Hello!
You are one of the people formerly known as the audience. Now we'd like you to become part of the conversation!
Welcome to OU community - the place to find out where the OU is participating online, what we're playing with and what cool stuff we're giving away.
The OU has been working with external partners to create spaces for you to experience what we have to offer and make decisions about our quality and values on your own terms. We want everyone to reach their own conclusions so we've made thousands of hours of content freely available to you via YouTube, iTunes U (Visit The Open University on iTunes U) and OpenLearn. We want you to feel free to reuse this content in ways that benefit you, so make sure you visit these sites and take what you need! A small point to bear in mind is that the terms and conditions of the licences for each of these sites does vary. If you want to find out full details please contact Stuart Brown.
OU Community is also about us building new relationships with you in new spaces. We know that increasingly people are coming together online and getting the information they need from each other rather than from organisations like us. We think that's great, we know it's the future and we will provide as much as you want us to to help you do your thing.
Platform
Platform is the place to come if you want to read some great articles, meet people with similar interests and get involved in discussion. Platform is open to the world but is targeted at the OU community.
Platform publishes news and feature articles with an OU slant and gathers news relating to the subjects you're studying or thinking of studying and it's a great place to chat to current students, alumni or those who are new to OU study.
There are news items relating to traditional university subject areas, blog posts from academics and students, a community noticeboard, forums, groups, polls, an area highlighting member offers and discounts and regular competitions.
Platform encourages its community to contribute to the site through forums, comments and voting on articles, posting news items, events, notices or creating and managing your own interest groups.
Platform was built using the Open Source Drupal Content Management System and while it can be accessed by the general public, in order to comment on articles, post news items or contribute to the forums or groups you'll need to log in with your OU username or password.
Meet us in Facebook - You've got a Facebook profile right? So have we! Join us here and find out what students and non-students alike are saying about their OU experience. It's a great way to find out the issues that people are weighing up before deciding what courses to study and how people are managing the work/life/study balance. If you're thinking about studying with us or any other institution why not come along and put your questions to the community? There's always someone around in a similar position to you; even better they're almost always willing to help! You can even join the OU Library on Facebook. Who’d have thought it of a library!
If you're an OU student we've created a couple of Facebook applications that might be of interest to you. The first is called Course Profiles - it allows you to show others what courses you have studied (and hope to study in the future). Based on this info the app enables you to create relationships with other OU students, leave course reviews, access free course-related content, and suggests possible future courses based on others who have studied similar things to you.
The second app is My OU Story - this app allows you to publish your thoughts as you go through your course. You can assign an emotional status to each story and then see how your mood has changed throughout your journey! You can see other people's stories and leave them messages too; it's a great way to meet new people, offer support and share stories.
Talk to us on Twitter - We can't have 10 Downing St be on Twitter and us not right? The OU has two accounts @openuniversity and @ou_community. We use @openuniversity primary for communicating news, events, upcoming broadcasts etc whereas we use @ou_community to discuss issues and engage in conversation (it's much more of a two-way channel than @openuniversity). If you friend @ou_community we'll definitely friend you back! If you've got something to share with us direct a tweet at either account or just mention Open University in your tweet and we'll find it. We're pretty good like that!
OU Students Association (OUSA)
The Open University Students Association is run by students for students. Our purpose is to serve your interests and to ensure that the student voice is heard throughout the University.
OUSA’s forums are open to all members of the OU community and are all moderated by students. Whatever your interests, hobbies or areas of academic study you’ll find a forum to suit you. This is your opportunity to link up with fellow students in an informal setting; to be entertained, informed, share your thoughts and have some fun by taking part in a huge range of online discussions.
In addition to our forums OUSA is also on Facebook and Twitter and welcomes your participation there.
YouTube
See us on YouTube - There's a dedicated OU page on YouTube, once again we're the first UK university to have this arrangement with YouTube so come and join us trend-setters!. We've launched with only a fraction of what will be available so either friend us to receive alerts when there's more, or visit regularly!
We're offering a great mix of content on this channel. There will be loads of material on the subjects you love as well as content created by students (we hope!). Get involved, whether you've got a full on HD video camera setup or a mobile phone we want to hear your thoughts on the videos we upload. Of course, being YouTube you're free to embed much of the content on your site, profile or blog.
iTunes U
Hear from us in iTunes U - If you fancy something interesting to listen to on the bus or around the house the OU is one of the first UK universities to make its podcasts available for free on iTunes U. Visit The Open University on iTunes U. Our content covers the spectrum, from Arts and Humanities to Engineering and Technology. Free learning from the OU all over again.
For all you XML hounds the RSS for each podcast is available via iTunes so you're free to mashup / widgetise as you want. There's also a transcript of each podcast available so if you're looking for a little background research for a blog post or article this could be a great place to start. Copy and paste away if you need, but don't forget to link back and reference us.
OpenLearn
Use OpenLearn - We're all passionate about something. We all want to find out something more about at least one particular area; but do we love it enough to pay for it? Do we love it enough to want to study it, write essays about it etc? Well that's what OpenLearn is for!
All content on OpenLearn is taken from OU courses and as such is guaranteed to be of the highest standard. Better than that, OpenLearn, like MIT OCW is part of the OER movement. This means that all the content you find on the site is made freely available to you under Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share Alike 2.0 licence (UK: England & Wales). You're free to download, remix and reuse it any way you wish so long as you stick within the terms of the license.
OpenLearn is more than just content however, it's also about a massive community of learners using some of the coolest web2 communication tools to connect and help each other. These tools are also available under open source licenses by the way!
Flickr
Flick through our photos on the OU Flickr account! There is a dedicated photostream for the OU capturing the events involving staff, students and alumni. If you have been to an OU event recently and have some photos that you would like to share, contact us! Or if you have any memories of the events that we have captured, please feel free on comment on the photos.
Network with The Open University Business School LinkedIn Group. This group is open to students, alumni, staff, and prospective students who wish to connect and network with like minded people within the community of our prestigious triple-accredited Business School, take part in a conversation or start your own!
The Open University Business School Alumni also have a LinkedIn Group (closed to only Business School Alumni) which can be found here.