[12] The OU was established in 1969 and was initially based at Alexandra Palace, north London, using the television studios and editing facilities which had been vacated by the BBC.

The university awards undergraduate and postgraduate degrees, as well as non-degree qualifications such as diplomas and certificates or continuing education units.

[16] Former United Kingdom Prime Minister Gordon Brown, astrophysicist Jocelyn Bell Burnell, broadcaster Anna Ford and actress Glenda Jackson are among those who have tutored for the OU.

Planning commenced in 1965 under Minister of State for Education Jennie Lee, who established a model for the OU as one of widening access to the highest standards of scholarship in higher education, and set up a planning committee consisting of university vice-chancellors, educationalists and television broadcasters, chaired by Sir Peter Venables.

Wilson envisaged The Open University as a major marker in the Labour Party's commitment to modernising British society.

The planned use of television and radio to broadcast its courses was also supposed to link The Open University to the technological revolution under way, which Wilson saw as a major ally of his modernisation schemes.

However, from the start, Lee encountered widespread scepticism and even opposition from within and without the Labour Party, including senior officials in the Department of Education and Science (DES), her departmental head Anthony Crosland, the Treasury, ministerial colleagues, such as Richard Crossman and commercial broadcasters.

[6] There are also 1,427 (mostly full-time) salaried academic employees (central academics based at Walton Hall and staff tutors based in a variety of regional locations) who are research active and responsible for the production and presentation of teaching materials, 2,502 who are academic-related and 1,905 support staff (including secretaries and technicians).

Ultimately, like the banks and building societies, members’ savings are protected against business failure by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme.

In 1982, Open University offered a course titled, "The Effective Manager", developed by a team that was led by Charles Handy.

In 1988, the Open University Business School (OUBS) was founded by the Faculty of Management department, for which professor Andrew Thomson was appointed to head.

[33] The OU has used a variety of methods for teaching, including written and audio materials, the Internet, disc-based software and television programmes on DVD.

For most modules, students are supported by tutors ("associate lecturers") who provide feedback on their work and are generally available to them at face-to-face tutorials, by telephone, and/or on the Internet.

For many years the OU produced television and radio programmes aimed at bringing learning to a wider audience.

The Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education review published in December 2015 found five areas of good practice and made three recommendations for improvement.

[39] Open University continues to adopt Moodle as the Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) with their own team deploying custom plugins.

The OU offers a large number of undergraduate qualifications, including certificates, diplomas, and bachelor's degrees, based on both level and quantity of study.

They typically provide an introduction to a broader subject over a period of ten weeks, these are generally timed during vacations at conventional universities in order to take advantage of their facilities.

Open degrees provide students with access to a wide variety of subjects to develop a personalised curriculum to meet their vocational needs and personal interests.

The Open University provides the opportunity to study for a PhD on a part-time distance, or a full-time basis (on-site for science subjects and most social sciences, off-site with some supervisions on-site for arts) in a wide range of disciplines as well as an EdD for professionals in education.

Twenty-six students in eight countries, from the United States of America to Hong Kong, were presented for their master's degrees in online graduation, including, from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) – Tim Berners-Lee, one of the founders of the World Wide Web, who was conferred an honorary doctorate.

The OU ranked in the top third of UK universities in the Research Excellence Framework (REF) 2014 using the Times Higher Education Power Score.

In October 2006, the Cassini-Huygens mission including 15 people from the OU received the 2006 "Laurels for Team Achievement Award" from the International Academy of Astronautics (IAA).

Cassini-Huygens' successful completion of its seven-year, two billion-mile journey in January 2005 to Saturn ended with Huygens landing farther away from Earth than any previous probe or craft in the history of space exploration.

It offers opportunities to meet up, volunteer, find information and access services to support learning along with a range of student clubs and societies typical of those found in other UK Universities.

The plot of Educating Rita surrounds the working-class titular character aiming to "improve" herself by studying English literature.

In autumn 2006, Lenny Henry was a star in Slings and Arrows, a one-off BBC television drama which he also wrote, about someone who falls in love while on an OU English Literature course.

)[98] In the 2006–07 TV series Life on Mars, Sam Tyler received messages from the real world via Open University programmes late at night.

In the 2014 Booker Prize long-listed novel The Bone Clocks by David Mitchell (author), the protagonist Holly Sykes is referenced studying Psychology at the Open University.

They fall asleep, leaving Ritchie in a cupboard until they finally awaken to an OU lecture on 'Medieval population distribution patterns in Lower Saxony'.