1. Postgraduate Education
at a Distance: Imperatives
and Challenges
Alan Tait
Professor of Distance Education and Development
Pro Vice-Chancellor, The Open University

2. Contents
• Introduction to The Open University UK
• Postgraduate advanced study at a distance
• Student Success: what does it look like?
• Quality: for whom?
• Implications for Brazil?
2

3. Our mission
People Places Methods Ideas
3

4. Operating at scale
• The UK’s largest university, teaching 35% of all part-time
undergraduate students in the UK each year
• Over 296,000 students registered with us last year, 36% online
• We offer 156 postgraduate and 397 undergraduate courses,
and we have 15 curriculum partnerships established in 23
countries
• The OU currently makes over 44,000 academic awards annually
• There are 6,500 associate lectures who hold 13,700
teaching appointments
• 163,000 active users of our Moodle based Virtual Learning
Environment
4

5. Operating at scale
16,400
8,800
4,500
3,200
167,600
8,600
5,100
Student headcount, 20010/11
5

6. Our students
• The average age of our new undergraduate
students is just 31
• Over 71% of our students work full or part-time
during their studies
• 11% of our students are from ethnic minorities
• 13,538 of our students declare a disability
• 45% have 1 ‘A’ level or lower at entry
• Three out of four FTSE 100 companies
have sponsored staff on OU courses
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7. We are diverse
New UK 1999/00 2004/05 2009/10
undergraduates
Below standard 38.8% 34.3% 51.0%
HE entry
Standard HE entry 19.1% 19.7% 8.1%
HE qualification 33.5% 33.4% 30.9%
Unknown 8.6% 12.7% 10.0%
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8. Our student support
Annually
•1.2 million telephone calls
•665,000 emails
•932,500 student assignments
•96,000 examinations
•96,000 end-of-course assessments
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9. Our research
• Ranked in top third of UK HEIs
– 1,200 research students
– 400 at Affiliated Research Centres
• Major international strengths in
Computing, Design, Earth & Environmental
Sciences, English
• Open Research Online - 19,000 research
publications freely available - 1.9 million visits
• Major research institutes – Knowledge Media
Institute and Institute of Educational
Technology
9

10. Quality assured
• The OU remains in the top three in the UK for student satisfaction
in the latest National Student Survey
• The 2011 Institutional Audit by the Quality Assurance Agency
confirmed the academic standards of our awards, and of the
learning opportunities available to students, identifying a number
of significant areas of good practice
• Over 200 Open University validated higher education
programmes delivered by 28 approved institutions worldwide
• 320 students studying research degrees in 25 affiliated research
centres worldwide
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11. We are global
Strategic Direct teaching to
partnerships with transnational
providers in key students globally
national markets
Current Position
Current Position •7,400 students in Europe
•Several partnerships in •700 students outside
countries with limited scale Europe
Ambition Ambition
•To form several •To develop and market a
collaborative teaching first-of-its-kind, high quality
partnerships that provide and globally available,
the OU with promising distance education offering
positions in large markets
License module Current Position
•Over 500,00 students in China
content to training •Several longstanding agreements with
and higher education international HE institutions
institutions Ambition
worldwide •Invest in future opportunities 11

12. We tackle global challenges
TESSA
Teacher Education HEAT
in Sub Saharan Africa Health Education
and Training
English in Action
Radically transforming Building capacity of frontline Technology enhanced
the quality of teaching healthcare workers teacher education
(430,000+ student teachers) (250,000 health workers by 2016) (15 million learners by 2017)
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13. Multi-
channel

14. • 100 million views of OU programmes in the UK annually
• More than 1billion viewing or listening events internationally each year
• Typically 1 million UK viewers respond to the OU call to action after
watching a programme
• 44% of the adult viewing population watched at least one episode
of Frozen Planet in the series
14

15. iTunes U
Key facts:
• Over 50 million downloads
• Over 5.8 million visitors downloaded files
• Currently averaging over 470,000 downloads a week
• 90 % of visitors from outside the UK
• 1 in 28 downloaders go on to visit the
OU website
• At launch in January 2012 there were
51 OU courses on the Apple all-new
iTunes U app
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16. • 21 million visits since its launch in 2006
• OpenLearn averages 400,000 unique visitors a month
• 7,000 hours of learning materials taken from our undergraduate
and postgraduate modules
• 595 active study units, plus educational interactives, topical
videos, academic blogs, access to OU podcasts and free printed
materials
• In a world first, The OU launched a 'fact of the day' iGoogle
Gadget that links to OpenLearn via their iGoogle homepage
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17. OU Module completions by level
30 and 60 credit modules only
Level 1 +71%
Level 2 +3%
Level 3 +9%
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18. Undergraduate module
pass rates 2010/11
Percentage
pass rate
OU Level
Source: IET Student Statistics
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19. Postgraduate Education: Taught
and Research Based Degrees
• Open University and the UK
• Taught postgraduate students, UK = 484,000
(314,000 UK only)
• Doctoral students, UK = 103,000 (60,000 UK only)
• Total postgraduate students, UK – 587,000
(374,000 UK only)
• UK population 62m, so 1:105 population ratio
• Brazil population 203m, so 1.93m
postgraduate students at same rate
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20. What has been achieved at The
Open University UK?
• MBA – 3102 current students
• Triple accredited: EQUIS; AACSB; AMBA
• Masters in Education – 1911 students
• Masters in International Development – 651 students
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21. Doctoral level
• 1200 PhD students
• 600 full-time and 600 part-time
• ‘Taught doctoral students’
• Doctorate in Education (EdD) 181
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22. Open University Review of Taught
Postgraduate Programmes
• Professional and vocational focus
• Exciting pedagogy
• Found content: appropriate for post-graduate
• Tutor and peer support on-line
• Minimum size of programme: market led provision
• Brand relaunch
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23. Postgraduate Education at
a Distance
What are the challenges?
• To add capacity for Advanced Higher Education
• At scale
• With vision for inclusion and social justice
• What can be done?
• What should be done?
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24. The Challenges
• Quality of student experience?
• Extent to which students achieve their goals?
• Market value of qualifications?
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25. Quality
• Perceived issues
• Real issues
• Policy outcomes
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26. Quality: Perceived Issues
• Distance education is not real education
• Face to face on a campus is only authentic learning experience
• Distance education qualifications are not recognised
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27. Postgraduate Education at
a Distance
• Distance education academics are second rate
• Distance universities don’t do research
• Distance universities are motivated by money
not education
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28. Drop Out is Bad
• Distance teaching methods are second rate
• Distance education as a method cannot
support success to the same degree as
traditional universities
• Distance education students are second rate
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29. Apples and Pears
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30. Some Answers and
the Real Issues
• Distance students are usually part-time
• Do not usually come from the most advantaged
sections of society
• Distance institutions can and should focus on
learning and teaching
• The notion of ‘student centred’
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31. Student-centred:
What does it mean?
To make achievement of students’
goals focus of organisation
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32. Learner Support Framework
at The Open University
• Enquirer support
• Pre Course support
• Study support :
a) Support for assignments
b) Mid course support
c) Support for examinations
d) Career information and advice
• Support for progression
• Intervention and response
• Data to support all stages, with performance targets
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33. The vision for the
student experience
For students For the University
•Coherent, personal and •A reputation for access, quality
targeted and achievement
•Enable students to: •The first choice for students
– achieve their study goals •A benchmark for other HEIs
– achieve their personal and •Adapting and evolving, the
career development goals leadership edge
– enhance their contribution •Meeting recruitment, retention
to society
and completion targets
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34. Where do we need to be?
• Students achieve their goals
• Qualification becomes mode-free
• Government policy become mode-free
• Recognition of qualifications becomes mode-free
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35. Importance of Mission
• ‘Open to people, places, methods and
ideas’
• ‘Playing a unique role in society
making Higher Education open to all;
promoting social justice through the
development of knowledge and skills’
• ‘Leading the learning revolution’
• ‘Responding to the needs of
individuals and employers ….
dedicated to supporting our students’
learning success
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36. Benefits of Masters Education
• Pre-experience preparation for career
• Post-experience enhancement for career
• Preparation for academic career
• Skills and knowledge for society and economy
• Benefit to individual
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37. Brazil Higher Education
• 2007 – 10% of 18-24
year olds in Higher
Education
• Higher Education
available in 30% of
Brazil’s cities
• 2600 Universities
• Drop out at 50%
Holzhacker and Prates, 2008
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38. More recent developments
in Brazil
‘Between 2007 and 2009, the proportion of 25-64 year olds with a
tertiary degree had risen by only 1 percentage point to 11%, a
slower rate than the OECD average’
OECD Education at a Glance, 2011
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39. More recent developments
in Brazil
• Studying in Brazil
• Outside Brazil
• Ratios per head of population
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40. Brazil: Rising Star
• If ratios in UK are what is needed in a developed country,
Brazil would need to build how many campuses?
• Thus the imperative for distance and e-learning
• Policy intervention is essential
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41. Time to rethink Masters Degrees?
• From ‘found content’ to OERs
• Importance of intermediate qualifications,
e.g. Postgrad Certificate and Diploma
• Emergence of ‘soft badging’, e.g. Microsoft and
Mozilla
• Price, value and return on investment
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42. Summary
• Postgraduate education will be
of value to society, economy
and individual
• Capacity cannot be met for
working adults by traditional
methods
• Nor can overall capacity be
met on campuses
• Distance and e-learning can
and should be significant
contribution
• Quality and relevance are key
42

43. ‘E outra vez conquistaremos a
Distância – Do mar ou outra,
mas que seja nossa!’
Fernando Pessoa, Prece, 1921
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