Open University Case Study | Policy Makers Perspective
About The Open UniversityDrivers for Change: Policy Perspective
Making the decision to implement XCRI-CAP
Coverage
OCCAM project
XCRI-CAP 1.1 implementation
Issues
XCRI-CAP in practiceXCRI-CAP in practice
About The Open University
The Open University (OU) is the United Kingdom's only university dedicated to distance learning. It is the largest university in the UK by number of students, and its course offerings are correspondingly large and complex. It has around 150,000 undergraduate and more than 30,000 postgraduate students, 11,000 of the latter studying for Higher Degrees.
The OU's style of teaching is called ‘supported open learning’. Nearly all students are studying part-time. About 70 per cent of undergraduate students are in full-time employment. More than 50,000 students are sponsored by their employers for their studies. A third of the OU’s UK undergraduate students have entry qualifications lower than those normally demanded by other UK universities.
Most OU courses are available throughout Europe. Some of them are available in many other parts of the world. More than 25,000 OU students live outside the UK.
top of pageDrivers for Change: Policy Perspective
The OU has well developed marketing and communications policies, through which, amongst other things, it identifies the main third party websites from which it obtains leads that result in enrolled students. As students move ever more towards reliance on digital media to discover information about learning opportunities, the OU’s relationships with third party website services have become more and more critical to its recruitment strategy. The University purchases advertising on these websites and seeks to ensure proactively that its course offerings are found very easily by users of them. Supply of accurate and timely course advertising information to them is vital. High quality processes and systems to carry out this supply are very important.
The main driver for changes to the existing system for supplying information to third party aggregators was the need for more efficient and effective delivery of the information, promoted by middle and senior managers within the organisation, in order to gain more students. OU policy in this area is directed towards making sure that the OU is recognised by all learners, including school and college leavers, alongside attendance based institutions. Of particular interest to the OU in terms of policy towards the distribution of course marketing information were:
- Cost of delivery
- Making OU course information more widely available and more ‘discoverable’
- Effectiveness of recruitment as a result of the change.
Some of the costs of keying and re-keying courses information (a major driver for use of XCRI-CAP) were already being off-set through the use of APS as an intermediary between the University and organisations aggregating courses information. However, the University recognised that a service that met a national standard would have much greater utility for aggregators, and greater adoption of the standard would enhance the spread of OU data, particularly if the University was at the forefront of the development.
top of pageMaking the decision to implement XCRI-CAP
The key decision to implement XCRI-CAP was taken by the Director of Communications, advised by the Communications Team. Decisions were simplified to some extent, because much of the complexity of the new process would reside with APS Ltd, already committed to using XCRI. The decision fitted in well with the existing trajectory of development of processes and systems within the University, which were becoming more streamlined, more student focused and making greater use of centralised technologies.
For the scale of work of the Occam Project decisions did not have to go above the Director of Communications [check], and it was helpful that there were strong recommendations from the responsible managers in the University and APS to support the work. In addition the support of JISC with a small amount of funding for the Occam Project and a smaller amount subsequently to help to complete an XCRI-CAP 1.1 repository eased the decision-making process.
It was also recognised that, as the landscape was changing rapidly and resources were scarce, it would not be practical to attempt to quantify the effectiveness of XCRI-CAP implementation at this stage. This is an important point that has been raised in other projects seeking to make a business case for XCRI-CAP implementation. This difficulty was overcome in this case, because of the relatively small outlay of resources in order to implement XCRI-CAP and the minimal risk to other systems and processes.
top of pageCoverage
The change covered the supply of the bulk of OU courses data to third party services.
The OU’s policy is to handle all requests for information about OU courses centrally via its Communications Unit. So, at least in theory, the implementation covered all third party services that carry significant numbers of OU courses or supply significant numbers of students.
OCCAM project
For the Occam Project the OU and APS Ltd developed a feed using XCRI-CAP 1.0, and the project ran from March to September 2007.
Although the OCCAM project was very useful for evaluating XCRI-CAP 1.0, one of the outcomes of the project was to decide that version 1.0 was not sufficiently mature and stable for use in a live environment. The decision was taken, with some reluctance, to postpone live implementation until the advent of XCRI-CAP 1.1, while in the meantime the project outputs had an impact on the development of version 1.1.
top of pageXCRI-CAP 1.1 implementation
Subsequent to the completion of the OCCAM project, XCRI-CAP 1.1 was developed, partly influenced by OCCAM and other JISC-funded XCRI projects. The new version first became available in January 2008, but further work on XCRI implementation at the OU was necessarily delayed until the completion of the new CMS installation in 2009.
After XCRI-CAP 1.1 became the new UK eProspectus standard, the OU decided to upgrade its web service to XCRI-CAP 1.1 in tandem with migration to its new CMS. The process was straightforward and the XCRI-CAP 1.1 ‘native’ service from the OU was launched in August 2009. APS also developed a ‘value added’ XCRI-CAP 1.1 web service feed on behalf of the OU, which had extra material in it.
top of pageIssues
Policy issues raised by the Occam Project were as follows:
- Shift of responsibilities between provider and data collecting organisation: There was an issue regarding the responsibilities of provider, data collector and any agent; where are the boundaries of these responsibilities? If a provider has published its information in a nationally recognised standard format, could it place the onus on the data collecting organisation to carry out any other necessary work, bearing in mind that this work would need to be resourced by the data collector?
- Credit accumulation and transfer: Credit accumulation and transfer could be supported much more easily in an environment in which information is moved between organisations in a standard format and transparently to the learner and the adviser.
- Link to wider initiatives, for example MIAP: Communication with MIAP and other national initiatives will help to ensure that XCRI-CAP can be mesh with them.
XCRI-CAP in practice
The OU XCRI-CAP feeds have been available now for over two years, so there has been a significant length of time for their operation. In addition the ‘value added’ feed has been divided into Postgraduate, Undergraduate and All sections, for ease of use.
Maintenance of the feeds has not been onerous, and a small amount of development work on the technical details has been carried out. However, relatively few organisations are using the feed, despite making its availability widely known in the courses aggregation community. It is perhaps significant that its major use has been by APS as a broker for the OU. Currently one organisation is a regular user of the feeds, while another three or four are experimenting or piloting usage. It is recognised that it takes time for such initiatives to have a significant impact, and the OU is well placed to take advantage of the emerging network of connections between course marketing information systems.
top of page
