Speech by Sir John Daniel, Vice-Chancellor
21st December 2000
Colleagues:
In the summer of 1969, in the week that the Apollo astronauts returned from the first landing the moon, the Open University was formally launched at a ceremony held at the Royal Society in London. During the ceremony our first Chancellor, Lord Crowther, made a short speech in which he laid down the mission of being open as to people, open as to places, open as to methods and open as to ideas that inspires us to this day.
Let me read to you what he said about methods:
We are open as to methods. The original name was the University of the Air. I am glad that it was abandoned, for even the air would be too confining. We start, it is true, in dependence on, and in grateful partnership with, the British Broadcasting Corporation. But already the development of technology is marching on, and I predict that, before long, actual broadcasting will form only a small part of the University's output. The world is caught in a communications revolution, the effects of which will go beyond those of the industrial revolution of two centuries ago. Then the great advance was the invention of machines to multiply the potency of men's muscles. Now the great new advance is the invention of machines to multiply the potency of men's minds. As the steam engine was to the first revolution, so the computer is to the second. It has been said that the addiction of the traditional university to the lecture room is a sign of its inability to adjust to the development of the printing press. That, of course, is unjust. But at least no such reproach will be levelled at the Open University in the communications revolution. Every new form of human communication will be examined to see how it can be used to raise and broaden the level of human understanding. There is no restriction on techniques.
That was in July 1969. In January 1970 a young man called Jim Burrows joined the Open University to help set up practical computing activities for the Mathematics Faculty. I suspect that neither Jim himself, nor those who had appointed him, realised that this was the man who would do more than anyone else, over the next thirty years, to ensure that the OU delivered on the aspirations expressed by Lord Crowther.
Over his impressive career Jim has been at the heart of the process of examining every new form of human communication to see how it can be used to raise and broaden the level of human understanding.
Let me run through the evolution of the OU’s teaching methods as seen through Jim’s own career trajectory.
His early work in the Mathematics Faculty evolved into the Student Computing Service and Jim was asked to manage it under the Dean of Mathematics. He was housed in Wimpy 3.
In 1979 he moved up in the world, to M block and in 1981 his operation was renamed Academic Computing Services. He headed that unit for almost twenty years until, at the beginning of this year, it became part of Learning and Teaching Services which he headed until Ian Rosenbloom’s arrival in October.
But this simple timeline tells us nothing about the huge changes that were taking place in the OU’s teaching methods.
Go back to 1973 and you have Jim managing some thirty people in the Student Computing Service in Wimpy 3. They operated three Hewlett Packard 2000B time-sharing systems located at Walton Hall, Newcastle, and Alexandra Palace with 180 terminals around the UK. The equipment was valued at £500k and the annual service charge was £200k. About 10,000 students were taking courses that involved a computing component.
Fast forward to 1999. Jim is now managing over 100 people in Academic Computing Services in M block. The computing facilities consist of some 200 servers, over 100,000 student PCs in homes and workplaces. The ACS budget is now £5 million and over 60,000 students are taking courses with a computing component.
You could say that over his career all the parameters he has worked with have increased by a factor of ten, an order of magnitude.
But even this understates the scale of the change. Quite apart from those students who have a computing component in their courses, networked computing has become the glue that holds the OU together. Earlier this autumn the numbers of students online reached 110,000 and at about the same time we passed the 100,000 mark in registrations for our Learning Schools Programme which brings teachers online to learn how to use computing in the classroom.
All this makes the OU the world’s leading e-university and it is to Jim Burrows that we must give much of the credit for enabling us to operate at such scale with high quality.
But I miss the essence of Jim’s contribution if I talk only in quantitative terms. His even greater contribution has been to the underlying strategy behind our adoption of new methods.
He has taken us from mainframe to distributed computing.
He has taken us from Academic Computing Services defined as research-oriented computing to a broader concept that embraces computing oriented to teaching.
He has been at the centre of many important and sometimes difficult changes:
This is a tremendous record, but even it does not capture the special human qualities that Jim has brought to his work. He always works to the bigger picture. Thus he has always put the interests of the wider university before those of ACS. With ACS he has always put the interests of the Unit ahead of his own interests. This has earned him the devotion of his staff, never more than when he presided over the integration of ACS into the two new units without regard for his own position. When we announced the creation of Learning and Teaching Services nearly all the e-mails that Diana received from ACS staff were worrying not about their own position but about Jim’s
What I have admired particularly is the wisdom that Jim brings to all discussions of university policy. Being wise is not the same as being bright, although Jim is certainly that as well. I find it particularly admirable that Jim is able to bring such wisdom to a fast moving field like computing, and I’ve always wondered what he does so remain so fully abreast of developments in the field that he can always comment with a wisdom which seems to imply that this month’s new development has been around for years.
With his wisdom he combines a real passion for enabling the OU to deliver learning and teaching in a new way. Yet he combines this with an apparently laid back attitude that makes him the only colleague I know who can sit in a chair horizontally.
Lord Crowther said that at the OU there would be no restriction on techniques. Jim has ensured that we have fulfilled that promise. He has led his colleagues to give us a computer dependent learning system that operates at large scale with very high quality.
Jim Burrow’s departure is not the end of an era; it is the end of several eras. But his stewardship of the early months of LTS means that his legacy is the beginning of another era that will redefine the relationship between the academic and production areas. In this and many other areas he will have an enduring influence on our future activity.
On behalf of the whole OU community I thank Jim for his remarkable contribution and ask you to raise your glasses:
To Jim Burrows