Open Universities: Innovative Past, Challenging Present, and Prospective Future

This article examines the innovative past of the large-scale, single-mode open universities that follow the model of the UK Open University (UKOU), analyzes the main challenges which they are currently facing in the digital era, and concludes with highlighting leading prospects for their future ope...

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Autor principal:	Sarah Guri-Rosenblit
Formato:	article
Lenguaje:	EN
Publicado:	Athabasca University Press 2019
Materias:	distance education open universities distance teaching universities e-learning digital technologies Special aspects of education LC8-6691
Acceso en línea:	https://doaj.org/article/7a9062d92ef842f19e11a68a227c6962
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spelling	oai:doaj.org-article:7a9062d92ef842f19e11a68a227c69622021-12-02T16:59:50ZOpen Universities: Innovative Past, Challenging Present, and Prospective Future10.19173/irrodl.v20i4.40341492-3831https://doaj.org/article/7a9062d92ef842f19e11a68a227c69622019-02-01T00:00:00Zhttp://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/4034https://doaj.org/toc/1492-3831 This article examines the innovative past of the large-scale, single-mode open universities that follow the model of the UK Open University (UKOU), analyzes the main challenges which they are currently facing in the digital era, and concludes with highlighting leading prospects for their future operation. The establishment of the UKOU in 1969 marked a new era in distance higher education. It gave distance education a new legitimacy and opened up new prospects for populations that for a variety of reasons were unable to attend a campus-based university. Many of the new open universities were heralded as a conspicuous development in higher education, with innovative features such as: open access, reaching out to part-time adult students, providing academic faculty the opportunity to work in teams to prepare study materials, modular credit accumulation, teaching huge numbers of students, and harnessing innovative technologies into their teaching/learning processes. In the last three decades, many of these innovative characteristics pioneered by open universities have been adopted by campus universities. This has eroded the unique status of open universities in many national jurisdictions. Furthermore, the emergence of digital technologies has challenged the underlying premises of the industrial model of many open universities, as well as their logistic operation. Present challenges facing open universities emerge from: blurred boundaries between distance and campus universities; the changing of initial target populations; the need to restructure the technological and logistic infrastructure of open universities; the changing roles of the academic faculty; and the growing competition for both students and funds. In order to find success and keep being relevant in the future, open universities should take into consideration: future target populations; the use of MOOCs and OER; support systems for both students and professors; collaboration with other higher education institutions; collaboration with the corporate and work worlds; and enhancing the academic status of open universities. Sarah Guri-RosenblitAthabasca University Pressarticledistance educationopen universitiesdistance teaching universitiese-learningdigital technologiesSpecial aspects of educationLC8-6691ENInternational Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, Vol 20, Iss 4 (2019)
institution	DOAJ
collection	DOAJ
language	EN
topic	distance education open universities distance teaching universities e-learning digital technologies Special aspects of education LC8-6691
spellingShingle	distance education open universities distance teaching universities e-learning digital technologies Special aspects of education LC8-6691 Sarah Guri-Rosenblit Open Universities: Innovative Past, Challenging Present, and Prospective Future
description	This article examines the innovative past of the large-scale, single-mode open universities that follow the model of the UK Open University (UKOU), analyzes the main challenges which they are currently facing in the digital era, and concludes with highlighting leading prospects for their future operation. The establishment of the UKOU in 1969 marked a new era in distance higher education. It gave distance education a new legitimacy and opened up new prospects for populations that for a variety of reasons were unable to attend a campus-based university. Many of the new open universities were heralded as a conspicuous development in higher education, with innovative features such as: open access, reaching out to part-time adult students, providing academic faculty the opportunity to work in teams to prepare study materials, modular credit accumulation, teaching huge numbers of students, and harnessing innovative technologies into their teaching/learning processes. In the last three decades, many of these innovative characteristics pioneered by open universities have been adopted by campus universities. This has eroded the unique status of open universities in many national jurisdictions. Furthermore, the emergence of digital technologies has challenged the underlying premises of the industrial model of many open universities, as well as their logistic operation. Present challenges facing open universities emerge from: blurred boundaries between distance and campus universities; the changing of initial target populations; the need to restructure the technological and logistic infrastructure of open universities; the changing roles of the academic faculty; and the growing competition for both students and funds. In order to find success and keep being relevant in the future, open universities should take into consideration: future target populations; the use of MOOCs and OER; support systems for both students and professors; collaboration with other higher education institutions; collaboration with the corporate and work worlds; and enhancing the academic status of open universities.
format	article
author	Sarah Guri-Rosenblit
author_facet	Sarah Guri-Rosenblit
author_sort	Sarah Guri-Rosenblit
title	Open Universities: Innovative Past, Challenging Present, and Prospective Future
title_short	Open Universities: Innovative Past, Challenging Present, and Prospective Future
title_full	Open Universities: Innovative Past, Challenging Present, and Prospective Future
title_fullStr	Open Universities: Innovative Past, Challenging Present, and Prospective Future
title_full_unstemmed	Open Universities: Innovative Past, Challenging Present, and Prospective Future
title_sort	open universities: innovative past, challenging present, and prospective future
publisher	Athabasca University Press
publishDate	2019
url	https://doaj.org/article/7a9062d92ef842f19e11a68a227c6962
work_keys_str_mv	AT sarahgurirosenblit openuniversitiesinnovativepastchallengingpresentandprospectivefuture
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Open Universities: Innovative Past, Challenging Present, and Prospective Future

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