The notion of a correspondence course was transformed when the OU started to send out home experiment kits and computers by post.
This is HEKTOR, a ‘home computer’ dating from 1982. It could be plugged into a TV which became its monitor and plugged into a cassette recorder for storage. Initially students were encouraged to write programs in BASIC but later it was used for other purposes, including on a control engineering course.
Perhaps in response to criticisms such as implied in these cartoons (ie that students were isolated and that the television was a badly-used fad) from early on many OU materials sought to minimalise the overt input of the lecturer and encourage learners to construct their own understandings.
One cartoon features a couple eating breakfast and has the caption ‘it’s the Open University – we’re having a sit-in’ and the other one shows a woman with a fake television holding up a card stating, ‘The cat sat on the mat’. The caption refers to a conversation between the two men in the background: ‘She reckons with this teaching method she has the problem of illiteracy licked’.
In 1972 the intention of a psychology course film of children talking and teachers at work in schools was for the student to hear ‘not the analysis of a lecturer but the actual voices of teachers, children and parents… the filter of the lecturer’s personality has been effectively removed’. A sociology film made in the same year used a hidden camera in a hostel for ‘mental sub normals’. There was little editing as the aim was that students could form their own opinions and use it as a starting point for discussion. In 1976 Arthur Marwick (Professor of History at the OU) argued that his aim was ‘to leave each piece of film to speak for itself without being overlaid by an intrusive commentary’.
Today is Jennie Lee’s birthday.
Jennie was the Minister in Harold Wilson’s government responsible for setting up The Open University. It would be hard to argue that the OU would exist in its current form without her influence. For more information about her see here.
To celebrate we are hosting a workshop – Opening Up The Open University. For more information see here. There will be a full report of the workshop posted here over the next few weeks.
Whilst others (for example here, here, and here) criticise aspects of the Browne report published this week, particularly the huge additional burden to be placed on students and the increasing marketisation of higher education, the Open University appears to be the only progressive voice welcoming any of Browne’s recommendations.
This should come as no surprise. One of Browne’s recommendations is that ‘Part time students should be treated the same as full time students for the costs of learning.’ While the rest of Browne’s proposals can be debated, as those familar with the OU’s history will know, this particular recommendation has been a long time coming. If implemented this would effectively be the culmination of a campaign the OU has been waging since its foundation.
Official documents from the 70s, 80s, 90s right up to the present day consistently highlight the unfair treatment of part-time students, and the action being taken to lobby the government to redress this. Now the OU has launched a new campaign calling on the government to ensure part-time students in the UK get a fair deal. See www.fourinten.org.
In 1982 Open House reported that a fire in the Disabled Students Office, which caused £1,000 worth of damage, resulted from two Christmas puddings being placed on a Braille duplicating machine to heat up (Open House 196 February 1982).
In August 1976 Michael Drake asked why, in view of the reluctance of many of the BBC staff to move to Milton Keynes, the OU could not work with ITV instead (Open House, 31 August 1976)? Despite this possibility being raised the BBC continued to be unhappy about moving the OU operations from Alexandra Palace to Milton Keynes. The argument was made that this was because this would adversely affect the relationship between the OU and the BBC. Deputy General Secretary ABS, P Leech, felt that the move
would lead to a dominance of BBC staff by the OU, would lead to a greater involvement in the control over areas of legitimate BBC interest and that a move of this sort would lead to the BBC staff losing their identity with the Corporation (RGJ/JFW 24 April 1977 notes of a meeting of 24 March 1977)
There had been tensions betwen the BBC and the oU and this discussion occured shortly before a dispute between the BBC and the OU about The Balcony (probably Jean Genet’s play, Le Balcon which was set in a brothel). In 1977 the BBC banned this and was rebuked by the Chancellor at the Alexandra Palace degree ceremony (Open House, 24 May 1977, OH 5 July 1977).
Should the OU be more centralized? Zvi Friedman, who joined the OU in 1970 and was later the Senior Systems Analyst, thought it should: (more…)
Launched on 8 May 1972 this publication was sent to all students (about 35,000 of them) and staff (about 5,000 people). It was designed to be a news service and the first issue carried a piece by Ray Thomas about who was using the OU and why. It was revealed that there was an interim editorial advisory group chaired by Michael Drake. Professor Drake said: ‘It must be more than a vehicle for student outrage or Walton Hall pap. It has got to be be seen to be independent’. It was predated by Open House ‘a weekly journal of news, views and information for and by the staff of the Open University’ which was launched in March 1970.
Forthcoming History of Education seminars to include contributions by Hilary Perraton and Dan Weinbren in Spring and Summer 2011. Seminars take place on Thursdays at 5.30pm
The final edition of the newspaper for all Social Sciences students and staff at The Open University, Society Matters, has been produced. Started in 1998 the end of Society Matters in this format signals a broader move across the OU towards electronic communication. Indeed a Society Matters Extra page of online material has been around for a few years. Assessing the impact of this trend towards greater reliance upon electronic communication and online learning will be part of The History Of The OU Project.
