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OU awarded funds to build remote-access labs
facilities and industry-standard tools. As well as the OU’s current STEM offer, the extended laboratories will support new undergraduate curriculum in electronics, instrumentation and control, and a new postgraduate module in space science. Students will gain distinctive, key
employability skills, such as virtual team working to control remote environments, and novel applications of numeracy and IT, all highly relevant in today’s STEM working environments. Tim Blackman, Acting Vice-Chancellor,
The Open University (OU) has been awarded a major grant from the HEFCE STEM teaching capital project to enable the creation of online laboratories. A total of £2.7m will be divided
between Science and Engineering and enable the creation of the ‘OpenSTEM Laboratory’. This will build on the successes of
the Wolfson OpenScience Laboratory – which recently won the Times Higher
Education Award for ‘Outstanding ICT achievement of the year’. This development directly addresses demands from employers and professional bodies for STEM graduates with appropriate skills and experience of working with industry standard analytical tools. Students worldwide will be able to
set up, and participate in an enhanced suite of remote-controlled experiments using best in breed remote access
More universities embrace MOOC platform
Online Learning Platform FutureLearn has welcomed nine new university partners from Colombia, France, Spain and Switzerland. The roster of European institutions
now includes FutureLearn’s first Swiss partner, the University of Basel, as well as the University of Bergen from Norway. Paris Diderot University and Pompeu Fabra University join as the first partners from France and Spain respectively, while the University of Twente is the most recent institution to join from The Netherlands. University of Los Andes, based in
Bogata, Colombia, becomes the first Latin American university to offer free online courses to FutureLearn’s global community of learners. Finally, from the UK come three
more colleges from the University of London – Goldsmiths, SOAS (the School
of Oriental and African Studies) and St George’s, University of London. Simon Nelson, Chief Executive of
FutureLearn said: “As FutureLearn continues to atract more and more international learners, it brings into sharp focus the need to give them the
choice to access as many of the world’s leading universities as possible. Social learning is proving to be one of the most effective means of delivering online courses at scale, and I am proud to welcome this roll call of prestigious universities from around the world.”
said: “The OU already has a proud tradition of teaching STEM students in innovative ways. These online labs will help keep the University at the forefront of supported open learning in practical engineering and science for many years to come. This will not just benefit more employable graduates, but employers and industries facing national and international STEM skill shortages.” The HEFCE STEM teaching capital
project is intended to ensure that higher education responds effectively to the increase in demand for STEM studies by developing facilities that will support an increased flow of highly employable graduates into industry.
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