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53 things you never knew about OpenLearn

Updated Wednesday, 5 January 2022

The Open University is 53 on 23rd April 2022, to coincide with the celebrations we put together 53 surprising things about the OU's FREE online learning resources...​

ABOUT OPENLEARN

  1. OpenLearn was born in 2006, the same year Bernard Matthews discontinued Turkey Twizzlers (thanks for that, Jamie Oliver) and Pluto got declassed as a planet
  2. We’ve had more than 100 million visitors to OpenLearn since 2006. Our borders are open - anyone from any country is welcome (however, if you want to create an account you must be over the age of 13).
  3. Why do we give out content for free? The queen told us to! It’s written in our Royal Charter ‘Advancement and dissemination of learning and knowledge… to promote the general wellbeing of the community’.
  4. 13.6 million people visited our website last year – that’s more than the number of people who visited the UK’s most popular tourist attraction, The British Museum. 
  5. A little piece of every module offered by The Open University is placed on OpenLearn for free. Yes, 5% of every OU course is available on our site as a taster.
  6. Learning on OpenLearn can give a taster of what OU study is actually like.
  7. It would take you at least two and a half years to finish all of our free courses. Or you can complete one course in just one hour like our free course, Does Prison Work, or watch a minute-long video on 60 Second Adventures in Microgravity (see the animation below).
  8. Operating as a four nation university, OpenLearn has free resources representing all of our nations. You can find most of the relevant content in these hubs: OpenLearn Ireland, OpenLearn Scotland, and our Wales hubs: OpenLearn Wales and OpenLearn Cymru (for English and Welsh speakers, respectively).

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STUDENTS

  1. Open University students who use OpenLearn are 5-10% more likely to pass and progress to their next module, than those who do not. Interested in our full course catalogue now?
  2. We understand studying after a number of years can be daunting so every new student about to take on an OU module studies a Badged Open Course as part of their induction; take a look at Being An OU Student.
  3. Around 20% of our informal learners don’t speak English as a first language, luckily we have a course for that, English: Skills for Learning.
  4. 14% of learners on OpenLearn have a disability. We’re big on accessibility as a result of this.
  5. We’re advocates of employability and have a range of free courses for the workplace to give you the additional skills employers increasingly value.
  6. Studying making you stressed? We can help you get ‘zen’ in our article, Five tips for relaxing during difficult times, and a video on student mental health (see below).

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SYNDICATION AND OTHER SITES

  1. We have our sister site OpenLearn Create, which is more international with 48% of users from India and another large chunk from Tanzania and Nigeria. 
  2. Our YouTube channel has a whopping 291,000 subscribers – the most on any UK university YouTube account.
  3. We have a Facebook and Twitter account with over 25K followers each – come and say hi!
  4. Ever fancied making your own online course (whether it’s on dark matter or your favourite book)? We’ve made an open online course entitled, How To Make an Open Online Course. It's free course ‘Inception’!

Bryan Mather's 'I'm Possible' illustration

THE POPULAR/AWARD-WINNING

  1. Our fantastic video on sex, intimacy and relationships: Intimate not Intimidated: It's Time to Talk about Sex and Disability won the Educational Film (University) Award at the Learning on Screen Awards 2020. 
  2. We condensed Homer’s enormous poems The Iliad and The Odyssey into two award-winning animations. Brad Pitt doesn’t feature, but the dulcet tones of Don Warrington do (see the video below).
  3. Our most popular course over the years is, Start Writing Fiction. Give it a whirl if you aspire to be the next Stephen King.
  4. We won an award for our digital badges and since their creation in 2015, more than 200,000 digital badges have been awarded to learners.
  5. Our most popular interactive over the years is our Photographic memory test.
  6. Hate maths? Conquer your fears with our most popular badged open course, Succeed with Maths.
  7. Our most popular article (almost every year) is a timeline on the rise and fall of Hitler.
  8. Our Facebook followers love our free course Forensic Psychology – it’s their favourite…
  9. While the Twittersphere seizes the day (carpe diem) by engaging most with our Getting Started in Classical Latin free course.
  10. We’ve tapped into the sofa psychologist trend and have a range of interactives to help you become the next Luther from Are you a Super Recogniser?, for those of you who think you can spot a criminal offender, to Detecting Deception (our most popular interactive on Facebook) where you’re asked to sniff out the liar.

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ABOUT THE TEAM

  1. Some of the OpenLearn team can’t function without a morning coffee. We love it so much we made a free course on it, The Value of Coffee.
  2. We’re obsessed with emoji and love exploring the educational purposes of the little pictures. We even did an animation voiced by the wonderful Lauren Laverne.
  3. We practise what we preach. The OpenLearn team went on a volunteering day to the wonderful Bletchley Park (home of the World War 2 codebreakers) and got our hands dirty sanding and painting benches, digging a path and gardening. You can find out more about volunteering in this badged free course, Introducing the Voluntary Sector.
  4. Like most of the UK, the OpenLearn team are BIG fans of The Great British Bake Off but we also enjoy eating healthily - take a look at this course, The science of nutrition and healthy eating.
  5. We’re potty about Harry Potter (and so are some of our OU academics). Can you guess which Hogwarts house translates as Pouffesouffle in French? Take a look at this article, Harry Potter and the Translator's Challenge to find out.
  6. We’re suckers for a bad pun. Check out Star Wars: May the course be with you (formerly Star Wars: The Course Returns).
  7. OK, so we're no Olivia Coleman when it comes to acting skills but the OpenLearn team have made special cameo appearances in some of our site’s videos – including this video which is included in our The Science of Alcohol badged open course.

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THE INSPIRATIONAL

  1. The OU’s Chancellor Martha Lane Fox (and the founder of LastMinute.com) actually introduces our free course, Digital Skills: Succeeding in a Digital World.
  2. We have some inspiring people included in some of our free courses. Take a look at this one, Exploring Coaching and Psychology, introduced by ACTUAL OLYMPIAN and gold medal winner team GB’s Alex Danson.
  3. We’re championing Women in STEM and have an interactive, Reboot your STEM Career, and free course, Return to Stem, to help women return to their science, technology, engineering or maths career after a break.
  4. We know personal finance can be baffling and is not necessarily taught in schools, which is why we created a free course, Managing my Money for Young Adults, with the wonderful Bobby Seagull from University Challenge.
  5. We’ve partnered with some well-known companies to deliver top-notch learning such as CISCO in our Internet of Everything free course and Money Saving Expert in MSE's Academy of Money.
  6. In the wake of heightened concerns over black lives, after George Floyd’s murder in May 2020, and in light of the disproportionate effect of the Coronavirus on people from a BAME background we created a resource that collated expertise on race and ethnicity, not only for general learning and personal interest to everyone, but also to directly inform BAME OU staff and students on topics that might affect their wellbeing and mental health - it's called The Race and Ethnicity Hub and is definitely worth exploring.

Bryan Mathers 'A tasty slice of everything we makeis shared openly' illustration

THE WEIRD AND WONDERFUL

  1. Some of our content would make Queen Victoria turn in her grave – check out our animations on Sperm 101 below.
  2. We also touch on important subjects people find morbid like death and dying. See this free course An Introduction to Death, Dying and Grief
  3. Would you believe us when we say that one of our philosophy courses includes a Guns n Roses tribute act? Head over to Exploring Philosophy: Faking Nature to see the fake Axel and the gang!
  4. Are you a parent? To create an account on our site you must be 13+, but we have these fantastic Wild Weather Kitchen Experiments if you’re looking to entertain your younger kids in an educational way. We apologise in advance for the abundance of flour all over your kitchen.
  5. We’ve gone to some lengths to prove that chocolate isn’t as bad for your health as we initially thought (hurrah!) Dig into this article on the science of chocolate
  6. We’ve proved that time travel is really possible. Marty McFly, eat your heart out...
  7. We’ve gone a bit overboard on content related to the bard. 'Play on' and check out this page (or should that be shrine) for Shakespeare. We’ve got videos, academics insights, free courses and more.
  8. We’ve got a naughty streak... Check out our game Hadrian: The Roamin' Emperor for a scene with this famous Roman in the nude!
  9. We have a 'Coming Soon' page for a free course called 'Dog Grooming for Beginners' - which promises to help you give your pooch a teddy bear cut, or even 'the Rachel'. Don't be fooled though - recognise the published date?
  10.  Last year, an Open University scientist was quickly on the scene to collect a rare meteorite sample; the first UK meteorite in 30 years. We made a mini documentary on the Winchcombe meteorite to find out where it came from and what it can tell us about the origin and history of the Solar System in our The Magic of Meteorites hub.
  11. In our FREE course 'Astronomy with an online telescope', you get to use The Open University’s own robotic telescope facility COAST sited on the island of Tenerife. How cool is that?
  12. …And finally, for those of you with a dirty mind, we'll let you know our free course with the most hilarious title. Who says toilet humour isn’t funny?! May we introduce you to Analysing Skid Marks? Unfortunately this course was deleted on 11th January 2019 but the content still lives on in part (like one of Voldemort's horcruxes) in the new course Dynamics

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