The Open University UK: sharing code and content

Web address of the case:

http://www.osor.eu/case_studies/the-open-univ...

Country of the case:

United Kingdom

Posting Date:

2 November 2009

Last Edited Date:

16 November 2009

Author:

OSOR.EU - Open Source Observatory and Repository (OSOR.eu)

Open University | Moodle | Open Learn

Type of initiative

Project or service

Case Abstract

In 2005 The Open University (OU) UK, one of Europe's largest distance learning universities, established that it was time to deploy a new Virtual Learning Environment (VLE), for both The Open University itself as well as for their OpenLearn project aimed at providing free open educational resources (OER) to the general public. A team with different sub-tasks was formed, which investigated future learning environments and how learning material was presented and disseminated through those. Next to this, the OU also researched open learning models, as part of the OpenLearn project. The team of researchers and technical staff, after setting out the components required to meet the OU's needs the most appropriate match was determined. The choice fell on the VLE Moodle, which is an open source product. Today the Moodle VLE has been successfully implemented at the OU and the OU has further published a significant amount of their learning material under a Creative Commons license as courses on the Moodle VLE based OpenLearn website, which are freely available to anyone interested. The OU continues to collaborate closely with the Moodle community , as this provides a very large platform for feedback and information. All the OU's development are given back to the Moodle community, which improves the product for the OU and the rest of the community.

Description of the case

Domain

eInclusion

Topic

ICT and community development | Other

Sector

Education, Science and Research

Date

October 2005 to February 2009

Target Users

Other

Target Users Description

Clearly the main users of the Moodle based Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) are the roughly 200.000 students, which The Open University's currently teaches. For them, the new system facilitates many functions regarding schedules, examinations, cooperation with fellow students, and so forth. Another important user group is the OU's staff. On the one hand there is a large body of academic staff, which develops the courses and content. This is then taught by roughly 7.000 tutors, who are distributed all over the UK and Europe. They are equally affected by the new system, as it facilitates their contact with students and other academic staff alike. The next group that is affected by the Moodle VLE consists of a large number of people that access the Open Learn platform. Essentially this can be anybody who is interesting in participating in some of the courses that are available in the platform. As Moodle is also the backbone of Open Learn, it is helpful for anyone who wants to navigate and find content on the platform.

Scope

National | Pan-European

Status

Operation

Language(s)

English

Policy Context and Legal Framework

The Open University UK is one of the largest distance learning universities in the world. Today, there are about 200,000 students enrolled in the various programs the OU offers, which are supported by around 7,000 tutors and academic staff members. The university was founded in 1970 and increased in size steadily over the years. For the most part of this history the OU has been highly dependent on paper-based communication with its students. With the rise of the Internet in the 1990s the OU adapted new ways of communication, as it has always tried to have a state of the art communication infrastructure. By 2005 there were several different programs running in the background of the online learning environment, each with a different user interface and hardly any common feel to them and the functionality also needed some improvement. The university thus formed several research teams with the task to investigate all aspects of a new learning environment. The teams did not only focus on the technical aspects of this undertaking but also had an eye on societal changes that started as a by product of the Internet. Eventually they concluded that the open source Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) Moodle would be the solution that meets most of their requirements, as it was stable, modular and due to its large user base, very sustainable in the future.

Project Size and Implementation

Type of initiative

IT infrastructures and products

Overall Implementation approach

Non-profit sector

Technology choice

Mainly (or only) open standards | Open source software

Funding source

Public funding national | Charity, voluntary contributions

Project size

Implementation: €5,000,000-10,000,000

Implementation and Management Approach

The perhaps biggest challenge in the introduction of the new VLE within the OU was related to change management. On the one hand, there were the technical innovations which had to be developed or improved, and on the other hand there was the staff and the students, who had to be carefully familiarized with the new solution and its functionality. The University had very high requirements with regard to the new VLE, since the system is at the core of their business. After all, communicating with their students through distances has always been, and will always be the teaching style at the Open University. In order to make sure that the technical part of the new OU internal VLE was understood by all academic staff, a series of about 45 events was held, which members from all faculties attended. In addition to that, there were also several trainings held within the faculties. And to make sure that all question would be answered in the future as well they set up a wiki for this. Eventually most people at the OU could see the rising importance of the Internet, especially for distance learning purposes, which justified a lot of the developments and changes that took place. And although the Internet makes many processes more interactive, the learners are still asked to pull out pen and paper, to do their work and practice.

Technology solution

Before the team decided to deploy Moodle as their VLE they conducted an extensive market study on potential solutions. Although the team did not exclude proprietary solutions, such as Blackboard, from the start, they soon found out that no other system but Moodle offered the functionality and more importantly the modularity that the OU's VLE needed to have. These teams worked closely together with the faculties and the academic staff, ensuring that the functionality would actually meet the demand. In addition to the team of developers other members of staff from the University helped out in the design and the testing of the new VLE, and whenever some non-technical expertise was required. Eventually, when the OU internal VLE was rolled out, the OU brought the largest number of users to the Moodle community at one single point. For the Moodle community this process was very beneficial, as deployments and improvements on such a large scale ultimately would improve the software for all users. Even though this was not the primary motivation for the OU to, the community behind the system was an important factor, since it ensured continuous support and improvements of the system. And in the same way that the OU benefited from this community, the community benefitted from the work of the OU.

Impact, innovation and results

Impact

With regard to the choice of an Open Source environment for their VLE, the University had tried different systems, of which Moodle simply appeared as the best choice for the OU. Admittedly the system still required a large number of of modifications, improvements, and additions, but today the system fulfils the OU's requirements. â€œThe fundamental point is that we have a working Virtual Learning Environment that is scalable, robust and feature rich and that is being used increasingly in our coursesâ€ highlights Niall Slater, director of Learning Innovations at the OU. Even though some people would have liked to see a dedicated commercial support partner in this process, the team in charge of the VLE quickly realized that the best source of expertise is freely reachable through the Moodle community. The invaluable feedback that they get for code contributions in the form of new developments or enhancements, through bug reports and discussions has become essential to the work on the OU's VLE. The altruistic approach clearly is a welcome addition to this, as not only the OU can benefit from this large project, but also any other Moodle users world wide. The reasons for this give-and-take relationship are thus of a mutual benefit, which is an important backbone of the Moodle community.

Track record of sharing

For the development of the Moodle VLE, the OU saw little need for direct cooperation with other universities, given that each university has different requirements and specific needs. What was right for the OU in this respect, may not not been the best solution for another university. The most important source of information and cooperation for the OU therefore was the Moodle community itself. As Niall Sclater illustrates: â€œWhat we've found is that with Moodle, we're part of the world wide community, and that's really the best forum for collaboration and development.â€ This means that you can get almost instant feedback for any development that you publish, and you may find answers for anything that you might want to develop. And by having a large user base, which Moodle certainly has with roughly 28 million users and 2,8 million courses, most bugs and glitches are found very quickly. Responding to the question if the University has a concrete partner university, or outside support company somewhere in the UK or Europe, Sclater says: â€œIt wouldn't make sense to restrict it to the UK or Europe. You're not getting all the expertise that's around.â€ With regard to the code contributions, the OU uploads most developments to the community that they consider ready for a wide use. As mentioned earlier, this is very important for the community and the OU alike, given that both benefit greatly from this. Through the forums and discussion boards, the OU can learn about shortcomings of their development and improve them accordingly.

Lessons learnt

Especially in the early phase of the project, the OU however also faced several barriers to which solutions had to be found. Sclater mentions a few points, which he has also described in a book chapter on strategic IT management of learning institutions (Sclater, 2008): â€“ Lack of awareness â€“ Lack of incentives â€“ Concern to avoid alienating students â€“ Risk aversion These are just a few key points. From a technical perspective, the choice of Moodle as the OU's VLE shows how Open Source products can be well capable of competing with proprietary solutions. It was and is seen as the best available solution that would meet the OU's demands on stability, flexibility, scalability, and also very important: support. Compared to commercial software deployments, Moodle does not rely on one support partner, but features a community of users world wide. With more than 2,5 million registered courses and roughly 28 million users, this is a substantial source of feedback and information, which is invaluable to the work of the OU. By contributing to this community with their own developments, they create a win-win situation, as their tools improve with all the feedback and assistance, and all others users benefit from the additional functionalities added by the OU. With regard to change management, the OU's case shows that the real costs of introducing a new system do not trace back only to software licenses, development work or hardware acquisitions, but also to the change management. The OU's case confirms once again that old habits have to be broken and resistance to be overcome, which in the case of the OU was done as a step-by-step approach, with guidance of every step that helped fundamentally in creating acceptance and understanding.

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