Open Platform
Posted 1 year, 3 months ago at 9:55 am. 0 comments
Platform, from the Open University is live. Tagline Chat/Chill/Connect. It’s introduction is timely given that we are currently having a group discussion on my T175 Living in a Networked World course on Social Networking and whether it enhances personal relationships. Which I’m kind of finding like any question that is asked about a tool it all depends on how you use it. Screwdiver: flat pack furniture assembly or murder weapon? Still we are having fun already falling into the regimented lines of Facebook: love it or loathe it. The coreography of this discussion is rather entrenched by now, maybe someone will find someway to find a different angle on it, yes you are right I could try I suppose.
So where does Platform fit in? A university hosting a social networking platform that is open to the world, not just the OU community. This means you ahve to create a new account to use it, but you can associate you OU comuter username with it that suggests they may hang some useful student specific functionality off it at some point. For now the question remains why go here and not student home? why go here and not Facebook, or MySpace, or the BBC?
It has news, possibly the most interesting section. Universities are on the whole really bad at news. Those dull official press releases we put out. When actually universities are absolute engines of really interesting bits of information. Here the OU are doing a good job of getting their academics talking about the things that interest people: from climate change and economic crisis, to what the X Factor is all about. I think this is what Academics should be doing, helping ordinary people navigate life, not just publish their views in academic journals and forums, inaccessible to the non-scholarly. How much recognition this sort of activity will get in the REF is another matter 
Not sure user valued research includes YouTube diaries.
There’s also blogs. Academics don’t just spend their lives in labs and libraries you know, they also blog, as to students and other guest columnists. Again their is nothing readically new here, but it provides another way to describe the OU experience. I particularly like the student blog. One of the things about the OU is it’s students rarely meet except in samll tutorial or study groups. Many students make friends for life through the OU, but many may rarely come into contat with other students, so the OU student experience has to be shared in a totally different way.
Interestingly, at UCISA CISG it was suggested this may increasingly be a problem for traditional campus universities to. As we get more efficient at our administrative process (really we do!), and have things like online signup and registration, students are already enrolled before they even get here. What do do with that time from early August until they get here in September? How to lubricate the social wheels when there aren’t any queues to stand in and make those initial friendships. Campus portals, social ones not just administrative ones, are becoming more important in generating a sense of community. I guess this is the WHY? for the OU Platform. It not only provides a sense of community, outside of FirstClass, it provides a sense of community that can unite all of the OU stakeholders: students, academics, prospective students, alumni, businesses and the broader community.
The other three sections are Join In, for forum discussion (“Can women be single and happy?”), Campus, which is the about the university bit, and Time Out, which is the fun bit with competitions, games, clubs and societies and the reminder that universities do play a vital social, not just intellectual role.
Just on the technical side ot does allow you to associate OpenIDs with your account for login, but unfortunately keeps telling me my OpenID is not valid. Only one little flaw. Overall this is an interesting venture from the OU, and we may well see other institutions trying a similar thing. Ultimately they will all thrive, or fade on their content, and their ability to generate community, that is distinctive enough to divert people from the big consumer offerings that already exist.
