1. Course Production at the Open University Jim Ellis Head of Interactive Media

2. Agenda Open University background Learning & Teaching Solutions (LTS) Course production Learning technology Learning design ‘People’ issues The future

3. The Open University “Open to people, places, methods and ideas. It promotes educational opportunity and social justice by providing high quality university education to all who wish to realise their ambition and fulfil their potential.” Over 2m students and 325,000 degrees since 1971 Currently 220,000 students 4,500 staff at Milton Keynes + 8,000 Associate Lecturers 580 courses, 200 different awards. Most popular (2004): –Introduction to social science (9,222 students) –Introduction to the humanities (7,048) –Understanding health and social care (5,429)

4. Learning & Teaching Solutions LTS works with academic faculties to generate and support course materials and services Course materials production (print, CD, DVD, online, OpenLearn) Learning and teaching systems and services (e.g. VLE) Intellectual property, co-publishing, set books Storage and distribution Student computing helpdesk Project planning, management, finance, quality, testing, resourcing, outsourcing, recruitment, staff development

5. Learning & Teaching Solutions 500 staff, €40m turnover 8 academic faculties: –Arts- Business school –Education & languages - Health & social care –Maths & computing - Science –Social sciences - Technology 9 Account Managers & 23 Project Managers Approx 50 editors, 25 programmers, 20 graphics, 30 media assistants, project support, testing, secretarial, etc

6. Course team LTS team course manager copublishingprocurement sound & vision rights software academic team media project manager graphicsediting course chair tech testing media account manager associate dean comp servs librarydisabilitiesexamsIETstudent servs media assist learning design?

7. Project Management

8. Clarity – define as much as we can as early as we can Consistency – common terms, systems, methods Control – of risks through checkpoints and sign-offs

9. Technology How does this impact on “supported open & distance learning”?

10. Three major projects Structured Authoring Enterprise Content Management Virtual Learning Environment PRESENTPRODUCEPREPARE PDF Word HTML SCORM IMS OU VLE Schema Struct Auth XMetaL Web Form EXE etc, etc XSLT ECM Digital Asset Management

11. VLE OU VLE 1.0 (23 Jan 07) based on Moodle 1.7 Additional 1.8 functionality and accessibility being added Basic course web sites (text, graphics, resource links, course calendar, etc) Moodle quiz and OpenMark eAssessment Blogs and wikis Simple ePortfolio Federated search tool

12. Open University Learning & Teaching Solutions

14. VLE challenges to date General code base Integration with existing OU systems Accessibility Roles and permissions Internal communications –VLE Developers’ Wiki –Other LTS developers –Academics

16. OU paradoxes We want to be consulted –Everything takes too long ‘Leading the learning revolution’ –Move to greater templating & reuse Content-light, online, learning objects –Academics and students like textbooks Social constructivism –Are all students ready to participate in Web 2.0?

17. The future? Student activities and needs & Learning outcomes Not technology