a place for short 'flash' discussions on teaching and learning subjects.
  • Creation of a Sustainable Online Community: The Cloudworks and community development strand of the project has achieved all stated project deliverables. For example, by December 2011 over 4,500 Clouds had been added (exceeding the target of 4,000).
  • Effectiveness of tools and approaches: we have trialled a range of learning design tools across our 8 planned pilots and additional events. We have learnt more about the value offered by each type of tool.
  • Resisting change: we have recorded how individuals, groups or even institutions seek to mobilise a 'discourse of resistance' in order to avoid adopting or engaging with a learning design practice.
  • New Conceptual Frames: we have developed and trialled a number of new, often more visual, frameworks for curriculum design. For example, we have expanded the framework for laying out learning designs in a sequence/swim-lane format for CompendiumLD. There have been over 2,000 downloads of CompendiumLD by non-OU staff.
  • Benefits to visualisation: we have researched how the practice of visualising learning designs can help in the process of understanding, reflecting, sharing and enhancing student learning.
  • New professional networks: Cloudworks, with over 4,000 registered users (over 90% of whom are not based at the OU), has become a valuable platform for sharing of teaching and learning design experiences.

Publications

See 'findings and outputs' above for links to the project publications 

Keywords

Pedagogy, practice, learning design

People involved

Martin Weller (Project Lead)
Rebecca Galley (Principal Project Officer)
Simon Cross (Project Manager)
Grainne Conole (project lead to August 2012)
Juliette Culver
Andrew Brasher
Paul Mundin
Nick Freear

Project partners and links

The Open University www.open.ac.uk

University of Reading www.reading.ac.uk

Brunel University www.brunel.ac.uk

London South Bank University www.lsbu.ac.uk

University of Cambridge http://www.cam.ac.uk/

Leicester University www.le.ac.uk/

Funder(s)

JISC

JISC

Start Date and duration

1st Sept 2008 - 31st May 2012*

*Project to continue dissemination activities until 31st December 2012