Exhibition: OU Research at 50

Research Publications

Since the very beginning of the University, academic staff and researchers have published their findings and promoted their research via many methods, and in many formats. Some of these publications have gone on to become well-established paradigm texts in their field – and a very small selection of these from The Open University Library’s book stock are shown in the image on this page. Some such texts have also been included in OU courses over the years as set books.

Published in 1971 and designated a set book for the Science foundation course S100, “Understanding the Earth” was edited by Peter Smith, Chris Wilson, and Head of Earth Sciences, Professor Ian Gass. It became a globally-recognised text on geology and a definitive work in what became known as the ‘Plate Tectonics Revolution’. The video clip on this page features Professor Gass discussing just a part of this theory on an S100 TV programme broadcast at around the time the book was published.

Oswald Hanfling, a member of the Philosophy department between 1971 and 1993, published several books but “Wittgenstein’s Later Philosophy” (1989) was thought to be his best and a very significant work on the philosopher.

The increasing influence of the internet allowed research to move online in order to reach an audience. In 1996, Professor Lorna Hardwick from the Classical Studies department established the online research project “Classical Receptions in Drama and Poetry in English c.1970 -2005”.

OU researchers have continued to publish their work in many formats – as we will see later when looking at the Open Research Online (ORO) database.