Interdisciplinarity: A collection

By now you will already know all about the amazing learning opportunities available on OpenLearn. You may have completed many OpenLearn courses or perhaps just one or two. However much you’ve done so far, your experience on OpenLearn means you already know what it is like to study online and at a distance.

It seems to be a buzzword in education and one that gets thrown around quite a lot these days. But what does 'interdisciplinary' study really mean? And why is it so desirable?

The Open University would really appreciate a few minutes of your time to tell us about yourself and your expectations for the course before you begin, in our optional start-of-course survey 342. Once you complete the course we would also value your feedback and suggestions for future improvement, in our optional end-of-course survey 343. Participation will be completely confidential and we will not pass on your details to others.

The recent UK general election saw many parties pledge to ‘improve’ the environment. Vicky Johnson considers progress can be measured by more closely connecting the environment to economics.

This free course, Themes and theories for working in virtual project teams, offers an introduction to working in virtual project teams. It explains the terms and concepts related to teams and projects, and highlights the complexity around the interaction of people and technology.

Many projects are now ‘virtual’, i.e. some or all of the team are located remotely and may be working in different time zones. The project manager needs all the traditional soft skills, and more. This free course, Managing virtual project teams, looks at knowledge and techniques which underpin team selection and then consider the additional expertise needed to manage teams in a virtual environment.

From The Digital Scholar: discover the power and problems of a connected social network.

From the Digital Scholar: Discover how blogging boosted interdisciplinary thinking.

The advantages of studying more than one subject and the future forward for learning.

What are 'disciplines' and what is 'interdisciplinary study'?

Children are subject to many forms of adversity, for example, poverty or ill health. However, a significant form of adversity experienced by children in many different regions of the world is violence. The form of violence against children varies widely and is hugely disparate. In this free course, Children and violence: an introductory, international and interdisciplinary approach, the focus is on three different environments where children experience violence.

Human communication is vastly more complex than that of any other species we know about. It is so complex that linguists are only just beginning to identify the processes in the brain that are related to understanding language. This free course, From sound to meaning: hearing, speech and language, looks at how language is understood by taking an interdisciplinary approach.

The most flexible degree programme in the UK allows you to study any subjects you like, in any combination.

If you’re keen to try university study but want to keep your options open, this flexible certificate is the ideal starting point.

The Diploma of Higher Education Open enables you to study any subjects you like, in any combination.