The poster describes the OULDI project undertaken by the Open University within the JISC Curriculum Design Transformation programme.

1. Open University Learning Design Initiative (OULDI)
Overview Gráinne Conole (Project Leader)
The OULDI team are based at The Open University Andrew Brasher
(UK) and the project is supported by four partner Rebecca Galley
universities: the University of Reading, Brunel
Simon Cross
Juliette Culver
Cloudworks
University, the University of Cambridge and London http://cloudworks.ac.uk
Paul Mundin
South Bank University. Paul Clark
Martin Weller
Our aim is to develop and implement a methodology
for learning design composed of tools, practice and
other innovation that both builds upon, and
contributes to, existing academic and practitioner
research. Collaboration &
We are interested in providing support for the entire dialogue
design process: from gathering initial ideas, through
consolidating, producing and using designs, to The Open University Learning Design Initiative
sharing, reuse and community engagement. These applies a design approach to teaching and learning
are complex and challenging processes that involve processes with the aim of enabling practitioners to
a range of stakeholders with different interests; issues make more informed choices about their creation of One of the overarching findings from
and representations are different depending on analysis of the empirical evidence we have
whether design occurs at the level of individual learning interventions and better use of good
gathered to date into how practitioners
activity, course or curriculum. Our vision is of a pedagogy and new technologies. An approach which: currently design their teaching interventions,
learning design methodology and suite of practical and what would help improve their practice,
tools and resources that bridge good pedagogic Utilises a shared design language to both generate is the desire to have examples from others
practice and effective use of new technologies. designs and as a mechanism for interpreting and and to have access to a network of
practitioners to share and discuss ideas. The
The project is supported by strategic development
discussing Cloudworks site was developed with the
funding from the Open University and by JISC as Uses a notational system which helps us remember intention of addressing this need. We wanted
part of the new Curriculum Design programme. The and navigate designs, enables designs to take form to harness the best of social media practice
OULDI project focuses on three aspects of design: and be shared, and helps us sharpen and multiply for use in a learning and teaching context.
Cloudworks now has (May 2011) over 4,000
abstract design categories registered users and is regularly used by a
·Collaboration & dialogue - mechanisms to And recognises that different representations of a
encourage the sharing, discussion and reuse of great number of UK based and international
learning and teaching ideas. design are needed to articulate certain elements of communities with an interest in education.
·Representation - the identification of different the design, while ignoring others.
In August 2010 the code that powers
types of design representation and use of a range Cloudworks ‘CloudEngine’ was released on
of tools to help visualise and represent designs. It sees design as a conscious process which involves a GNU General Public Licence. The software
·Theoretical approaches - the development of a a dialogue both with and about the materials. It is enables people to easily set up their own
body of empirical research and conceptual tools to CloudEngine-powered site with loads of
help guide the design decision-making process and
seen as a creative and communicative process and
features.
to provide a shared language to enable comparisons an essentially social activity.
to be made between different designs.
Representation
Theoretical approaches
CompendiumLD
CompendiumLD is a software tool for From the outset we felt it important that our development
designing learning activities using a of a learning design methodology and tools should be
flexible visual interface. It is being informed by empirical research and evidence gathered
developed as a tool to support lecturers, from within the university, in addition to drawing on the
teachers and others involved in wider literature. Our methodology consists of four
education to help them articulate their interconnected facets: understanding design - through
ideas and map out a design or learning gathering empirical evidence about design; visualising
sequence. Feedback from users design - as a means of articulation and representation;
suggests the process of visualising guiding design - through appropriate scaffolds and
design makes design ideas more support; and sharing design - to inspire and encourage
explicit and highlights issues that they uptake and reuse.
might not have noticed otherwise. It also
One of the OULDI project’s key aspirations is provides a useful means of representing Empirical evidence has included:
to enable teachers to shift away from a focus their designs so that they can be shared The collection of user requirements,
on content and subject matter to thinking more with others. CompendiumLD provides a In-depth interviews (12) with teachers/designers to gain
holistically and laterally about the design set of icons to represent the components a better understanding of the ways in which they go
process. We have developed a set of of learning activities; these icons may about designing learning activities. These have
conceptual representations designed to be dragged and dropped, then
focussed on the process of design: How do teachers go
promote thinking and dialogue about different connected to form a map representing
about the process of design? How do they generate
pedagogical approaches and the effective use a learning activity.
ideas and what kinds of support do they use? How do
of technologies. These representations, or
they share their designs with others? What are the
‘views’ have been developed in collaboration
with the institutional ‘Course Business Models’ barriers to design? How do they evaluate their designs?
project at the Open University: from workshops and events
Around fifty questionnaire responses to various surveys
The Course Map View about aspects of learning design
The Course Dimensions view Records of comments and discussion at many events
The Pedagogy Profile including three focus groups (Cloudfests) held in Autumn
The Learning Outcomes view 2008 involving 15 staff.
The Task Swimlane view Participant observation, co-working and support in several
course settings
In addition, two data-driven views have been Expert evaluation of software tools
produced, one giving an indication of the cost
effectiveness of the course, derived from Further information about the Initiative
finance data about the course and one giving
an indication of the course performance, CompendiumLD is a specialised version of Website: http://ouldi.open.ac.uk
derived from student and tutor survey data the mindmapping and argumentation software
and information on course retention and Compendium, developed by the Knowledge Gráinne Conole (Project Leader)
progression. Media Institute(KMi) at the OU. blog: http://e4innovation.com