History of the OU

Top of the blogs listing for the History of the OU, as we post this posting.  With this, our 120th posting, we have averaged over two postings a week for each week since we started posting a year ago. If you flick through the material you’ll find we’ve used film clips, photos and links to relevant bits and pieces. But which has been the material which has supported your learning? Provided a contact? Given you a laugh? We welcome comments and ideas relating to the blog. And no, we didn’t solicit the below tweets.

2011 marks the conclusion of the first two decades of an European association for distance learning open to institutions and individuals. This not-for-profit company, EDEN, the European Distance and E-learning Network, is interested in formal and non-formal education and training at all levels. It holds conferences, supports the European Journal of Open, Distance and E-Learning and provides support and advice for a range of projects. It has close associations with the OU, for example Alan Tait is a former President and former VC, Sitr John Daniel is to address the EDEN annual conference in June 2011.  For more on ‘this other Eden, demi-paradise’, as Shakespeare almost called it and for information about the forthcoming conference click here.

The death in January this year of Eric Robinson is an event which could be noted by historians of the OU because the 1966 White Paper which became the basis for the OU was published within months of the decision to create the polytechnics with which Robinson was so closely associated. The title of his book, The New Polytechnics: The People’s Universities (1968) indicates that there were competing ideas as to the best way to open up higher education and support students living at home. He starts the text with the words:

Sooner or later this country must face a comprehensive form of education beyond school – a reform which will bring higher education out of the ivory towers and make it available to all. … The future pattern of higher education in this country can be set in the development of these institutions [ie the polytechnics] as comprehensive people’s universities. This book is written in the hope of accelerating this process.

His vision of education might well have been shared by many staff at the OU. While the approaches of many polytechnics differed from the approach of the OU, there were some common roots. In a critique of the ‘disaster’ of Blair’s educational policies Robinson stressed the importance of  ‘democratic control of education’ and concluded that

Socialist education is to promote the power of the people, to make democracy work and to empower individuals to direct their own lives and not to tolerate being pushed around by those with “merit”.

 That is how AHRC Council member Rick Trainor described the Economic History Society session on ‘The Big Society’. In recent days there has been much debate about the role of the AHRC in regard to The Big Society. In regard to this matter there are comments and further links available via the Times Higher and the New Statesman and there is an account by James Sumner. The academic conference debate attended by Professor Trainor was was an example of academics coming together to assess the idea within a historical context.  The government might not frame its social, educational and economic policies in the light of the ideas constructed and contested by academics but it now has to option to consider their views and analysis.

Off to the Economic History Society conference to contribute a paper on ‘The Big Society’ and listen to papers on a variety of subjects.

‘Universities’ Bernard Crick argued, ‘are part of society and, in both senses of the word, a critical part which should be playing a major role in the wider objectives of creating a citizenship culture’ (Bernard Crick, Essays on citizenship, 2000, p. 145). Taking the example of the role of The Open University indicates the benefits of conceptualising the relationship between the Big Society and the Big State as reciprocal, rather than employing dichotomous taxonomy. Read the rest of this entry »

When discussing the history of The Open University and the impact it has made on the world of higher education more widely, one of the aspects most often mentioned is the impact of the course team. This collective approach to course production stood in contrast to the individually prepared lectures offered in conventional institutions. Read the rest of this entry »

Hilary Perraton was closely involved with the National Extension College, NEC, a precusor of the OU, from 1964 until 1971. He promoted the idea that a multi-media teaching programme is likely to be more effective than one which relies on a single medium. He went on to become a Co-Director of the International Extension College, a non-profit consultative organization on distance teaching and to work at the Commonwealth Secretariat, at the International Research Foundation for Open Learning and to chair the Commonwealth Scholarship Commission.  Read the rest of this entry »

During late March the flowers were out at Walton Hall and so were members of the University and College Union. They went on strike to defend pensions and jobs. The union argued that employer had failed to engage with the union’s claims regarding job security and pay and (in the case of the OU and other pre-92 HE institutions) the proposed changes to the Universities Superannuation Scheme. At the same time UCU members were being asked to accept a 0.4% pay increase, despite RPI running at nearly 5%, and to also accept that there could be no national framework to defend jobs (threatened by government funding plans).

The OU has been affected by strikes in the past, not always by employees. Read the rest of this entry »

One of the ways in which the OU has had an impact is in helping learners transfer their skills and apply their formally assessed learning within the informal sector. It has enabled the production of knowledge outside the academy through a commitment to communities of ex-students. Students, many of whom had never met one another, have been encouraged to go on to form informal, voluntary, convivial, educational communities of practice based on those studies. These have enabled them to achieve together that which they could not separately. There are many OU examples of partnerships and traffic across what has been characterised as a ‘moving frontier’ between the state and civil society.

Between 1976 and 1985 a second level module, Art and environment, did not offer practical skills in painting or sculpture nor did it offer art criticism or cognitive skills. Rather it dealt with ‘the processes and attitudes of art’ and sought to develop ‘strategies for creative work’. Members of the society created by former students of the module, ‘share skills, experiences, ideas and knowledge of creativity and personal growth’.

Created, in 1998, by students and staff from an interdisciplinary third level module, The Family & Community Historical Research Society has conducted a range of connected local historical projects, encourages links between institutionally based and independent researchers and offers its own Continued Learning courses. This society is formally registered as a charity.

A first level digital photography module which was first presented in 2007 encourages students to upload photographs and discuss them online. Former students have established their own online groups in order to continue to collaborate.

In September 2010 the work of 36 OU students was collated into a book by fellow student Esther Clark At home with words includes 72 short stories and poems, many written for A215 Creative Writing but others written especially for the book. All profits from the book will go to Cancer Research UK which was also sponoired by a specialist letting company, Leaders.

If you know of a course which inspired people to go on learning together, please contact us.

On Thursday 19 May 2011 at the Institute of Historical Research in London there will be a celebration, co-hosted with the British Association for Victorian Studies, to mark the 90th birthday of the distinguished historian, Asa Briggs. At this one-day colloquium, his contributions to Victorian studies and to the history of communication will be assessed. His role in the growth of modern universities will also be considered. Postscript: podcasts of the event can be found here.

Read the rest of this entry »