Archive for November 9th, 2010

Open to ideas

Tuesday, November 9th, 2010

The second main session of Opening Up The Open University again offered a diverse range of persepectives on some of the ideas that have contributed to the OU’s history.

The first speaker was Professor Dave Harris from UCP Marjon who considered the OU’s impact on the HE sector. He explained the radical appeal of the OU and drew attention to the view of Brian Lewis, one of the first IET professors, that ‘irrelevant scholastic displays must be eliminated’ (1971). Prof Harris credited the OU with breaking down academic language into more simple, logical forms of communication, and highlighted the influence of individuals who moved on from the OU in introducing ‘managerialism’ to the rest of the sector. (more…)

Open to people and places

Tuesday, November 9th, 2010

OU target student?

Opening Up The Open University, which took place on 3 November, was divided into three plenary sessions – Open to people and places; Open to methods; and Open to ideas – reflecting the University’s mission, as set out by Lord Crowther in 1969.

Despite the project’s best efforts to encourage contributions from the University outside Walton Hall, the first session, chaired and introduced by Project Sponsor Professor David Vincent, concentrated more on how open the University had been to people, rather than to places. (more…)