The Open University is “open” in several senses. First, it is open to applicants of any age or background. Unlike conventional universities in England, there are no entrance requirements of any kind. It has also been especially useful for traditionally underserved populations, such as people with disabilities. Second, it is open in the sense that it utilizes an array of educational methods, including television and radio broadcasts, video and audio tapes, mailed correspondence lessons, email and electronic conferencing, web-based courses, and multimedia CD-ROM materials, as well as locally based tutors, regional study centers, and on-campus summer-school sessions. Third, it is open in the sense of place. It has no campus of its own, and is equally accessible to students from even the most remote locations. (Administrative offices and production facilities are maintained in Milton Keynes, England.) Fourth, it is open in terms of time. Students can set their own schedule and progress at their own pace; there is also no time limit for completion of a degree.

Originally to be called “University of the Air,” television played a key role in the Open University concept from the beginning. It was felt that television served as a crucial bridge to the “average” nonacademic person. It also provided a human dimension to the prevailing distance-education model then known as correspondence study; through television, students could “meet” their faculty. Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, television offered the most cost-effective means for delivering higher education content to a mass public.

Open University courses are developed by teams of academic, education, and media specialists. Television-based course materials generally consist of printed booklets that contain the lessons, supplementary readings, and specially designed broadcast notes and exercises to accompany the television programs. Televised lessons are approximately 30 minutes in length, aired during non-peak viewing times on BBC 2, and usually repeated during the same week. Video-cassette recorders enable many students to time-shift their viewing to more convenient times. The Open University contracts with the BBC for production of the programs. Initially, most were studio productions (in black and white), but location shooting was increasingly added as more experience was gained in the educational qualities of the medium. In addition, some courses utilize archive footage from the BBC. Because the Open University pays for production costs, the programs are produced solely for use in coursework and not for wider commercial appeal. Nevertheless, some programs are no doubt watched by incidental viewers, who may develop an interest and end up taking a course. In one year, 36,000 “study packs” were sold to people who wanted to audit an Open University course without enrolling.

Television brings a number of unique abilities to the teaching/learning experience: it can broadcast an interview with a leading authority in the field under study; illustrate abstract mathematical and economic concepts through animation; show demonstrations of scientific experiments, speeding them up or slowing them down; and provide tours of actual sites of sociological, anthropological, or historical interest.

Great care is taken in course planning and execution to attain quality standards equivalent to conventional universities. An Open University degree has become well respected, and credits received are transferable to regular universities. Indeed, many Open University students, perhaps as many as two-thirds, already have the academic credentials to attend regular universities but have chosen not to for a variety of personal or logistical reasons.