This presentation examines the challenges for the distance and e-learning community to become prisoners of our own identity if we fail to understand the changing landscape from distance learning to open education. Distance and e-;learning is no longer an independent field, but an important part of a larger field of open education.

1. From distance learning to open
education: a changing landscape
MESI-ICDE ‘Connecting the World! ‘
Moscow September 2014
Alan Tait
Professor of Distance Education and Development
The Open University UK
From distance learning to open education 1

2. From distance learning to open education 2
From distance learning to open education: a
changing landscape
Alan Tait
Professor of Distance Education and
Development
The Open University UK

3. Lost city of Dunwich
From distance learning to open education 3
• In the Anglo-Saxon
period, Dunwich was the
capital of the East Angles
but the harbour and most
of the town have since
disappeared due to
coastal erosion. At its
height it was an
international port similar
in size to 14th-century
London.

4. All Saints Church Dunwich, 1832 and
1906
From distance learning to open education 4

5. To the right
of the
diagonal
blue line: all
gone!
From distance learning to open education 5

6. From correspondence education to
distance education 1970-1980’s
• From private sector correspondence colleges
to open universities
• From ICCE to ICDE 1982
• Change of language
• Open universities new powerful actors,
pushing aside commercial correspondence
colleges
• New landscape
From distance learning to open education 6

7. Dominance of Open Universities
• EADTU founded 1987
• Core members: Open Universities of Western
Europe, 1 per country
• Open Universities the paradigm of innovation
with technologies for learning
• Scale
• Access and quality
From distance learning to open education 7

8. The distribution of innovation: Dual
mode institutions
• EDEN, founded in 1991
• ‘new Europe’, i.e. East, Central and West
• Dual mode and blended institutions
• All sectors, not just Higher Education
• Innovation seen as distributed
• Open Universities major players but not
monopolies in ODL
From distance learning to open education 8

9. Neither distance nor campus, but TEL
• Association for Learning
Technology
• Founded 1993 in UK
• Conference; journal;
professional certification
• ‘Our purpose is to ensure that use
of learning technology is effective
and efficient, informed by
research and practice, and
grounded in an understanding of
the underlying technologies, their
capabilities and the situations
into which they are placed’
• Online Educa
• Founded 1995
• Education in all sectors;
employers; government
‘ONLINE EDUCA BERLIN is the
event for learning
professionals to discover
innovative solutions, absorb
new thinking and take action
by implementing changes in
the field of learning and
technology’
From distance learning to open education 9

10. From Distance Learning to Open
Education
• Via Open Learning (major discussion in 1989/1990)
• ODL: Open and Distance Learning
• E-learning
• Web-based learning
• Online learning
• Mobile learning
• Flexible learning
• Distributed learning
Then move out of ODL institutions post 2000
• TEL: Technology enhanced learning
• OER’S, MOOCs, and Open Education
From distance learning to open education 10

11. From distance education to open
education
• All campuses have learning management systems
• Learning resources available on campus through LMS
• Students on campus Email with lecturers
• Assignments submitted electronically
• MOOCs within modules
• Learning decentred from campus
• Edinburgh University and postgraduate students: aim
for postgraduate teaching parity of numbers of campus
and distance in 10 years
• c. 100 of 160 UK Universities offer some Masters
teaching online
From distance learning to open education 11

12. MOOCs from 2008: who stole our
cheese?
• 2012 move out of pilot projects to major phenomenon
• Scale innovation from research based universities such
as MIT and Stanford
• Major MOOC platforms not from open universities
• E.g. expertise in University of East Anglia MOOC
• Painful for self-image of Open Universities:
-- ‘Access, pedagogy and completion are poor! ‘
– and
– ‘How dare ‘conventional universities’ lead in innovation in
TEL?’
– FutureLearn and EADTU MOOC initiatives now reclaim
innovation
From distance learning to open education 12

13. Prisoners of our identity in ODL?
• But do Open Universities
lead or follow with
MOOCs?
• Dual mode institutions
now focus of innovation in
TEL?
• Or does digital revolution
make divide old-fashioned?
• Has widespread ICT
changed landscape of
innovation in TEL?
• Language, power and
landscape have changed
• Do we risk being prisoners
of our identity in ODL?
From distance learning to open education 13

14. Mobile learning
‘gradually even the term ‘mobile learning’ will
fall into disuse as it is increasingly associated
with learning in a more holistic rather than a
more specialized or peripheral sense’
UNESCO 2013, The future of mobile learning: implications for policy makers and
planners, p 71
From distance learning to open education 14

15. ICT now ‘normal’
• From divide of ‘ODL’ and
‘Conventional’ institutions
• Smart phones, tablets and wifi
• Decentering of learning from
place of study
• Disembedding: living local,
national and international lives
now the norm
• Searching and evaluating:
Learning society more possible
than ever
• Normalisation of digital media
and TEL
From distance learning to open education 15

16. The landscape is changing
• Technology enhanced learning now
everywhere, on campus as well as in ODL
• Lead in TEL not necessarily now in open
universities
• Open Universities have won? Or lost?
• Open Universities have to rethink their
ecological niche
• Professional associations based on ODL need
to rethink place in landscape of TEL
From distance learning to open education 16

17. From Distance Learning to Open
Education: changing landscapes
From distance learning to open education 17
‘Alles Ständische und
stehende verdampft’
‘All that is solid melts
into air’