Permission to shout "Woo Woo Woooh!!" incredibly loudly, sir?

After months of work on the business appraisal, H809 has been approved. :-) Full steam ahead!

Did you think this was going to be one of those infamous one-post blogs? Well, I was discouraged from posting during the appraisal. And I still need to keep flagging up that details contained herein are subject to change before the course goes live.

Mind you, if the blog posts reach double figures I'll be surprised...

What's this blog about?

At a time of high demand for “evidence-based” policy and practice, some of us believe that technology is dramatically changing educational research processes.

A small team at The Open University is planning a 20-week online postgraduate course on educational research and evaluation in technology-rich environments.

The course isn't approved yet, so anything you read in this blog is tentative and subject to change. If approved, the course would be part of the OU's MA in Online and Distance Education (MAODE). But until then, this blog is unofficial. ;-)

The idea of the course is that students get to learn about cutting-edge methods of data collection and analysis by engaging in the critical study of original empirical research. There'd also be a look at philosophical assumptions underlying educational enquiry, and ethical debates. The course would draw on the loads of excellent educational research resources out there on the web. Instead of an exam, a short project.

There's no title yet (suggestions welcome!), but a provisional code - H809. Hence the name of the blog.

If you're interested, there are three immediate ways you can help us:

1. Let us know what you'd want from such a course.
2. Point us to web resources that might be useful.
3. Subscribe to the blog - it'll encourage us to post our progress.