Interview with Interview with Brenda Gourley, Vice-Chancellor of the Open University
"We have changed university standards: it is the leaving qualifications, not the entry requirements, that matter"
May , 2007 / By Cristina Rius
Brenda Gourley
Professor Brenda Gourley is the Vice-Chancellor of the Open University, the first distance
university launched almost forty years ago now in Great Britain. Today this University boasts the
largest student community in the world, a community that in addition interacts by creating work
groups, seminars or facilitating learning in common. The Open University holds more than thirty-six
graduation events, most of them in the same country, but also in cities such as Moscow or
Singapore. At the end of April, the Vice-Chancellor of the Open University visited the UOC in order
to sign a collaboration agreement and to talk of new joint projects.
What has been the evolution of the open university model, and what future do you see for
it?
The Open University was launched in 1969 in the United Kingdom, and at that time the concept of 'open' did not have exactly the same meaning as it has today. Then it meant 'open to everyone', in other words, to those that had been to school and to those that had not, to those with good marks and to those with not so good marks… this was not important. We said: "Come, we will help you". The rest of universities thought that this was "impossible", that the university had to be different, and, in fact, to this day, they maintain a number of access requirements, they take the best students from the school system, and so on. What the Open University did was to break the model, to do something different, and to show that this could be done with a high qualitative level. To us, the fact that students may not have obtained very high grades does not imply that they cannot come to the university and receive a quality education; indeed, I'd dare say that our education is better, because we help people who need it in a special way.
What was the experience with these students like?
Very satisfactory if we take into account that the idea was to reverse the standards - it was the leaving qualifications, not the entry requirements, that mattered. We did not care about the level of our students when they joined our university - what we valued was a good final qualification. To do this we had to make sure that our materials were interesting, interactive, that used television and also audio recordings, plus other tools. We opened up offices across the country, thirteen offices to be precise, and we selected lecturers from other universities to work part time as tutors to our students. We gave intense support to these lecturers. So the model developed was based on high-quality study materials and on an intense support to our students. We have students today that tell us that they have been through traditional universities, and have received much more personal support at ours, as they can pick up the phone and ring or send an e-mail to ask for an answer to a query, and so on, whenever they need to.
What other type of students do you have?
The Open University was designed for people who, owing to varied reasons, had had no access to the university - they could be personal or social motives. One of the most important changes that has proved decisive today, is that the world has witnessed an explosion of knowledge, and with the new technologies this would seem unstoppable. Today people go to university and always, throughout their lives, will have more and more things to learn, as the world changes a lot and very rapidly, and new things take place constantly. We live in a world in which people need to go back to university to improve their competencies, their curriculum, if they want to continue in the labour market, in which they stay until they are much older – also because we live longer. Most of our students now are no longer people who had never been to university, but they are rather university graduates, who live with a partner and have children and a job, who see the need to increase their skills. What we have is a completely different panorama from when we started: there is a need nowadays to study throughout one's life, as society is highly qualified, especially Western societies, as China or India represent a manufacturing labour market at the moment. We also have a higher number of students that come from the more popular classes, as they too need to adapt to the demands of our labour market, where the supply of non-qualified labour has been decreasing.
What role did the Internet play in all this?
I would single out one aspect, namely that competition does not reach us by geographical proximity, but rather it comes from all over the world, more than 6 billion people. Proof of the importance of the new technologies are the agreements we have reached with the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya. Up to now we had collaborated with the UOC, but we have now reached a number of new agreements because we are aware that together we can achieve many more things. Universities such as ours are essential: if we observe some parts of the developing world, where millions and millions of people live, university training requests are very numerous. In addition, gradually there will be a greater need for high-level training. A number of countries in central Asia, such as China, but also Turkey, have in distance open training the solution to their societies' need of training. What we need today in our societies is to create a system in which all social parts, in a compatible way, have within their reach the type of education they need. Similarly, it is essential to encourage people to study, to get them to see that studying throughout their lives is something very normal indeed.
What do your students think of the Open University? What do they value most in it?
We carry out surveys constantly. In fact a national survey institute was created in the United Kingdom launched by one of the departments of education of the British government; it is called the National Students Survey and it comprehends all universities. Ours came out first in the student satisfaction survey. They value the educational materials and the personalised help, which is in fact what matters to us most.
You have been publishing your educational content and resources openly for some time now. Has this initiative earned you a greater number of students?
Indeed yes. We started this experience last October, and we have plenty of materials published in open. We rely on the assistance of a North American foundation that advises universities such as the MIT, with the objective of promoting open content, and to make it work well. At the moment we have some 20,000 visitors each week to check our resources, and the number is constantly growing.
How does the so-called "Bologna Process" affect you?
The truth is that we do not have to introduce many changes, as some of the things that the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) seeks to implement in Europe have already been incorporated into the United Kingdom, such as for instance the quality assurance systems, which incidentally Catalonia has, but they are lacking in many countries of the old continent. Another thing that Bologna seeks to introduce is for universities to have more autonomy, something that is already being considered in the United Kingdom.
Are you taking with you any ideas from your visit to the UOC?
We have contacts with many universities in the world, and I can say that the UOC is a very impressive one, is very creative and it boasts a high technological development, as there is a great desire of innovating in this field. The Open University can learn things from the UOC – in fact, this is why I am here today… On the other hand, I hope we continue collaborating in new projects, such as teaching English world-wide jointly.
The Open University was launched in 1969 in the United Kingdom, and at that time the concept of 'open' did not have exactly the same meaning as it has today. Then it meant 'open to everyone', in other words, to those that had been to school and to those that had not, to those with good marks and to those with not so good marks… this was not important. We said: "Come, we will help you". The rest of universities thought that this was "impossible", that the university had to be different, and, in fact, to this day, they maintain a number of access requirements, they take the best students from the school system, and so on. What the Open University did was to break the model, to do something different, and to show that this could be done with a high qualitative level. To us, the fact that students may not have obtained very high grades does not imply that they cannot come to the university and receive a quality education; indeed, I'd dare say that our education is better, because we help people who need it in a special way.
What was the experience with these students like?
Very satisfactory if we take into account that the idea was to reverse the standards - it was the leaving qualifications, not the entry requirements, that mattered. We did not care about the level of our students when they joined our university - what we valued was a good final qualification. To do this we had to make sure that our materials were interesting, interactive, that used television and also audio recordings, plus other tools. We opened up offices across the country, thirteen offices to be precise, and we selected lecturers from other universities to work part time as tutors to our students. We gave intense support to these lecturers. So the model developed was based on high-quality study materials and on an intense support to our students. We have students today that tell us that they have been through traditional universities, and have received much more personal support at ours, as they can pick up the phone and ring or send an e-mail to ask for an answer to a query, and so on, whenever they need to.
What other type of students do you have?
The Open University was designed for people who, owing to varied reasons, had had no access to the university - they could be personal or social motives. One of the most important changes that has proved decisive today, is that the world has witnessed an explosion of knowledge, and with the new technologies this would seem unstoppable. Today people go to university and always, throughout their lives, will have more and more things to learn, as the world changes a lot and very rapidly, and new things take place constantly. We live in a world in which people need to go back to university to improve their competencies, their curriculum, if they want to continue in the labour market, in which they stay until they are much older – also because we live longer. Most of our students now are no longer people who had never been to university, but they are rather university graduates, who live with a partner and have children and a job, who see the need to increase their skills. What we have is a completely different panorama from when we started: there is a need nowadays to study throughout one's life, as society is highly qualified, especially Western societies, as China or India represent a manufacturing labour market at the moment. We also have a higher number of students that come from the more popular classes, as they too need to adapt to the demands of our labour market, where the supply of non-qualified labour has been decreasing.
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| In the first photograph, the rector of the UOC, Imma Tubella, and the Vice Chancellor of the Open University, Brenda Gourley, signing the collaboration agreement. In the second photograph, and left to right, the director of the Open University Worldwide, Antony Gribbone, the Vice Chancellor of the Open University, Brenda Gourley, the rector of the UOC, Imma Tubella, and the head of the International Relations Office, Emma Kiselyova. | |
What role did the Internet play in all this?
I would single out one aspect, namely that competition does not reach us by geographical proximity, but rather it comes from all over the world, more than 6 billion people. Proof of the importance of the new technologies are the agreements we have reached with the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya. Up to now we had collaborated with the UOC, but we have now reached a number of new agreements because we are aware that together we can achieve many more things. Universities such as ours are essential: if we observe some parts of the developing world, where millions and millions of people live, university training requests are very numerous. In addition, gradually there will be a greater need for high-level training. A number of countries in central Asia, such as China, but also Turkey, have in distance open training the solution to their societies' need of training. What we need today in our societies is to create a system in which all social parts, in a compatible way, have within their reach the type of education they need. Similarly, it is essential to encourage people to study, to get them to see that studying throughout their lives is something very normal indeed.
What do your students think of the Open University? What do they value most in it?
We carry out surveys constantly. In fact a national survey institute was created in the United Kingdom launched by one of the departments of education of the British government; it is called the National Students Survey and it comprehends all universities. Ours came out first in the student satisfaction survey. They value the educational materials and the personalised help, which is in fact what matters to us most.
You have been publishing your educational content and resources openly for some time now. Has this initiative earned you a greater number of students?
Indeed yes. We started this experience last October, and we have plenty of materials published in open. We rely on the assistance of a North American foundation that advises universities such as the MIT, with the objective of promoting open content, and to make it work well. At the moment we have some 20,000 visitors each week to check our resources, and the number is constantly growing.
How does the so-called "Bologna Process" affect you?
The truth is that we do not have to introduce many changes, as some of the things that the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) seeks to implement in Europe have already been incorporated into the United Kingdom, such as for instance the quality assurance systems, which incidentally Catalonia has, but they are lacking in many countries of the old continent. Another thing that Bologna seeks to introduce is for universities to have more autonomy, something that is already being considered in the United Kingdom.
Are you taking with you any ideas from your visit to the UOC?
We have contacts with many universities in the world, and I can say that the UOC is a very impressive one, is very creative and it boasts a high technological development, as there is a great desire of innovating in this field. The Open University can learn things from the UOC – in fact, this is why I am here today… On the other hand, I hope we continue collaborating in new projects, such as teaching English world-wide jointly.