Exhibition: The Open Programme

‘U’ courses: an early commitment to interdisciplinary modules

In addition to the Foundation courses outlined in the OU’s original academic strategy, the ‘Kettle Plan’ (1974, named after Professor Arnold Kettle - the first OU Professor of Literature - who chaired the working group) proposed that the academic aims of the University should include (but not be limited to) a number of ‘more general, broadly-based courses’ (modules). It was expected that many of these would fall within what the Academic Board and its Courses Sub-Committee classed as the University ('U') category, implying that they wouldn’t necessarily fit conveniently within any one discipline or even Faculty. Despite some disagreement over the merits, or otherwise, of such broad courses, the OU's governing body (the Senate) accepted that offering a proportion of more general, supporting courses would provide an accessible route into higher education for a variety of students whose ‘majoring’ interests weren’t identical.

(Incidentally, the 'U' for University category is why many of the cross-discipline modules were given a module code beginning with U. Traditionally, OU modules have a designated code which includes a letter or series of letters denoting the subject matter or Faculty who have created the module, and the first number in the code shows the level of study - so for example, S100 was an early first-level Science module. As the OU has expanded and developed over the years, additional letters and combinations have been added with different meanings.)

In order to prepare the student to master the skills and disciplines expected at a more rigorous university level, the criteria for the OU’s first ‘U’ courses (22 in total) were set out as follows:

1. They must deal with subjects of a reasonably wide general interest;
2. They must need a minimum of formal pre-requisites (not more than one specific foundation course and preferably not even that), otherwise they will be unavailable to too many students;
3. Their subject-matter must be relevant to several areas of study (ie. ‘majoring’ areas);
4. They must not pre-suppose knowledge of a specialist language or jargon.

However, decisions about what other courses should be offered for students to build their qualification from, in terms of the allocation of courses and resources to individual faculties, were subject to much debate.

The Dean of the Faculty of Technology at the time, Professor John Sparkes, supported the OU’s approach to ‘U courses’ by saying that:

“These are courses in which academic material is selected through its relevance to real world problems – but at the same time the real world problems are selected to expose the essential academic topics… We believe the courses we have so far evolved break new ground in curriculum design, and their (on the whole) enthusiastic reception in the academic world suggests we are on the right lines.” (Sesame (OU student newspaper), December 1974)

This commitment to ‘breaking new ground’ in curriculum design and focusing on real world problems is an approach that continues to be embraced by the Open Programme team to this day and remains popular with students.