This document outlines Chrissi Nerantzi's PhD research exploring cross-boundary learning in open online courses. The research involved two case studies of open cross-institutional courses for academic development. Data was collected through surveys and interviews with participants and analyzed using phenomenography to identify categories of description. The findings were used to develop a proposed cross-boundary collaborative open learning framework for cross-institutional academic development. The framework is intended to inform the design of open courses and engagement patterns to support learning with others across institutional boundaries.