At many universities students sign up to read for a degree (sometime called a course) rather than for a series of single modules (each one of which are sometimes called a course). At the OU students have to be enrolled not once for a degree but many times. How has this complexity arisen? Read the rest of this entry »
The first OU programme on Radio 3 was Arts Foundation Course 1, broadcast on 11 January 1971 between 7 and 7.30pm. Open House, 7th January, 1971, reported that the initial broadcast was repeated on Radio 4 on 17th January. Professor Asa Briggs, then the vice-chancellor of Sussex University, told the story of how the Humanities had changed over the years and Professor Ferguson examined the OU’s interdisciplinary approach. Derek Hart raised some questions. Read the rest of this entry »
The OU has produced many newspapers and magazines over the years. One of them was aimed at staff and students within Social Sciences. It ran between 1998-2010 in print format and according to the person who edited every edition, Dick Skellington, it sought
to engage readers with those realities which make up everyday life. It has championed the involvement of students themselves, questioned government and academic dogma, informed readers of our curriculum and research priorities, and provided a diverse array of short and informative, often amusing, stories, all embellished by fine photographs and illustrations plus contributions from our two highly talented student cartoonists
This is an example of the work of Catherine Pain a cartoonist For Society Matters and now one for the Open University Community Online Platform 
The University of the Air
The term ‘University of the Air’ was used by Harold Wilson on 8September 1963 when he announced plans for the body which became the OU. He said
Today I want to outline new proposals on which we are work in, a dynamic programme providing facilities for home study to university and higher technical standards, on the basis of a University of the Air and of nationally organised correspondence college courses.
He used the term again in a speech at the Labour Party Conference on 1 October, 1963. On 25 February 1966 the Labour government published a white paper, ‘A University of the Air’. George Catlin used the term in 1960 and Michael Young in 1962.[i] Anglia TV broadcast a series called College of the Air in 1963. Versions of the term had been used before prior to this time.
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Wilson’s speech in September 1963 is often seen as the beginnings of the OU. It is called ‘Wilson’s vision’, here. But from where did he get his ideas? One source was William Benton. Benton sponsored Harold Wilson’s trips to the USA in 1960, 1961 and 1962,and Wilson felt that Benton’s ‘heart was in academics and in politics’ (Harold Wilson, Memoirs: The Making of a Prime Minister, 1916-64, Weidenfeld & Nicolson and Michael Joseph, London, 1986). It was Benton who suggested in 1963 that Wilson and he have dinner with Geoffrey Crowther, the Vice Chair of the Editorial Board of the Encyclopaedia Britannica (EB) who, as chair of the Central Advisory Council for Education was responsible for the The Crowther Report – Fifteen to Eighteen (1959). Benton chaired EB. Crowther went to become the Foundation Chancellor of the OU. The first Vice Chancellor of the OU, Walter Perry, argued that Benton was one of the men whose vision of education for all, through correspondence teaching and the use of the mass media contributed to the decision to found the Open University (Walter Perry, Report of the Vice-Chancellor to the council, 1972, The Open University, Milton Keynes, 1973, p. 30) Read the rest of this entry »
There was considerable coverage given to the fortieth anniversary of the first OU television broadcasts on 3rd January 1971. A local freesheet in Milton Keynes, MK News included an image of an early broadcast. There was also material based on interviews with Michael Drake, who made many of the early social sciences programmes and with Sally Cromptron, the current head of the Open Broadcasting Unit. There was also a link to the timeline. The archives has more information about the content.
Although The Archers fan club has suggested ‘We don’t think that any character has studied with The Open University’, in recognition of the special interest group at the online Village Hall, Ambridge, where OU students meet, this blog is marking sixty years of the broadcasting of the soap by suggesting a connection.
As other postings have noted (eg 15th December 2010) many countries ran their own radio-inspired discussion groups for farmers and connected broadcasting to learning in ways upon which the OU could build. In the UK, however, the BBC opted not only for discussion groups but started to broadcast a radio soap, The Archers, in order to provide advice for farmers. In 1948 a farmer proposed to a Ministry of Agriculture meeting (held, according to one source, in Birmingham Council Chamber pictured) that a daily radio serial could help increase food production. BBC agricultural producer Godfrey Basely developed the notion and in 1951, the first episode of The Archers, including material from the Ministry of Agriculture, was broadcast. For an account see here.
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The OU has longed claimed that it supports its learners. In an article subtitled ‘Why doing a PhD is often a waste of time’ the Economist argued that nowadays doctoral students and postdoc contract staff in general and across many countries, are treated as cheap, highly motivated and disposable labour and that this is in part due to the mismatch bwetween the aims of the institutions and those of the students. There is no evidence presented as to whether this can reasonably be applied to the OU. If you have postgrad or postdoc experiences of the OU which might be in a debate about how far the OU serves the wider society and the extent to which it is customer-focused, do let us know.
Today is the anniversary of the broadcast of the OU’s final course-related television programme. At 5.30am on 16 December 2006 Art: a question of style: neo-classicism and romanticism was screened. Its conclusion brought to an end 36 years of broadcasting history. In this blog we’ve used photographs and other still images. In 2011, to mark the 40th anniversary of the 1st OU television programmes in January 1971, we aim to link to a clip of the first Open Forum. It was an attempt to support not merely teaching through transmission but learning through colloboration. Indeed the first Vice Chancellor, Walter Perry felt that ‘like Sesame, Open Forum plays an important role in our informal communications system’ (Walter Perry, Report of the Vice-Chancellor to the council, 1972, The Open University, Milton Keynes, 1973, p. 85).
While the OU has been associated with the construction and reconstruction of national identities, the idea of educational broadcasting helping to cement a notion of national identity did not originate with the OU. This note about Canadian broadcasts considers some of the precedents. There are some clips here. Read the rest of this entry »
