Recognising our own expertise

During the recent OU Crisis, one of the things I moaned about was the lack of faith senior management seemed to have in the expertise of their own staff. We brought in consultants, and hired people outside of higher ed, to tell us how to be a better open university. I know my institution is not alone in this, and it portrays perhaps an insecurity about our own knowledge.

So, having moaned about it, my bluff has been called. I’ve been asked to lead a set of internal OU seminars, highlighting expertise we have and focussing on how it can be applied practically. I have a vagueish set of principles for the series:

• Based on combination of external research and work at the OU
• Discussion based, no predetermined solutions
• Not linked to any specific workstream, strategic priority, etc.
• Input from all OU staff welcome
• Focus on practical application within the OU, which could be realised within a reasonable time frame.
• Interactive (maybe fun even?)

I feel it’s rooted in the practical approach to ed tech. I’m starting the series off with a seminar based on the OOFAT work as a way of thinking about our own strategy, on Tuesday 17 July at 11am-12pm in Hub Theatre. If you’re OU staff, please come along. We plan to either record or stream it, so hopefully available to all.

I would also like to hear if others have run similar type of sessions or programmes at their institutions, if there were particular approaches they would recommend (or recommend to avoid)?

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