This may be preaching to the converted – those of us who are using and enjoying the H817open technical interface without any real problems. But – just in case – let me offer two scenarios:
- There are no material problems with the interface.
It involves 4 links (learning site, blog registration, blog aggregator, forum) and the setting-up of a blog. There is a print format option for those who like their learning materials full-screen or downloaded. None of this should cause difficulty to the reasonably literate group who are the audience – mainly people in academia in some way.
There is evidence for and against this proposition. Many of us are having few problems. However the numerous repetitive requests for help, responded by the ever patient and helpful Paige and Alan, suggest that the set-up is either faulty or too complex. - There are material problems with the interface or the instructions are too complex.
If this is true then either Open University is inept at building a site designed for open access or the assumptions about the digital literacy of the participants is invalid.
If the former, then the problem is temporary – just a learning curve or OpenLearn rebuild issue, however irritating to current participants. If the latter, however, it is a fundamental challenge to assumptions that open learning is the next big thing. If our relatively literate community is struggling, what chance for those new to the open, online environment?
Answers on a postcard please – in case the blog aggregator doesn’t work!
I think it’s a bit of both to be honest. The site could be better, the openlearn site was rebuilt recently and there are some glitches. It’s also a site designed for delivering single OERs, and there is a bit of tension between that and the demands of a MOOC. So some of it is down to us.
As for the other part, open courses can be at different levels. This is part of a Masters course, so the expectation on learners is more than if it were a level 1 introductory undergrad course. Setting up a blog is fairly straightforward with tools like blogger, and the registering process is simply giving us an address. So it’s a bit fiddly, but not too complex.
Also, I think in other courses you may not use things like the blog aggregator. That is an extra, we could just have forums. But as this course is _about_ open education, part of its aim is to experiment and show the types of things people are doing. So we could have simplified the technology a bit, but one of the aims of the course is to use that technology. It would be different if it was a course on, Shakespeare, say.
I will refer you to the conceptual art I devised for activity 3: Data Density.
OpenLearn, at one level, appears to have attempted to follow the established principles of web design at each stage, but “at each stage” isn’t enough, as they all interact. Each of the three banner sections on its own would be OK, but taken together, that’s half the screen gone already.
The course blurb is a right pain, and the “hide summary” button is worse than useless, because the summary isn’t hidden on subsequent pages until the page has finished loading (comments and all), so if you start scrolling before the load has finished, the page will jump when the actual hiding takes place.
But the course team have also made their mistakes.
With all the cruft and the delays in loading (beyond their control) why make so many unnecessary short pages? Why not list the unit learning goals on the introduction page and include the forum link on the unit references page? The amount of time I’ve wasted waiting for a page with only one or two sentences on it is embarrassing.
And as for the blog aggregator, for me it’s not the technicalities of signing up and operating it that’s the core problem, it’s that it’s such a blunt instrument. It’s an inherently time-bound medium, whereas forums allow a much more logical structure. It’s kind of confusing to see a snapshot of the answers to exercises from the future and the past muddled together, and the post you were looking at a day ago lost to the mists of time, so you never go back and see the responses to your posts — so much for the conversation!
But all in all, it comes down to this: Dunbar’s number.