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Developing the practice of open education

Spearheading the development of online open education to bring free learning resources to millions of people worldwide.

Free, online learning materials, known as Open Educational Resources (OER), are extending the reach of education worldwide. A milestone in the development of OER was the launch of the OER website, OpenLearn, by The Open University in 2006.

OpenLearn, and the work that has flowed from it, has massively extended the reach of higher education in developing and developed countries. It has changed practice and policy in the education industry and at governmental and international level.

OpenLearn sprang from pioneering Open University research and practice in the field of online learning. This includes work by elearning pioneer Robin Mason in her 2004 book The Connecticon: Learning for the connected generation; the Open University’s development of a Virtual Learning Environment for students; and expertise gained in The Open University’s Institute of Educational Technology (IET) in creating an online institutional repository.

'The University now delivers open education resources through a range of channels including OpenLearn, YouTube and iTunes U, reaching an audience of millions.'
Created with an $8.9 million Hewlett Foundation grant, the knowledge gained through OpenLearn spawned a multitude of projects which have been the subject of action research to develop the practice of open education.
 
These projects include Teacher Education in Sub-Saharan Africa (TESSA), using OER to support training for hundreds of thousands of African teachers; Bridge2Success, delivering maths open content to community college students in the US; and a range of other projects promoting and supporting the use of OER in a variety of contexts. 
 
The work has established The Open University as a centre of open education expertise. The University now delivers OER through a range of channels including OpenLearn, YouTube and iTunes U, reaching an audience of millions. 
 
It has changed professional practice in the wider educational industry, including that of teachers, publishers, and media. The success and reputation established through OpenLearn and the subsequent OER projects has been instrumental in shaping the open education policy in the UK, and influencing educational strategy in the US, Russia and Eastern Europe, UNESCO and the Commonwealth of Learning.
 
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