OpenLearn wins Excellence in Distance Education award

OpenLearn, The Open University's project that offers free learning resources on the internet, has received an Excellence in Distance Education Award at the Fifth Pan-Commonwealth Forum on Open Learning.

The judges said: "The OpenLearn website of the Open University, UK, is the unanimous winner for this category based on its educational value and learning for development value. The OpenLearn website is one of the most significant contributions to the evolving world of Open Education Resources - the project is a benchmark for the design of asynchronous learning materials.

"The breadth and scope of the collection of OpenLearn materials is impressive and The Open University has successfully implemented a number of robust and scalable technological innovations. Deserving particular mention is the excellent and creative support of RSS syndication, which puts this project at the forefront of work in this field. Above all, the OpenLearn website is not just a repository of materials but a platform for collaborative content development and recontextualisation, thus widening access to high quality learning resources around the world."