This document outlines a research program exploring the implications of an increasingly open learning environment. The program will examine openness in design, delivery, evaluation, and research of education. It will define openness in each context and consider issues like sharing the design process, adopting open delivery models, using learner data for evaluation, and capitalizing on open access research. The goals are to better understand open educational resources, foster communities around teaching ideas, and ensure learning leverages the latest research. Benefits include increased sharing, transparency, and reputation for leading open education. The roadmap details activities to develop the vision, theoretical frameworks, partnerships, and case studies evaluating outputs. Resources will focus on external funding but also internal support to ensure strategic alignment

1. Learning in an open world Research Programme
Gráinne Conole
Vision
The aim of this research strand is to explore the impact that an increasingly
‘open’ technologically mediated learning environment will have on learning in the
future. In a world where content and expertise is often free and where services
are shifting to the ‘cloud’, what are the implications for education? The research
programme takes a particular position on the notion of “openness”; considering it
from a broad perspective covering each major phase of the academic lifecycle:
design, delivery, evaluation and research. One of the first tasks of the new group
will be to flesh out what openness means in each of these context. But below are
some indications of focus:
• “Open design”: what would a vision of a truly open approach to design
mean; beyond open educational resources towards a more explicit
representation and sharing of the whole design process? A scenario of the
future might be as follows: “A newly formed course team brainstorm their
initial ideas for the course, using visual representations which make
conveying and sharing the essence of their ideas easy. They share this
opening with others, through appropriate web 2.0 technologies. They
invite comments – from other subject experts, from past students, from
potential students. They use the web 2.0 space to continue to develop and
refine their ideas, incorporating peer critique and leaving a visible audit
trail of their design decisions and development process.”
• “Open delivery”: With a shift towards more open practices the boundaries
between traditional, formal educational contexts and other non-formal and
informal learning contexts are changing. What would adopting a more

2. open approach to delivery mean? What will be the impact of mixing
institutional systems and freely available services? How can a more
dialogic engagement for learning and teaching be fostered, starting as part
of the design process described above but then carried forward during the
delivery process?
• “Open evaluation”: How can we harness and utilise the data we collect
about learners on our course? How can we build on the understanding
developed as part of the learner experience research work and the
associated new methodologies? What new methodologies and
approaches might we develop to gain new insights into the impact of a
changing technological context for learning?
• “Open research”: What will be the impact of the Open Access Movement for
learning? How can we capitalise on the rich research data, which is now
being made available on a global scale?
Principles
Given the nature of the research focus it will be important to ‘practise what we
preach’ in terms of trying to adopt as open an approach as possible. Indeed
many of the principles listed here are equally applicable to IET overall. However
aspects of the vision are challenging and hence it is likely that conflicts and
issues will arise. It will be important to surface these and to document them; as
understanding these challenges will be an important part of the journey towards
openness. Nonetheless the following are suggested as guiding principles for the
research area. The principles are that it should:
• be “open” in as broad a sense as possible
• foster and enable dialogue around learning and teaching ideas and
designs

3. • aim to result in aggregation and cumulative benefit with the ultimate aim of
enhancing the learner’s experience
• be based on the notion of sharing and peer critiquing
• encourage serendipity, lateral thinking and new perspectives.
Benefits
Understanding the nature of openness in the context of a rapidly changing
educational context is important from a research perspective but also has a
number of practical, tangible benefits.
• Better understanding of how OER (Open Educational Resources) can be
design and repurposed should lead to a much greater uptake of their use.
• Adopting a more open approach to the design process should lead to
better sharing of learning and teaching ideas and the creation of a vibrant
community of scholarship around learning and teaching. Making designs
more explicit will help the meaning of the designers to be more easily
conveyed to those delivering courses and to the learners.
• Capitilising on the outputs of the Open Access Movement will help us to
shift to a research-led approach to teaching; ensuring that learning is
informed by the very latest research findings.
Impact
As outlined there are real tangible benefits to adopting this approach and these
are likely to have an impact in a number of ways:
• More transparency in terms of how our educational provision is designed,
delivered and evaluated

4. • Better sharing and discussion of learning and teaching, leading ultimately
to a cultural change in practice
• The university will build its reputation for leading the way in terms of
“openness” in education, redefining what the “open university” means
• IET as a showcase both within the institution and externally for cutting-
edge research in educational technology, in foregrounding exemplars of
good practice in learning and teaching, and in demonstrating how
“openness” can be instantiated using innovative tools and new
approaches.
Roadmap
The following is just a wish list at the moment and will need to be refined, but it
gives an indication of the types of activities that might be undertaken in this
research strand. In addition in consultation with the group, a more detailed
roadmap and associated priorities will need to be drawn up.
• The Openness roadmap – short to medium term
o Broad consultation on the vision and fleshing out of the core
concepts
o Mapping this research stand to the other IET research areas and
related research areas across the university
o Articulation of core research questions for the strand
o Creating a detailed mapping of existing work and a roadmap of
potential future research activities
• Development of theoretical perspectives – medium to long term
o Desk research of broader perspectives and related research fields

5. o Clearer articulation of the different kinds of mediating artefacts (and
in particular visual representations) which will be needed to support
adopting an open approach
o Continued work on consolidating our understanding of the different
representations of design (and in particular visualisation)
o Clarification of theoretical basis, starting from a socio-cultural
approach
o (Socio-cultural and design perspectives in terms of theoretical
perspectives)
• Collaboration and partnerships (identify potential projects) medium to long
term
o Identifying connections with related research centres and forging of
strategic alliances
o Opportunistic partnership through relevant funding calls
o Strategic involvement in relevant national and international events
• Events and community engagement - throughout
o A mixture of real and virtual event delivered both internally and
externally, which demonstrate our approach. Some will focus on
capacity building, whilst others will be more research orientated
o Consolidation of OULDI work to date – development of a
comprehensive set of resources and guidelines and a roadshow
(series of awareness raising events and workshops); a series of
longitudinal intervention case studies of application of OULDI tools
and resources in consultation with faculty reps and aligning with
institutional/faculty priorities

6. o Roll out and embedding of Cloudworks within IET and the institution
more widely
o Building on the CompendiumLD work, consensus on what is
needed in terms of tools for visualisation
o Development of guidelines and support mechanisms to help people
adopt a more open approach and take up some of the outputs of
the research work in their practice
o Development of an IER showcase of learning and teaching and of
educational technology research
• Empirical evidence - throughout
o Evaluating case studies within the OU demonstrating the
application of the outputs from the research work – for example
application of the learning design and OER work
• Alignment of existing projects – short to medium term
o Continuation of OULDI – through ring fencing of relevant staff time
o OLnet (March 09 – March 12)
o HE Academy – OER and Cloudworks case study (July 09-March
10)
o OULDI-JISC Curriculum Design project (Sept 08-March 12)
o X-Delia (March 09-Feb 12)
o EU-funded OPAL OER project (Jan 10 – Dec 11)
o EU-funded Cyprus/Greece OULDI project (Oct 09-Oct 11)
o Personal Inquiry

7. o English in action
• Potential new projects
o Development of a web-based visualisation tool
o Applying “openness” to the student context
Resources
Whilst clearly a major focus needs to be on securing external funding, the
success of the OULDI strategically funded work over the last two years
demonstrates the value of allocating internal resources to the research strands to
ensure that they are grounded, are strategically aligned and have institutional
impact.