The OULDI project consists of 8 pilot projects across 5 UK HE institutions. Each of the pilots is using the OULDI methodology (representations, collaboration, conceptual tools) to slightly different ends. Evaluations of each pilot will consist of:

• detailed evaluations of a series of interventions (approx 4 per pilot) with a focus on short, medium and longer-term impact on practice and process. Interventions include for example design challenge workshops, small group facilitation, online resources/staff development modules
• 3 narratives following the journey of an individual or team through at least one intervention to implementation with a focus on enablers and barriers and impact on practice (and process)

The final report will synthesise findings across all 8 pilots (32 interventions evaluations, 24 narratives) across the following strands:

• evaluation of tools and interventions
• barriers and enablers
• levels and areas of impact (practice and process)
• recomendations for the pilot universities and the sector

This page contains links to the narratives, which will be added as they are written up.

Narrative 1: Joe is a senior lecturer in Urban Planning and Development in the School of Real Estate and Planning, where he is also director of teaching and learning and the School’s e-learning manager. The School sits within a prestigious Business School  development at his HEI; the School’s graduates are highly sought after and their academic rigour and ‘near market application of knowledge’ has been remarked upon by external examiners. Despite the School’s excellent track record, Joe and his colleagues felt it might be time refocus some of their teaching priorities when it came to challenging part one students and to better take into account changing demands and expectations of both the students themselves and their potential employers. In addition, some recent internal feedback had suggested that existing courses would benefit from an overhaul to better meet students’ needs. Joe and his team chose to use the CompediumLD learning design tool to help structure their design thinking and collaborative design discussions.

Narrative 2: Andrew is a lecturer in his second year in the department of Meteorology. For the past four years, he has acted as convener for the Atmospheric Science field course module that is run jointly between his own and another university for final year students. The module is a one-week residential field course that takes place on one of the Scottish Isles, usually in September and aims to furnish students with a greater understanding of the atmosphere works through a series of observational activities in the surrounding environment. As a new lecturer, Andrew is also taking the university’s Postgraduate Certificate in Academic Practice (PGCAP). As part of the Curriculum Design module on his PGCAP course, Andrew became involved in the Learning Design initiative along with other colleagues to pilot and champion Learning Design tools within his institution. Through face-to-face discussions and explanations of the tools at a virtual Elluminate event –organised by the OU and the coordinator at his university - and in conjunction
with side-by-side support via email, he was able to select the appropriate learning design approach to tackle some of the issues involved in redesigning the field course module. In keeping with the collaborative ethos of the project, Andrew posted regular updates on Cloudworks, as well as recording detailed reflections on his designs on Vimeo.

Narrative 3: Kleio is a lecturer in Organizational Behaviour and Management, in the School of Management. The Business School’s graduates are well sought after due to the School’s perceived academic rigour, and its commitment to developing students capacity to effectively operate in a complex world as managers, actors and decision makers. Developing students’ ability to effectively manage their own learning and career potential is at the core of the School’s strategy and its Learning and Teaching strategy. However, despite the School’s excellent track record in developing teaching content and pedagogy, Kleio felt that there was still space for innovatively designed modules that would enable meta-learning for students’ complex and integrative development. She shared her thoughts with the Director of the Undergraduate programme, David, who was overseeing the redesign of a four year degree undergraduate course in Management and Business Administration, following this discussion, Kleio agreed to design a foundational module in organizational behaviour which incorporated her concepts and ideas. During the first academic term of the delivery of the module, Kleio became aware of some difficulties in communicating the complexities of the module between different members of the design and teaching team, and students. Kleio decided to use some of the OULDI representations to help articulate and share the nature and purpose of this new module with a wider range of stakeholders.

Narrative 4: John Cossar is the course leader for the BSc Physiotherapy course in the School of Health Sciences & Social Care. This 3-year undergraduate course aims to prepare students for professional autonomy and excellence in practice. To achieve this aim, the course provides students with opportunities to acquire a sound scientific foundation, develop excellent clinical skills and a well-developed ability to clinically reason, which are essential in order to safely and effectively treat patients. Despite the fact that the BSc Physiotherapy course has traditionally been well-received by students (including the teaching, feedback, study guides and technology enhanced learning provision), the Physiotherapy team was concerned that the increased provision of learning materials and support could lead to students becoming increasingly passive and taking less responsibility for their learning. The course design team therefore agreed that a change was required: students need to take more responsibility for their learning. The course team was invited to participate in a Learning Design Workshop (modelled on the ‘OU Design Challenge’) in July 2010. They were given an opportunity to explore the Pedagogy Profile and the ‘at a glance’ Course Map tools from the OU design toolkit, to facilitate the exploration of their chosen design (supported by a member of the university’s Learning Design Team). This narrative follows the ways in which they used the tools to provide alternative representations of their course provision. 

Narrative 5: Dr Mariann Rand-Weaver was Deputy Head of Learning and Teaching of the School of Health Sciences and Social Care at the time of the project. She lectured and was the module leader responsible for the BSc Biomedical Sciences programme. Mariann became involved in the OULDI project when she attended, together with three colleagues from the School, the 2nd Learning Design Workshop held at the university on the 14th of July 2010. The course design team’s specific intention in attending was to think
about possible ways to redefine their programmes’ assessment structure. They were exposed to a series of learning design tools which included the ‘At a glance’ Course Map, and the Pedagogy Profile, to enable them to think of a holistic approach to Level design. The team had the opportunity to review the programme and level learning outcomes, rethink Level-based learning opportunities, discuss their current formative and summative assessment strategies, and explore which technologies could be integrated as part of the programme.

Narrative 6: Sweta Rajan-Rankin is a lecturer at the Social Work division in the School for Health Sciences and Social Care. She is the module leader in Social Policy for the BA and MA programmes in Social Work and is involved in offering foundational lectures on welfare delivery, social policy provisions and linkages with front-line practice. When Sweta started working at the university she was quite a novice in the use of blended learning technologies. She became involved in the Learning Design initiative along with other colleagues from the School of Health Sciences and Social Care (SHSSC) by attending the Blended Learning Design workshop in November 2009. The reason for getting involved in this initiative, as she remarked, was because she was ‘quite interested in the notion of blended design, as any other student-centred lecturer would be ....to learn new skills and to decide how you can deliver your module to students in a way that really engages them [the students].’