In February 2025 Jörg Pareigis contacted me about the Open Networked Learning course. I had just seen an announcement about its continuation of the course which always brings me joy! Jörg asked me if I would like to facilitate a session on the course around open education. It brought back many special FDOL memories and said yes, if Lars Uhlin would do this with me. It wouldn’t be the same without Lars as we designed this course together.  

Thank you Jörg Pareigis for creating an opportunity to reflect on our journey it goes many years back, even before FDOL…

While working at this University of Sunderland as an academic developer (e-learning) I was introduced to Open Education and Problem-Based Learning. When I enrolled on a Master’s at the University of Edinburgh Napier in Blended and Online Education I used the opportunity to bring both together and experiment with open online Problem-Based learning in the area of academic development as a final project. A lot of what followed is based on this study.

In 2013, when I shared my final project at a PBL conference, it generated interest (Lars was there) and let to the development of the open cross-institutional international collaborative Flexible, Distance and Online Learning (FDOL) course with Lars at the time at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden based on that earlier pilot which was my final project of the MA in Blended and Online Education at Edinburgh Napier University which I shared at that conference. We developed FISh, a simple and memorable Problem-Based Learning model and designed a collaborative learning experience with facilitation based on the earlier pilot and lessons learnt.

An early FDOL iteration which we connected informally to formal programmes in both institutions, the PGCAP at Salford, and a Certificate at Karolinska, became also one of my case studies for my doctoral research that followed and provided rich evidence on what can work, how and why and what doesn’t. This case study together with one linked to the #creativeHE course at the time, aided the design of a boundary-crossing collaborative learning framework and related publications. Today there is conversation about COIL, collaborative online international learning, an unfortunate, I feel term. When we were designing FDOL, we came up with COOL (isn’t this a cool acronym?), collaborative, open, online learning. International was baked into the design together with open which we saw as important to enable boundary crossing participation. And indeed, the most significant aspect of FDOL was that the course did not only attract educators and students from higher education from different countries but also others outside academia. My study revealed that participants found this the most exciting feature of FDOL.

So the pilot I did as part of my final project for the MSc not only led to alternative practice within the institution I was working at the time, the University of Salford and then Manchester Met, but also provided the seed for doctoral study and re-shaped academic development into practice that was open, connected, collaborative and outwards facing. FDOL generated wider interest and due to its openness and open licence attached to it, it generated two child courses. I was directly involved in the development of FOS in which I applied what was emerging from my research on FDOL. BYOD4L is a cousin course which also led to the #LTHEchat! Isn’t this amazing? The second FDOL child course is still operating today known as Open Networked Learning (ONL). I had the pleasure to see Jörg Pageiris again at the OEGlobal Conference in 2023 (Figure 1 where he acknowledges the originators of the original course. We were not in the room), who was one of our very first participants in FDOL and is now one of the ONL leads. How amazing is this!

All ideas are based on other ideas! Our own too!

My experimentations during the Masters in BOE and my doctoral studies (I used phenomenography, designed cross-boundary collaborative learning framework) that followed driven by my curiosity to explore possibilities for alternative professional development provided the seeds for many of the ideas, concepts and initiatives that followed. These are all interlinked borrow features and presented opportunities to apply and diversify what I had learnt from earlier or parallel initiatives and my related scholarship and emerging research. The open educational projects, I initiated with many others hosted on social media brought people together to learn and develop. Networks and communities emerged. You can see the initiatives below in Figure 2. Re-cycling, repurposing ideas and recombining them for application in different contexts enabled me to come up with simple open and collaborative interventions many of which have survived until today, over 10 years later.

None of the above would have happened if I hadn’t all these years ago started experimenting during my studies and applied what I was learning to my practice.

The open cross-institutional FDOL course was significant for everything that followed and generated many ideas, conceptualisation, practices, frameworks and initiatives. I am grateful to all my teachers, supervisors and so many colleagues, students and friends who embraced this open and collaborative way of working and learning and experimented, applied and engaged in scholarship with me over the years. A big thank you especially to Lars!

It is amazing to see many of the ideas still travelling today and evolving.

“I hope for nothing. I fear nothing. I am free” Nikos Kazantzakis

While hope is important, hope itself doesn’t bring about change!

Learning has the power to do this! It gives us real freedoms! It activates us!

Very much looking forward to the ONL session with Lars. Thank you for hosting us Jörg.

If you would like to join us, on the 1st of April, 12 noon (UK time) to discuss “The landscape and the four seasons of open and connected professional development – before it became a thing…​” check out the ONL announcement where you will also will find the link to the Zoom event.

Chrissi