Martin Weller is Professor of Educational Technology in IET. He has been at the heart of many of the OU’s open education developments. He chaired the OU’s first elearning course in 1999 with 15,000 students. He was part of the original team that gained the funding for the OpenLearn project and was the VLE Director who made the recommendation to adopt an open source solution in Moodle. He is currently an ICDE Chair in OER and is the Vice-Chair of the UK Association for Learning Technology (ALT).
Prof. Weller has directed several OER related research projects. These include: Sidecap, which looked at issues of adoption of OER in developing countries; FLOSScom, which researched open source approaches to education; MOOC completion rates and learning design examining the data for student retention in open courses and the educational design of different MOOC types.
He is also co-editor of the open access journal JIME. He is author of the recent book The Battle for Open, which addresses the direction of open education, and The Digital Scholar, which examines the impact of new technology in scholarly practice. Both of these are published under an open access licence.
Rob is Research Fellow in the Institute of Education Technology (IET) at The Open University (UK). He is a philosopher, interdisciplinary researcher and educational technologist who has worked on many research projects including EC funded MOTILL (Mobile Technologies in Lifeliong Learning) and EU4ALL (European Unified Framework for Accessible Lifelong Learning) projects; and later with a focus on open education: In the Open Learning Network (OLnet) project he was responsible for curating and disseminating evidence about OER. In OER Research Hub project he built a strong personal network through collaboration, working with a range of key stakeholders to research non-formal and institutional use of OER. Rob has acted as a research consultant for the ROER4D (Research on Open Educational Resources for Development) project and the Open Knowledge Foundation. Rob is editor of The Open Education Handbook and Associate Editor of JIME. He holds a PhD in Philosophy from The University of Essex.
Bea is a Research Associate at the Institute of Educational Technology (IET) at The Open University (UK). Prior to her work with OER Hub she worked on the production and delivery of online distance language learning courses at the Department of Languages (OU). She collaborated on the development, implementation and evaluation of the JISC-funded LORO repository, which provides OER for language teaching and learning, and facilitated OT12 MOOC in Open Translation tools and practices, the first ever MOOC produced at The Open University. Bea also contributed to the course evaluation strategy and was part of a team researching the formation of online communities beyond linguistic barriers. She was responsible for community engagement on a range of open education initiatives, including the Support Centre for Open Resources in Education (SCORE). With OER Hub she led the project’s collaborations and research in the K12 sector, in addition to overseeing data analysis. Bea holds a PhD in Education from The Open University.
Beck is a Research Associate at the Institute of Educational Technology (IET) at The Open University (UK). Beck joined IET in June 2011 having previously worked at the UK Data Archive, University of Essex, supporting the European Commission funded CESSDA-PPP project for its duration. Upon joining IET Beck worked as project and research support on the Gates funded Bridge to Success project, which collaborated with community colleges in the Maryland area to remix existing OU whole course OER for use as bridging content for students beginning their college studies. Beck also supported the JISC/HEFCE Rapid Innovations Track OER project prior to joining the OER Research Hub in January 2013.
Beck was responsible for a range of collaborative activity during the OER Research Hub Phase I including research with open textbook providers OpenStax CNX, Siyavula and the BC Campus Open Textbook project. She also carried out follow-up research on the Bridge to Success project and worked with P2PU/Creative Commons and the Co-PILOT project. Beck also led the development and delivery of the OER Research Hub’s P2PU course Open Research, which was awarded a RCUK/Open University Engaging Research award in February 2015. Following two successful iterations in 2014 and 2015 Beck led the course’s redevelopment into an open textbook on Pressbooks. Beck led the research strand of the Opening Educational Practices in Scotland project and was lead author of Becoming an Open Educator, which was awarded an Honorable Mention in the MOOC/OCW/Course category of the OE Consortium’s OE Awards for Excellence 2017. Beck has a Phd in Philosophy and is also a committee member and social media lead for the UK Sartre Society, aspiring lindy hopper and novice sketch-noter.
I am a developing Project Manager within the Open University, supporting and working with the OER Hub Team in open education. I work closely with the team using Project Management methodology to ensure smooth running of reports, events and financial planning. I enjoy the opportunity to take on challenges, using an enthusiastic approach to motivate those around me.
About OER Hub
The team
