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Document title: Project Document Cover Sheet
Last updated: September 2010-09-06
Project Document Cover Sheet
Project Information
Project Acronym
OULDI-JISC
Project Title
Open University Learning Design Initiate – JISC Project
Start Date
Sept 2008
Lead Institution
The Open University
Project Director
Gráinne Conole
Project Manager &
contact details
Simon Cross, Learning and Teaching Development Team, Institute
of Educational Technology, The Open University
Partner Institutions
Brunel University, University of Cambridge, London South Bank
University, University of Reading
Project Web URL
http://ouldi.open.ac.uk/
Programme Name
(and number)
Curriculum Design Programme
Programme Manager
Sarah Knight
End Date
01/05/12
Document Name
Document Title
Six Monthly Project Interim Report
Reporting Period
November 2010 – April 2011
Author(s) & project
role
Simon Cross and Gráinne Conole
Date
04/05/11
URL
-
Access
Filename
Project and JISC internal
General dissemination
Document History
Version
Draft
Final
Date
20/04/10
Comments
Draft prepared and sent to Project Leader
Final version submitted to Sarah Knight
1
Institutional Approaches to Curriculum Design Programme
Interim Reporting Template
Project Name: OULID-JISC: The Open University
Report compiled by: Simon Cross
With contributions from: Rebecca Galley, Gráinne Conole, Andrew Brasher, Nick Freear,
Richard Lovelock
Reporting period: November 2010 – April 2011
Section One: Summary
The project continues to make strong progress and these achievements are now being
reported in a new project Blog and represented in the Design Studio. The project has sought
to influence and contribute to curriculum design process development at the OU and several
new uses and roles for our methodology and experience have emerged over the last six
months.
We have had a number of successes within the eight pilots we are making; four of these aim
to pilot the learning design methodology with external partner universities, and four with
teams at the Open University. The most advanced is our Reading pilot, which is now in the
final report writing stage. This has yielded four „narratives‟ – personal stories of using the
design tools and practices –, interview and video data and workshop impact evaluations. We
have also made good progress with the majority of the other pilots, although set backs have
delayed progress for two (for example, in one case the course we were planning to work with
was cancelled so we have identified an alternative). In addition to the anticipated outputs, a
range of other outputs are emerging including a Learning Design Suite created at Brunel and
a set of Information Literacy cards by OU Library Services.
Technical development has continued with the project celebrating the launch of CloudEngine
in November, a personal messaging functionality in Cloudworks, and new SVG graphics in
CompendiumLD. Use of both Cloudworks and downloads of CompendiumLD have
continued to rise during the period and a sustainability plan for Cloudworks now agreed.
Community building in Cloudworks continues with the addition of new groups, use in
conferences and use in other related OU projects. There is a continuing reduction in the
proportion of clouds and comments added by the team which continues to indicate a shift to
more user content and participation. We have successfully published the Phase 1 and 2
Cloudworks report and publications relating to communities of practice are under
development.
Finally, we have also continued to contribute to discussion about learning and curriculum
design. Internally we held a workshop for core support services to discuss the meaning of
learning design whilst contributions to JISC events, organisation of Cluster meetings and
meetings with other projects, conferences, submission of papers, and preparation of book
chapters indicate a strong level of external engagement and dissemination.
Section Two: Activities and Progress
WP1 Project Management and Project Evaluation Activity and Progress:
Institutional Approaches to Curriculum Design Programme

The project continues to be managed in accordance with the project plan. Meetings
have been held with the Course Business Models (CBM) team, IET CBM
representative and senior managers about project progress.

JISC Curriculum Design Programme level involvement has included: (1) Evaluation
Meeting held with Rachel Harris (Evaluation consultant for JISC) and Helen Beetham
(Synthesis consultant for JISC). Excellent feedback received with regards to the
quality of our evaluation activities and plan for final reporting. Our approach and
techniques to be shared with other programmes at the May JISC programme
meeting, particularly in relation to our management of the external case studies (2)
Presented our approach to using video evidence in a JISC led Elluminate session in
collaboration with an academic from the University of Reading who has been doing
some video diaries for the OULDI project at Reading.

An external partner Cluster meeting was held at the Open University on 2-3
December 2010. This was attended by colleagues from Ulster and remotely, due to
the snowy weather, from Strathclyde. This meeting discussed commonalities
between projects and ways to build upon these during 2011. Two options were
identified: involvement in helping to organise a conference and capturing of a series
of podcasts featuring staff that have been in contact with the projects. The intention is
that interviewees talk about a Curriculum Design problem and, for some, a solution.
Each project is aiming to do 4 videos or podcasts with the aim of showcasing our
work. A trial of the format has been undertaken by the OULDI team
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XjYO6Ubuv3k)
WP2 Technical Development Activity and Progress

Cloudworks: development of site successfully handed over to new developers who
have continued to develop the site and the open source code base (CloudEngine)
during the reporting period. Work associated with the site had included: (1) new
functionality added to Cloudworks including a new „Private Messaging‟ function
where members can send each other personal messages; (2) Usability testing of
website has been undertaken and a report published
(http://www.open.ac.uk/blogs/OULDI/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/Full-report.pdf ). In
this laboratory test four novice participants were given a series of nine short tasks to
complete on the Cloudworks site. The test was documented using the Tobii
Eyetracker which videoed the tasks and discussion, and recorded the eye
movements of the participants around the site.

CloudEngine: Version 1.0 was launched in November 2010 and the code made
available at: https://bitbucket.org/cloudengine/cloudengine/downloads. Since
November Version 1.1 BETA and Version 1.1.0 have been released. The latest
version now includes numerous enhancements and fixes in CloudEngine 1.1 Beta,
including a handy new maintenance mode to ease system administration and the
direct messaging functionality launched earlier in 2011 within Cloudworks. We have
also implemented the new HTML5 form attributes for validation, initially on the
registration form. This is most visible on Firefox 4 beta, and Opera 9.6 onwards. We
will be improving other forms and integrating HTML5 form emulation for other
browsers as time permits.

CompendiumLD: Following successful launch of version 1 last year, development
has focused on exploring options to export CompendiumLD maps as Scalable Vector
Institutional Approaches to Curriculum Design Programme
Graphics (SVG) graphics and create embeds of these maps for websites. This
enables the sharing of linked CompendiumLD maps and the ability to import these
SVG graphics into other software applications for further editing. We have had the
CompendiumLD learning design icon set converted to SVG graphics resulting in
much better quality of icon image when zooming in or otherwise working with the
maps and also printing of CLD Icon Stickers for use in face-to-face workshops.
Following this we have begun testing SVG export - for further details see posts on
http://www.open.ac.uk/blogs/brasherblog/. We are in the process of preparing a final
year plan for CompendiumLD development which will be agreed by the team in June.
This work has benefited from the adoption of CompendiumLD by the "Technologyenhanced learning: practices and debates" masters course. Whilst for privacy
reasons we cannot report the outcome of its use, however, this experience will help
shape discussions around CompendiumLD development.
WP3 Piloting, Reporting and Evaluating Innovation Activity and Progress:

OU: Library Pilot: The theme of this pilot is Information Literacy. It is progressing very
well and comprises two phases. A report on the first phase has been completed and
published internally by Library Services working with the OULDI project team. The
first phase of this pilot has been successful in securing the support, enthusiasm and
engagement of the Learning and Teaching librarians. More work needs to be done in
terms of developing a set of guidelines and exemplars which demonstrate how the
library and OULDI tools and resources might be used together to support effective
learning design practices in relation to the embedding of Information Literacy
outcomes and activities. During phase 2, over the next 10 months, we will develop
this guidance in collaboration with the two course teams who will be participating in
the two faculty OULDI pilots. We recognise that there are a number of barriers to
introducing a new set of practices and procedures, not least those related to
resourcing and managing change, however, we hope that by aligning the pilot to
other internal OULDI pilots, and key strategic and core activities, we will minimise the
impact of these barriers, and ensure that the pilot is both able to maintain momentum
over the next 10 months and stand the best chance of full institutional embedding at
the end of that time. We aim, for example, to make best use of the champions that
we can already see emerging from the first phase of our work, and ensure that we
continue to clearly and regularly communicate and share progress and achievement
across both the project and also more widely. We anticipate that the outcomes for the
next phase of work will form a comprehensive set of practical and accessible case
studies and guidance that will benefit both Learning and Teaching librarians and
course teams seeking to make better use of online 3rd party and library materials in
their modules. Already during phase 2 this joint working has resulted in a workshop
led jointly by the project officer and CBM representative about the OULDI project and
HEA „Revisiting Learning Design Workshop‟ and the development of Learning
Literacy resource cards which aim to support module teams in making decisions
about literacy and levels of literacy (a PDF of these will be available shortly).
Institutional Approaches to Curriculum Design Programme
Understand the Information Landscape
Level 1
Be able to identify a limited number of key sources
of information in the subject area or context
Understand the Information
Landscape
Level 1
Have experienced using a limited number of
formats of information (e.g. books, journals,
websites), as appropriate to the course
Be able to articulate the key characteristics of
different information types (e.g. print / electronic,
primary / secondary, freely available / subscriber
only / invisible web) as relevant to the subject or
context
Developed by Library Serv ces Open University
in co laboration with OULDI-JISC project 2011

OU: Faculty of Education and Languages Pilot: This pilot suffered a set-back late last
year when the scheduled development of the new module that we had scoped and
prepared for was cancelled. We have since worked with the faculty and identified
another module which we will work with this autumn; this reflects the faculty‟s
continued desire to pilot new methods of curriculum design and work with the OULDI
project team. The scoping document developed for the original pilot has provided a
useful template for scoping this substitute.

OU: Learning and Teaching Solutions Unit Pilot: Initial scoping has concluded and a
project plan has been developed. This pilot will focus on trialling activities and
representations which aim to inform the design process between LTS-Media and two
HSC module teams, and facilitate the sharing and discussing of pedagogical designs
to support the development of materials for production. It is not anticipated that this
pilot will require the module teams to do anything differently to what they might
usually do, but rather that the existing process is documented and supported by LTSMedia, using the OULDI tools, activities and representations where appropriate. It is
anticipated that an output of this pilot will be a shared set of recommendations about
the continuing development of the learning design approach which will be of interest
to both LTS and the faculties. The OULDI project is offering to support this with the
equivalent of 3 days of presentations or workshops, 2 days of informal meetings,
administrative support and facilitation of further work through appropriate channels.
The evaluation will include process mapping, interview, design timeline, and review
of design artefacts and to help us structure this we are using a review of the formal
documents, meeting minutes and correspondence from another module that has
already been produced.

OU: Fourth Pilot: As mentioned in our previous Six Month report, when we
approached this academic faculty neither of the two module teams recommended to
us were prepared to join the pilot. We hope to return to these teams at the end of
2011 and in the mean time we have scoped a fifth OU pilot (see next).

OU: Fifth Pilot: This will focus on evaluating how the Learning Design Methodology is
interpreted and deployed by other staff working under the Course Business Models
project. This is an essential step in evaluating the reuse of our resources.

Learning Design Focus Group: In January the project officer organised a two-hour
meeting of some of those using learning design approaches across the university. It
was an opportunity to share perceptions of what the term „learning design‟ means,
experiences of using the approach across faculties, and also to discuss the future
role of learning design in the university. Participants came from the support units
(Library Services, LTS and IET) and projects associated with learning design
(Curriculum Business Models, OULDI). The transcript of this meeting was evaluated
and findings posted on the OULDI blog http://www.open.ac.uk/blogs/OULDI/?p=338).
Institutional Approaches to Curriculum Design Programme
A full report has been disseminated internally to relevant senior managers and also
circulated more widely by those present at the meeting.

External Pilot: Brunel University: The OULDI@Brunel team have recently created
and launched a new blog (http://www.open.ac.uk/blogs/OULDI/?p=375). This will
form an excellent platform for reporting of their work and included links to resources
and information about their process mapping and workshops. Furthermore, the team
have created a „Learning Design Suite‟ to help support their staff
(http://people.brunel.ac.uk/~acsrwbl/learningsuite/). Work at Brunel continues to
progress very well and we are now planning the writing of the final report.

Cambridge has introduced OULDI tools including Cloudworks, CompendiumLD,
Pedagogy Profile and Course Map to 12 teaching staff as part of its '13 Things'
programme. 13 Things is modelled on the locally successful '23 Things' introduction
to web 2.0 technologies created by the library world to update librarians' skills.
Whereas 23 Things had an overtly didactic purpose, 13 things focuses on having
participants evaluate and feed back on tools - they are cast as the experts, feeding
back to the CARET team on what is and is not useful to them in their teaching
practice. 13 Things participants are volunteers, recruited via internal publicity, and
have committed to following a series of introductions to various curriculum-design
related tools on the 13 Things blog (http://13thingscam.blogspot.com/), undertaking
short suggested exercises and then reflecting on the potential value of the tools in
their own practice at Cambridge. Participants blog their reactions in personal blogs
but meet and discuss as a group in parallel workshop events. All the OULDI tools
have now been introduced but not all participants have completed their reflection and
evaluation. The Cambridge team plans to conduct final evaluation interviews some
months after the end of the main 13 Things programme in mid May, and
will synthesise all feedback in their final report.

External Pilot: London South Bank University: LSBU hosted the last partner meeting
earlier this year. Workshop and intervention data is currently being analysed and the
project team are currently determining if there are any further opportunities for
intervention before September.

External Pilot: Reading University: this pilot is nearing completion and a draft of
Reading‟s final report is underway. The last six months has focused on data capture,
in particular through interview and video diary. The team in Reading have effectively
delivered several separate and valuable interventions which will be recorded in the
final report. Data capture has included interview and video diary which are now being
analysed. In addition to earlier outputs, the pilot has produced three 3-4 page
Narratives (see Appendix 1 for screenshots), each representing the experience of an
individual who have tried using the OULDI approach; and a video diary of their
curriculum design experiences has been completed:
http://cloudworks.ac.uk/cloud/view/3813
WP 4 Community Building and co-ordination for sustainability

Cloudworks End of Phase 1 and 2 Report completed, published and circulated. This
outlines work completed during the first two phases of the website development.

The oEmbed developed by LAMS has had some minor improvements made but
there remain security and accessibility issues which have been reported to LAMS.
On a related project OU developers in IET have been working on a broader embed
Institutional Approaches to Curriculum Design Programme
service which would include LAMS objects. This could provide an alternative if the
problems LAMS are encountering cannot be resolved.

Moodle: Whilst ideas for using Cloudworks with the Moodle Community have been
discussed with Martin Dougiamas, no project plan has yet been agreed. We will
expect to progress this during the next 6 months.

In addition to the OULDI-JISC project work, members of the project team have been
involved in other non-JISC funded but related learning design activities and software
development, for example the OULDI methodology has been trialled and evaluated
with 200 teachers in Cyprus and Greece in an EU Leonardo Da Vinci programme
funded project „Design Practice‟ (http://www.design-practice.org/)
The overall project approach remains unchanged. We will be making a change to the project
team this autumn and details of this are outlined in Section 3. We anticipate the eight pilots
ending between May 2011 and January 2012 – this is a result of when we have been able to
schedule and align these with the teams we are working with. This means the milestone of
completing all pilots by September will be adjusted with a separate specific deadline for each
pilot. This is not a major change and does not require alteration of the original project plan.
Section Three: Risks, Issues and Opportunities
Two risks have become issues in the last 6 months:
The first issue is associated with our „staff turnover‟ risk: Gráinne Conole has been offered a
new post and will be leaving the Open University in the autumn. This will be a great loss to
the project, yet the project will remain based in the Institute of Educational Technology and
all other staffing will remain as planned. It has been agreed, however, that Gráinne will
remain involved with the project from Leicester and so we do not anticipate any major
problems with this change. The team is well-placed to manage this change as the sharing of
knowledge across the team has been taking place effectively, as has the recording and
documenting of progress. We also have strong project plan in place and excellent
momentum. We anticipate the existing team working on the project has the capacity to
continue and complete this final year of work. It is likely that additional project planning and
team meetings will be introduced, a revised dissemination strategy developed for the final
year, a new academic will be assigned to the team to support internal working, and we are
able to retain a contribution by of a number of days from Gráinne. We anticipate that there
will be no impact on the final project objectives and deliverables.
The second issue has been the cancellation of an OU module that we were planning to work
with. We have developed a solution to this issue however, and have identified an alternate
module being developed by the faculty with which to work.
In addition, a number of unexpected opportunities have arisen. Whilst we are limited in how
far we can pursue these at this stage they do indicate the new opportunities for further
research and development that are now emerging from our Curriculum Design work. For
example:

There is opportunity to help found a Learning Design Working Group within the
university following the success focus group meeting held in January.
Institutional Approaches to Curriculum Design Programme

The Open University is seeking to encourage staff to use the „conditional learning‟
functionality offered by the new release of Moodle. CompendiumLD, by combining
both the learning design and conditionality icon sets is well placed to support the
design of more complex and non-linear module designs and student activities

The OU‟s Institute of Educational Technology, which is where the project team are
based, will be supporting the roll-out of the Course Business Models representations
from July 2011 and the OULDI-JISC project therefore has the opportunity of
developing closer ties with this work and also evaluating provision to the faculties

An IET visiting academic from UNED is interested to discussing use of
CompendiumLD in creating and communicating designs, especially in multi-lingual
situations

CloudEngine, the code base behind Cloudworks, is now in v1.1.0 Beta. We have the
opportunity over the next 6 months to further promote this useful code

We are meeting the teams in Cluster B in May to discuss a contribution to a book that
they are planning.
Section Four: Outputs and Deliverables
The following section outlines the accomplishments of the project over the last six months.
These are reported against the projects key outcomes as detailed in the project plan:
a. A record and evaluation of our approaches to implementing institutional change
through adopting a LD approach
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Learning Design Focus Group meeting: Transcript made. Evaluation posted on the
OULDI blog http://www.open.ac.uk/blogs/OULDI/?p=338
Ongoing http://cloudworks.ac.uk/news/archive and
http://cloudworks.ac.uk/index.php/cloud/view/3391
Blog post titled „Thoughts on embedded learning design process‟ in which reflections
on recent work has been represented in the form of a visual alternative curriculum
design process: http://www.open.ac.uk/blogs/OULDI/?p=340
Blog post about Open Innovation and the „Next Generation Stage-Gate‟ process:
http://latestendeavour.wordpress.com/2011/03/06/open-innovation-and-the-nextgeneration-stage-gate-process-reflections-on-learning-design-processes-2/
Blog post on the Cluster C Partner meeting:
http://www.open.ac.uk/blogs/OULDI/?p=331
and see b. below
b. A clearer understanding of using learning design successfully in curriculum
innovation, strategies and approaches to embedding LD as an approach across a
range of contexts and models

Usability testing of website has been undertaken and a report published:
http://www.open.ac.uk/blogs/OULDI/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/Full-report.pdf
Institutional Approaches to Curriculum Design Programme
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Library Services Pilot Phase 1 Report completed and agreed (team use only at
present).
Partner meeting held 7 February. Focus of meeting was on recording progress,
approach to writing personal narratives, final report writing and sharing evaluation
methodologies (summary available on team blog).
Agreed scope and timetable for the LTS case study pilot (team use only).
Blog Post about December Cluster C Camel Meeting:
http://www.open.ac.uk/blogs/OULDI/?p=252
Transcription of video diaries kept by a OULDI pilot participant at Reading University
Three personal user Narratives from Reading (see section d)
c. A self-sustaining learning design community providing a forum for exchange of
ideas and designs, along with guidelines for success factors identified to make such
a community work
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End of Development Phase one and two: Summary Report (52 Pages) The purpose
of this report is to provide an interim summary of the development of the Cloudworks
site (www.cloudworks.ac.uk) across development phases-one (February 2008 to
June 2009) and two (July 2009 to August 2010),
http://www.open.ac.uk/blogs/OULDI/?p=309
Discussions about using Cloudworks for the RED community and conference (Arts
Faculty) and with a project from the Faculty of Education and Languages.
Discussions about moving CELT and Learning and Teaching groups to Cloudworks
Cloudworks to be used for internal OU conference
Ongoing work with the LAMS community is raising awareness of Cloudworks
Refreshed and augmented the Cloudworks critical friends group
Ongoing moderation and support in Cloudworks by project officer
d. A set of resources guidance on different aspects of learning design and outlines for
associated design activities and tailored workshops
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Brunel‟s Learning Design Suite: http://people.brunel.ac.uk/~acsrwbl/learningsuite/
Reading personal Narratives: Joe‟s narrative:
http://www.open.ac.uk/blogs/OULDI/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/Narrative-1.pdf
Reading personal Narratives: Andrew‟s narrative:
http://www.open.ac.uk/blogs/OULDI/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/Narrative-2.pdf
Reading personal Narratives: Kleio‟s narrative:
http://www.open.ac.uk/blogs/OULDI/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/Narrative-3.pdf
CloudEngine v1.1.0 BETA: The latest version now includes numerous enhancements
and fixes in CloudEngine 1.1 Beta
OU Library Services: Information Literacy Cards: available shortly
OU Library Services Pilot: trial podcast - five minute interview
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XjYO6Ubuv3k
Development of standard text for draft scoping documents - this can be used to
support negotiations about Learning Design requirements with OU module teams.
CompendiumLD now being used as a resource not just for learning design but for
knowledge mapping more generally (see Joe Doak An Inspector Calls1: Looking at
Institutional Approaches to Curriculum Design Programme
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Retail Development Through a Sustainability Lens. Joe Doak, School of Real Estate
& Planning, University of Reading) and for business process mapping
A questionnaire instrument for Cloudworks (or similar Learning and Teaching social
networking sites)
Posters about Cloudworks, CloudEngine and Digital Literacy:
http://jiscdesignstudio.pbworks.com/f/CloudEngine%20poster.png
http://jiscdesignstudio.pbworks.com/f/Cloudworks%20poster.png
http://jiscdesignstudio.pbworks.com/w/file/38109220/DigLit-poster.png
e. A sustainable and evolving, user-generated site (Cloudworks) for collaborative
learning designs with a critical mass of learning designs, as well as tools and
resources for design
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Accessibility statement and phrases for website
Revisions to FAQ page
Agreed to continue Cloudworks after project end
CloudEngine
Currently exceeding targets for Cloudworks use. There are currently 4078 registered
users of Cloudworks (up from the 3358 reported in last report). Around 500 clouds
were added in the last five months - this is slightly lower than in the preceding six
months which included the summer conference period). Just 11% of these were
created by the project team compared to around 30% during the last reporting period.
New cloudscapes are being added at around the same rate and the proportion of
those added by users has also remained similar at 86% (compared with 85% for the
previous period).
Cloudscapes
Clouds
Comments
End of April
2010
281
2287
3318
End of October
2010
385
3385
4372
End of April
2011
460+
3873
5062
Design Studio
The project is activity engaged with the Design Studio and has uploaded project resources to
it: http://jiscdesignstudio.pbworks.com/w/tags/show?tag=OULDI It is also encouraged the
partner institutions to do likewise.
Technical Development
Section 2 gives an overview of technical development and links to project blogs where more
detailed information can be found.
Section Five: Evaluation
A number of recent experiences have brought our attention to the multiple understandings of
„learning design‟ that can be extant even within one institution. To help evaluate this we
organised a two hour focus group meeting of invited support staff from across the OU. We
were pleased to find that there was significant alignment and overlap between groups as to
Institutional Approaches to Curriculum Design Programme
their conceptualisation of learning design, although different language was used to describe
where learning design „fitted in‟ to their role, and each group emphasised a different aspects
or levels/ granularity of learning design as might be expected in relation to their role. Simon
Cross has begun mapping these differences, and we are beginning to see how the practice
of learning design interlinks across the institution (with regards to activity and levels).
There was also coherence around the issue of why embedded learning design processes
could be useful for the university, i.e. what problems a learning design approach might solve
and these are broadly mirrored in the findings from our partner universities. These are
summarised as:
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There is now too much choice for individual module authors and they cannot manage
the design process alone.
Currently, decisions can sometimes be made at the wrong time or stage in the
production process
There should be clearer detachment of the broader design and design components
from the technology used
Students are now a more diverse and complex group
There is a greater need to think about the learning design „Problem Space‟ including
the learning and learner context
There is benefit in thinking holistically about all components of the design
Making products is an important function for us and a design approach supports this
practice
It makes the design process more visible and facilitates better communication
between those involved
There is a belief that money can be saved by adopting a learning design process
To allow us to better communicate to students how we are spending their fees
To allow us to provide different services based on customer choice and need
To ensure consistent and coherent student experience, even if modules are built as a
„mash-up‟ rather than through the traditional process
Because the process of designing is changing with a greater focus on „orchestration‟
There will be a better product before the first cohort of students get sight of it
Time will be saved later for presentation teams as they will not have to go back and
change as much
Effort will be saved in module production
Such findings align well with data reported before by the OULDI group and others and
further demonstrate the need for effective understanding and practice of learning design.
Our recent usability test of Cloudworks by four volunteers has helped us to identify
opportunities for further improvement and understand how people navigate the site. This
evaluation data will be used to inform development over the next 6 months.
Cloudworks use statistics appear to be at least as high as comparable data from a year
earlier. The number of unique visitors per month remains constant at around 6,000 and in
March 2011 the number of unique visitors exceeded 7,000 per month for the first time (see
graph below).
Institutional Approaches to Curriculum Design Programme
Number of unique visitors in the last month (including
non-logged-in users)
Jul-11
May-11
Mar-11
Jan-11
Nov-10
Sep-10
Jul-10
May-10
Mar-10
Jan-10
Nov-09
Sep-09
Jul-09
May-09
Mar-09
8000
7000
6000
5000
4000
3000
2000
1000
0
New registrations to the site have remained at an average of over 100 per month, with
around 200 registrations being made in April 2011. The number of new clouds set-up by
non-team members over between December and February were lower than during the
summer but this is a trend noticed in the previous year also. An increase in new clouds was
observed in March.
Number of new registered users per month
300
250
200
150
100
50
M
ar
-0
M 9
ay
-0
9
Ju
l-0
Se 9
p0
N 9
ov
-0
9
Ja
n1
M 0
ar
-1
M 0
ay
-1
0
Ju
l-1
Se 0
p1
N 0
ov
-1
0
Ja
n1
M 1
ar
-1
M 1
ay
-1
1
Ju
l-1
1
0
Institutional Approaches to Curriculum Design Programme
Number of new Clouds per month
M
ar
-0
M 9
ay
-0
9
Ju
l-0
Se 9
p0
No 9
v0
Ja 9
n1
M 0
ar
-1
M 0
ay
-1
0
Ju
l-1
Se 0
p1
No 0
v10
Ja
n1
M 1
ar
-1
M 1
ay
-1
1
Ju
l-1
1
400
350
300
250
200
150
100
50
0
Number of new Clouds per month
Team stats
Non-team
Almost 700 comments were added to Cloudworks over the late autumn-winter period. This is
lower than a year earlier and whilst there was no repetition of a winter peak April saw a rise
in comments. Also, the ratio of project team comments compared to other use comments
continued to fall indicating a further withdrawal of the facilitation and support by the team in
Cloudworks activity. This indicates a further reduction in contribution from the project team.
Number of new comments each month
500
400
300
200
100
M
ar
-0
M 9
ay
-0
9
Ju
l-0
Se 9
p0
N 9
ov
-0
9
Ja
n1
M 0
ar
-1
M 0
ay
-1
0
Ju
l-1
Se 0
p10
N
ov
-1
0
Ja
n1
M 1
ar
-1
M 1
ay
-1
1
Ju
l-1
1
0
In a recent blog posting Cross reports again on his survey of a sample of users of the site
and records aspects of their activity and interaction. This data indicates a core of sustained
users and also some examples of returning users. However, the proportion of those who
contribute something to the site is around 40% of those who register with just some 7-10% of
registered demonstrating sustained engagement after the first month. Of course, most who
visit Cloudworks do not add to the site but read this information contained. The visitor data
presented above shows the increasing role that Cloudworks is playing as a source of
reference and it is this use that our current Cloudworks questionnaire is hoping to better
understand.
Before
early
November
~ 6 months
(From 1
November
~ 6 months
(From 15
April to 26
6 months
(From 1st Nov.
2010 – 30 Apr.
Institutional Approaches to Curriculum Design Programme
2009
2009 to midApril 2010)
332
Total number of
620
people downloading
CompendiumLD
(number of
downloads by people
with different email
addresses)
Number supplying
86
22
@open.ac.uk address
(i.e. OU staff)
Number supplying
9
9
.open.ac.uk address
excluding OU staff
(i.e. students or ALs)
*3 academic, 4 media production, 2 tech. support
October
2010)
378
2011)
19
9*
7
9 ALs
540
The total number of downloaders (as measured by distinct e-mail address up to 30th April
2011 is 1590. However, the total is reached by summing the figures for each period in the
table is 1870 (i.e. 620 + 332 + 378 + 540) is greater than 1590, indicating that some people
have downloaded CompendiumLD more than once, and supplied the same email address,
but in different reporting periods. Analysis of the download data to investigate this further has
not been carried out yet.
For Open University staff, Associate Lecturers and students, the email address given is no
longer a good indicator of which group a particular user falls into because many ALs are now
using the same form of email address as other staff (i.e. [email protected]) and many
students use third party email providers. The data presented in the table for the last 6 month
period (1st Nov. 2010 – 30 April 2011) has been categorised based on job title and reasons
for downloading provided by the users. Data shows that people giving 61 different email
addresses mentioned IET‟s H800 course in their reason for downloading CompendiumLD
between 1st November 2010 and 30th April 2011.
Section Six: Outcomes and Lessons Learned
In addition to the findings of our specific reports listed elsewhere in this document, we here
report a few more broad observations we have found interesting:

The importance of background factors to the uptake of tools and techniques. These
factors could include staff skills, levels of technological competence, existing level of
pedagogic and design competence, learning design confidence, how receptive staff
are to new ideas. Our work in creating narratives from practitioners at Reading has
brought this in particular to our attention. What this means is that using „uptake‟ of a
tool as a proxy for the „value‟ of the tool may be misleading. Just as a paint brush is
of little use to someone who can‟t paint, a curriculum design tool may only work if the
practitioner has sufficient experience or knowledge. This adds an additional reason to
explain observed low uptake of a tool: whilst it could indicate it needs further
development of the tool, it could also indicate that people are not ready to use it. At
Reading this observation is already helping frame staff development for institutional
approaches that help staff attain such „levels‟ or attitudes.
Institutional Approaches to Curriculum Design Programme

From the perspective of staff, new techniques and practices of curriculum design
should replace rather than augment current practice and there is concern over
adding further layers of complexity. However, the process of designing a course is
one of finding a solution to interlinked, intricate and often complex sets of problems.
The introduction of structured and supported guidance will help promote more
effective and thorough design practice, and more awareness of techniques to
manage and understand the design, learning and inter-connected aspects better.
There may be some potential to examine more the relationship between time spent
designing a course, the quality of the course, and the complexity of the design
process: given increasing resource pressures is there an optimum point where we
say „we could make this course better, the return is not worth the extra investment‟
yet perhaps only more comprehensive learning design process could help designers
know where that point is.

Our reflections on how a stage gate process could be revised in to a „next generation‟
stage gate process has once again emphasised the importance of good, effective
design process. This opens up the potential to evaluate or develop process review
criteria which could help us determine how „good‟ a design process is.

There still appears to relatively little use of learning design as an analytical tool and
we continue to see lack of interest in fully reviewing the design (problem) space and
particularly design constraints and areas of innovation. We are developing activities
to address this.

Through discussions with one of the internal pilots we are starting to get a clear
handle on why roles and relationships are shifting in the way they are and why the
old approaches may no longer really fit. Largely this is to do with the way in which the
use of technological tools in learning require blended input from technologists and
educators earlier in the design process.
Section Seven: Communication and Dissemination Activities
Many of the artefacts created for dissemination have been listed in the earlier section about
Outputs. In addition, the following dissemination activities have taken place:

New project blog launched: http://www.open.ac.uk/blogs/OULDI/?page_id=35
Blog Postings on OULDI work:
 Galley, „Launch of the OULDI@Brunel website‟
 Brasher, „Coding Compendium / CompendiumLD links and transclusions in SVG‟
 Galley, „Learning Design and Digital Literacy‟
 Cross, „Open Innovation and the Next Generation Stage-Gate process: Reflections
on Learning Design processes 2‟
 Galley, „Thoughts on embedded learning design processes‟
 Cross: „Reflections on Learning Design Process Models 1‟
 Galley, „Learning design focus group‟
 Galley, „OULDI-JISC Partner meeting‟
 Freear, „Direct messaging & CloudEngine 1.1.0 Beta‟
Institutional Approaches to Curriculum Design Programme






Brasher, „Design visualisation and mapping for the web using SVG‟
Cross: „Exploring spheres of sharing: Analysis of Cloudworks 3‟
Galley, „Further reflections on Cluster B questions‟
Cross, „Exploring the Design Problem Space‟
Galley: „Cluster-C CAMEL meeting December 2-3rd 2010‟
Galley, „Tri-lateral Learning Design meeting‟

Project assets added to the JISC Design Studio

Book chapter titled „Collectivity, performance and self-representation: Analysing
Cloudworks as a public space for networked learning and reflection‟ by Alevizou and
Galley. Submitted to Springer books.

Paper submitted for the International Blended Learning Conference has now been
accepted. It is titled „Designing the Curriculum: From innovation to enhancement‟

Paper submitted to the SEDA 11 conference titled: „Bridging the gap between good
pedagogic practice and effective use of new technologies: evaluating a learning
design approach‟

Preparation of ALT-C 2011 Symposium proposal around Representations of the
curriculum in collaboration with Helen Beetham (JISC) and Birmingham City
University

Project team involved in the Cloudworks and Information Literacy stalls at the Open
University‟s 2011 „Learn About’ Fair in March.

Staff development workshop on Curriculum Design delivered in collaboration with
staff from Library Services (OU, February 2011)

Staff Tutor Workshop on Learning Design lite (OU, February 2011)

We continue to look for opportunities to work closely with the Course Business
Models project. Aligning with the CBM work was an original aim of our project.
The project has also featured or been mentioned in a number of presentations, papers, and
keynotes delivered by the team in this reporting period including:

CARDET (The Centre for the Advancement of Research and Development in
Educational Technology) in Cyprus began a training programme for public school
teachers and Ministry of Education and Culture officials on using innovative methods
and digital education content using the OULDI representation, tools, activities and
resources. Under the project agreement, CARDET will train more than 600 teachers.
The project is part of the initiative of the Republic of Cyprus to integrate educational
technology in Cyprus public schools. Resources will ultimately be uploaded to DIAS
(www.dias.ac.cy) with ultimate goal for all schools to be able to use it in teaching and
learning.
Institutional Approaches to Curriculum Design Programme

Third and final output of the Pearls in the Cloud project funded by the Higher
Education Academy submitted and accepted October 2011 and titled “Using
Cloudworks to support OER activities” Alevizou, P., Conole, G., and Galley, R.

Galley, R and Thomas, J. Invited workshop HEA eLearning Special Interest Group
meeting: Revisiting Learning Design , March 2011, OU

Conole, G. (2011), Invited keynote, DEHub and the Open and Distance Learning
Association of Australia, Summit, February 2011, Sydney.

Cross, S and Garrido, C. (2011) „Identifying opportunities for innovation in module
design learning and assessment design‟, Workshop at the OU 2011 Module Chairs
Event, Milton Keynes.

Vrasidas, C., Conole, G. and Retalis, S. (2010), Useable Representations of
Learning Design for Educators and Instructional Designers, Online Educa Workshop,
1st December 2010, Berlin.

Conole, G. (2010), Addressing the digital learning challenge, invited keynote, Design
and Learning conference, Brussels, 25-26th November 2010,
http://cloudworks.ac.uk/cloud/view/4866/

Conole, G. (2010), The changing landscape of educational practice, Invited keynote,
Annual NADE- conference, ”Future learning spaces”, Horten, Norway, 18/11/2010,
http://cloudworks.ac.uk/cloud/view/4844.

Conole, G. (2010), Connecting research with policy and practice, invited keynote,
EDEN research workshop, Budapest, 25th October 2010.
Section Eight: Collaboration and Support
We have had ongoing conversations with the programme manager over the telephone, email
and when attending JISC related events. This has enabled us to keep them up-to-date with
the project and its progress. Similarly we have regular contact with our critical friend and
attended a cluster meeting in December. The next meeting is organised for May. We are
now realising substantive tangible benefits from working within and beyond our cluster and
expect top contribute several outcomes from this work before the end of the project.
Members of the project team have also been involved in organising and participating in a trilateral meeting with the Birmingham City Curriculum Design project and the learning design
work taking place at Gloucester University. The aim was to learn from and explore
opportunities for using each others tools and methods (see project blog) and participating in
a joint meeting between Cluster B and C Curriculum Design project teams to update Cluster
B on our work and discuss ongoing collaboration. The project manager has also worked with
the Newcastle Curriculum Delivery team to develop a new bid for JISC Learning Innovation
Funds.
Section Nine: Financial Statement
Total Grant
£400,000
Duration of
01/09/08 – 31/05/12
Institutional Approaches to Curriculum Design Programme
project
Reporting
Period
Budget
Headings
1 Nov 10 – 30 Apr 11
Total
budget
allocated
Expenditure
this reporting
period
Total
expenditure to
date
Further information
Staff
Travel &
Subsistence
Equipment
Dissemination
activities
Evaluation
activities
Consumables
Consultancy
Recruitment
Partner
payments
Total
Checklist:
Before you return this report:
 Ensure that your project webpage on the JISC site is up to date and contains the
correct information. Attach details of any required amendments to this report. Project
webpages can be found from: www.jisc.ac.uk/curriculumdesign
 If there have been any changes to the original project plan and/or work packages,
ensure that amended copies of the relevant sections of your project plan are
attached to this report.
 Identify and name any areas within this report that you‟d like removed before the
report is made public (*see below)
*Please note the interim reports will be made available on the JISC website and on the
Circle site with the budgetary information removed. We recognise that projects may
occasionally address very sensitive issues. We would like you to present as full a picture in
this report as you can as the lessons you learn are valuable to us. We assure you that any
issues you identify as confidential are removed before the report is made public. Where such
issues do represent valuable lessons for the community we will involve you in further
discussion as to how they could be passed on without identifying institutions or individuals.
Institutional Approaches to Curriculum Design Programme
Appendix 1: Screenshots of personal narratives from project participants at Reading
University