OpenLearn and the Users Experience

The Users’ Experience

Patrick McAndrew, Research & Evaluation Director

OpenLearn, The Open University

29th November 2007

Users: Learners and Educators

Formal education- Sticks and carrots

• Qualifications• Progression• Peer approval

• Assignment deadlines• Examinations• Tutors who call

Open education- What sticks and carrots?

• Qualifications• Progression• Peer approval

• Assignment deadlines• Examinations• Tutors who callX

Reasons for study (data from initial study of OpenLearn registered users March 2007)

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Professionaldevelopment

Interest Hobby Job progress Job change Study

Courses users want

What users like

http://tagcrowds.com (Thanks to Gill Clough for pointer!)

“I like the idea of learning for pleasure as opposed to learning to achieve targets.”

“Free learning that you can dip into at your leisure.”

“Ability to try OU course units before registering for the course.”

“To upgrade skills … and to meet the requirements for the jobs”

How users see OpenLearn

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45

Content Taster Free Easy/Fun

OpenLearn as formal learning

Results 1 - 10 of about 11,800 from openlearn.open.ac.uk for work

OpenLearn informal learning

“I would like to meet any student that are on similar courses as me. :-)”

“I live in New Zealand and wonder if there are many kiwis registered. If so it would be nice to know. :-)”

Results 1 - 10 of about 214 from openlearn.open.ac.uk for fun.

It is just for fun. Your answers are not assessed, so don't worry about getting things wrong.

Context and community matter

Anne’s story

Producer view

Content in XML

Lessons.zip

Formats

Time

Access

Collaboration

Things are happening…

Reaching out

Looking to the future: disaggregation