University of the second chance

This is part 10 of my series on the history and impact of distance education. On Friday in part 9 we looked at how satellite technology has impacted upon global communication and e-learning. Today's post is all about the Open University model of distance education.

Under the Labour government of Harold Wilson, the UK’s Ministry of Education decided upon the ambitious plan of establishing a university that would confer degrees entirely delivered at a distance. It was higher education for all, regardless of age, social or economic status. Wilson’s government advisors proposed the name ‘University of the Air’ to acknowledge the institution's predominant form of proposed delivery method – broadcast telvision and radio. It was not long, however, before the UK government realised that the correspondence tools first established in Victorian times were still very valuable. Eventually, in 1969 the Open University (OU) was born, opening its 'doors' to students two years later.

With the OU came a whole new set of benchmarks for quality in distance education. Yet the British Open University was not the first Open University. That honour probably belongs to the University of South Africa (UNISA) which was established a few years prior to the British OU. However, under the guidance of several luminaries from the world of distance education, including the late Charles Wedemeyer (University of Wisconsin), the OU flourished and established a model of best practice that many subsequent open universities emulated. Now known as 'mega universities', several open universities around the world that deliver degrees predominantly via distance education can now boast over 1 million students. Indira Gandhi University in India is the largest with a staggering 2.5 million students enrolled each year.

The OU’s current foray into electronic forms of learning such as web based learning and computer mediated communications is an extension of its tried and tested model of distance-blended learning. Many OU courses have face to face tutorial contact and week long summer schools built into their structure, but most of the learning process is still conducted away from the parent institution, based in Milton Keynes. Regular television and radio broadcasts are still used, as are a range of other methods including online delivery, mailouts, and the OU still maintains a close partnership with the government owned British Broadcasting Corporation with a regular schedule of programmes broadcast on radio and television.

On a personal note, as an OU graduate myself (BSc (Hons) Psychology 1995 - 1st Class) I would like to pay tribute to the OU and all that it does. It really is the University of the Second Chance. I blew it at school, and left with few academic qualifications. I simply wasn't interested in study at the time. My teacher told my parents 'Steve's a very sociable lad, but he'll never be an academic!' Well, the OU gave me my second chance when I needed it (and teachers don't know everything). When I met Sir John Daniel (then the OU Vice Chancellor) over a few drinks during a conference in Ankara back in 1998, we talked long about the history of the OU and how it had changed so many lives, including mine. Sitting with us were a number of other pioneers of distance education, namely Tony Bates and Michael Moore (no not that one), and I'm still in touch with them to this day. They had a lot of stories to tell about the early days of the mega-universities, but that's for another blog post....

Tomorrow: Part 11: Spinning the Web

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Trail blazers

The EDEN Conference in Lisbon this year runs like a Who’s Who in of Distance Education and so it should. EDEN is one of the largest of its kind and everyone seems to flock here each year to rub shoulders with the good and the great. OK, so I’m waxing a little lyrical, but last night I had conversations with some long serving distance educators and what many would consider pioneers in the field, and it is a little humbling to think how much they did to lay the foundations of what has become a huge global force in education.

Tony Bates is here, and tells me he celebrates 70 years on this planet next year. Michael Moore is here, taking a sabbatical in the UK this coming autumn, before his final year at Penn State. I met them both for the first time at a conference in Turkey in 1997, and didn’t know who either of them were. I do now. Got their books, collected the handshakes.

Desmond Keegan is on the list of delegates and so is Torstein Rekkedal, who picked up a Senior EDEN Fellow award at the reception event. Alan Tait presides over the EDEN family in his perpetually genial mode. I also met Lani Gunawardena for the first time, over from New Mexico to take part, and look forward to hearing her keynote address later this week. There are others here who would probably love to be mentioned in the same blog as these uber-professionals. But I won’t. There is a subtle shuffling for position from some of the younger pretenders, but the simple fact is, most of the above people were in distance education before it was called distance education, and most of them grappled with connecting remote learners when there was little to choose from but correspondence courses and audio conferencing.

With the advent of Web 2.0, mobile phones and wireless technologies, their theories and exploits may seem a little dusty and out of date. But make no mistake, without their dedication and prescience, we would not be in the healthy position we are in now with virtual universities, e-learning and any-time, any-where education. So raise a glass to the trail blazers of distance education. I’m glad I met them. Oh, and the picture above is one I took over the parapet at St George's Castle yesterday. It's a view across the north of the city. Wish you were here?