Innovation: FutureLearn
UK and global
AAI Domains:
Independent, healthy and secure living (lifelong learning)
Capacity and enabling environment (use of ICT)
Participation in society (social connectedness)
Lifelong learning is an essential part of active ageing and there have been remarkably successful social innovations that have enabled this process in the past. In the 1960s the great British social innovator Michael Young created the concept of what was to become the Open University. The Open University used late night television broadcasts to support a distance learning model that provided accessible high quality opportunities for higher education for hundreds of thousands of people of all ages who did not follow the traditional pattern of young adults attending a university for three years.
The concept of the University of Third Age created by Francois Vellas in Toulouse in the early 1970s has developed into a global phenomenon that has provided lifelong learning opportunities for millions of people. The next wave of social innovation in lifelong learning revolves around massive open online courses (MOOCs) that provide internet-based short courses. The development of MOOCs has been dominated by American universities in collaboration with charitable foundations and commercial companies. Individual universities in Europe have tested their own MOOCs but an emerging social innovation is FutureLearn that provides a large scale competitor to the leading American MOOC providers.
FutureLearn is a private company that was established in 2012 and is owned by the Open University, the great social innovation created nearly 50 years ago in the UK. It started with a dozen UK university partners and has rapidly expanded to have 72 partners across the UK, Europe and globally. There are now partners in France, Norway, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Ireland and the global links have extended to South Korea, China, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa.
The first courses started in October 2013 and there are now scores of courses with more being developed covering a wide range of subject areas and catering for around 2.5 million people who have signed up for FutureLearn. FutureLearn offers short courses, ranging from two to ten weeks, that are specifically designed to be delivered as MOOCs. They are delivered online via videos with structured activities to complete, a strong emphasis on online discussions with other students, quizzes (not marked) and tests (marked) in addition to assignments with scope for feedback from other students.
MOOCs do not have a large network of tutors to support student learning but rely on mutual support of students to encourage and enable learning. Courses are free to enrol on and offer the option of buying a Statement of Participation certificate and some courses offer an invigilated examination at a local test centre that leads to a Statement of Attainment certificate providing evidence of new skills.
MOOCs are innovative in how they offer higher education based on learning through storytelling, discussion and using community support for learning. FutureLearn’s principles include being open and accessible to all kinds of students, encouraging connections for mutual support to remove loneliness from distance learning and embracing massive scale so that learning opportunities are widely available.
In relation to active ageing, FutureLearn offers a wide range of opportunities for lifelong learning to adults of all ages although it does require access and knowledge of ICT that restricts accessibility for some groups of people. It also offers a degree of social connectedness through the supportive learning environment on which it is based although this is a relatively weak form of social connection.
However, FutureLearn does offer a viable international partnership for lifelong learning that is increasingly available to people around the world. As the proportion of people with access to ICT and broadband increases there is increasing scope for MOOC providers such as FutureLearn to develop and have an impact on the scale of the Open University and the University of the Third Age.