(Duration 7:20) At the launch event of the Edgeless University publication, a report produced by Demos and commissioned by JISC, David Lammy Minister for Higher Education and IPR announced a new £20m open learning innovation fund for UK universities.
David Lammy I’m pleased to announce today a new fund to encourage universities to work together with organisations across the private and third sectors, and bid for money to develop projects to help transform the way that people can get a degree. We anticipate that the Open Learning Innovation Fund will develop centres of excellence to deliver high quality online learning, help groups of institutions to pursue business opportunities, develop greater expertise and online teaching and pedagogy, and promote innovative learning approaches to use the range of online resources that are now there. Taking account of the advice of the new Task Force will be essential, so of course will be the role of the Funding Council as we develop the fund and take their advice over the coming years. But what is clear is that this is a key opportunity for this country, our universities sit ready to take it up, our population and indeed an international population, demands that we should. And I’m very pleased to be able to take my views around an inclusive education forward in this exciting way.
Thank you.
After his presentation the Minister then spoke with JISC’s Rebecca O’Brian by Skype and highlighted the importance of JISC in its role in ensuring our universities have a world-class infrastructure with access to digital resources.
Rebecca O’Brian Minister, you’ve just launched the Open Learning Innovation Fund. Perhaps you can give us a few details about it and what its objectives are.
David Lammy Well the fund is just one part of our strategy which is designed to build on an internationally recognised area of excellence for the UK, which is our online and distance learning. And what we want to do is to encourage universities to work together because the prospect for British universities, ensuring that across the world people are able to access the very best of our offer at the turn of this century is immense. And this money will ensure that universities, of course like the Open University, but many others, are able to collaborate and establish absolute renounced pre-eminent expertise at universities in the world, in relation to distance learning.
Rebecca O’Brian So just touching on what you’ve just said there, JISC and Damos have just produced a new booklet about the impact of technology on society universities. How big an impact do you think technology has had in opening up the resources that you’ve just touched on?
David Lammy Well we’re definitely living in an accelerated age. It’s only 1971 that saw the invention of the computer, and the internet, in a sense, we gather has only been with us for less than two decades. And it’s clear that this century will be a collective century, and web innovations, web casts, podcasts, and the means by which to transfer knowledge across huge borders is immense and intense. And it offers, of course, education and pre-eminent education in the shape of the higher education sector in this country, huge possibilities.
Rebecca O’Brian So looking at increasing the amount of information that people can access online, how important do you think it is for research, and those resources our universities produce, to be available and accessible for all of us, rather than being locked away by publishers?
David Lammy Well I mean I think that this merges, and if you like, my brief as the Minister for Higher Education but also intellectual property. This is an age where we want to share as much of that information as possible. We want to make it accessible. It means reinterpreting, sometimes, the rules and codes of behaviour that can keep information locked away. Knowledge is power, it always has been, but access to that knowledge is absolutely key. I think that clearly the technology is there, the platforms are there, we now have to ensure that the rules and means to distribute that knowledge are clear and accessible to all.
Rebecca O’Brian So how important do you see the role of JISC in providing that leadership and expertise for universities in the innovative use of technologies for teaching and learning?
David Lammy Well I think that JISC has been a key factor in our current success by ensuring our universities have a world-class infrastructure and access to a wide and often an increasing range of digital resources. So your role in encouraging e-learning, particularly through publishing the uses of technology in teaching has been really, really important, and that needs to continue as new applications and developments come online and onboard over the coming months and years.
Rebecca O’Brian And finally, do you think the UK will ever go down the same route being advocated by California where textbooks are to be replaced by online learning?
David Lammy Well I mean I think that at the moment what we have is a plural system where there are different means of accessing the information dependent on the institution, and indeed on the student. So what I think I’m all for is pluralism of access. California has taken a particular road, and of course we will see where this... where we get to. This is certainly an age where we are seeing, for example, regional newspapers disappearing as people go online. I don’t know where this story will end up, but what I do know is that Britain has to be ahead of the curve. This fund helps us be ahead of the curve, and that in the end education must be increasingly personalised to meet the needs of the student as the student requires it, and wherever the student requires it.
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