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Current news items are shown on the openED home page. Older posts made since October 2011 have been archived below. For regular updates during Round 3 (November 2011-March 2012) why not follow us on twitter at     openED_course and on the twetter stream at #openEDr3. In addition to the news on the front page, we also have a news message board. It is worth looking there too, especially for participant posted news items.

29 / 11 / 11: Final IRC chat sessions for Modules 5A1 and 5P1 this week: The final IRC chat for Module 5A1 takes place tonight at 8pm UK time - sign up on the forum (if no one signs up it may be canceled). The last Module 5P1 chat session happens on Saturday 3 December at 3pm UK time: for more details see the timetable.

24 / 11 / 11: Module 5P1: the next IRC text chat session for Module 5P1 will begin at 15:00 UK Time tomorrow (Saturday 25 November). Check out the 5P1 forum thread for more details. 

23 / 11 / 11: Module 1 Second IRC chat session: The second IRC Chat session will take place tomorrow at 18:00-19:00 UK Time. For more information and to sign up visit this forum thread.

22 / 11 / 11: Daily visits to openED website remain stable. Around 150 to 200 unique visits are made to the openED website every day. This indicates lots of you out there are studying the course even if you haven't had chance to post to the forums much yet. Yesterday for example, our system logged visits from: Greece, Switzerland, France, Norway, Portugal, Germany, Belgium, Spain, Italy, Russia, Ukraine, India, Pakistan, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, China, Singapore, Australia, Canada, Columbia, Ecuador, Brazil, Guatemala, Senegal, Nigeria, Zimbabwe, Ethiopia, and South Africa. So how is the course going so far? - why not share your thoughts and feedback in this forum thread or using the Learning Reflection Form.   

21 / 11 / 11: Don't forget to post your activities to the forums. All three modules underway at the moment invite you to post the outputs of some activities in the forums. Last week this would include: Activity 3 from Module 1, Activities 3, 4 and 7 from Module 5A1, and Activity 1 from Module 5P1.

18 / 11 / 11: Module 5P1 sessions move to Saturday afternoons: Please note that the Module 5P1 text chat sessions will now take place over the next three Saturday afternoons rather than the original advertised times. Whilst we try to keep timetable changes to a minimum, each facilitator has to fit their sessions around ever changing work commitments so please do check the timetable regularly. The session will take place on: 19 November, 26 November and 3 December. Each session: 15:00-16:00 UK Time.

14 / 11 / 11: Module 5P1 IRC chat session: The first IRC text chat session for Module 5P1 will now take place on *Saturday* and will be facilitated by George Alexakis who is based in Athens, Greece. Look at the Timetable to check the time *as this session has been rearranged* and also the Help section for support on how to join these chat sessions.

14 / 11 / 11: Learning Reflection forms update: many of you have already completed your first learning reflection form - if not the beginning of a new week is always a good time to do this. Every Monday evening we will aim to send you, by email, copies of any forms you have completed in the last week. Reflection forms done in the last 7 days will be sent tonight. 

12 / 11 / 11: Modules 5P1 and 5A1 start Monday: Module 5P1  presents an Introduction to the contemporary enterprise and managerial functions and will help you in building an awareness of the nature and the aim of contemporary enterprises; understanding the inner and outer environment of the enterprise; identifying the main categories of stakeholders and realising the role of management. Module 5A1 will help you gain experience of critically examining published research papers; an understanding of how the nature of the research questions asked affects the choice of research methods; and typical categories of research methods (including epistemology, validity, reliability and objectivity). Each module lasts 3 weeks and will take 5-10 hours a week to work through.

10 / 11 / 11: Module 1 IRC text chat session tonight: 19:00-20:00 UK Time. For more information and to sign up visit this forum thread

08 / 11 / 11: Module 5A1 First Session date announced: The first IRC chat session for Module 5A1 will take place on Wednesday 16 November at 6pm UK Time. Pascale will be facilitating this session. The event will be added to the timetable shortly but in the meantime, if you are planning to do this module make sure to note it in your diary!

08 / 11 / 11: Great attendance at the Introductory IRC chat session: over 20 participants attended the Introductory chat session this evening with representation from 6 continents! The chat log is here and the minutes will be available in the next day or two. There is now also an updated list of participants starting this round of the course that you can look at and edit!

07 / 11/ 11: New round of the openED course starts today: welcome to those planning on studying one or more of the openED modules over the coming months. The openED site provides open learning materials for you and a space for you, if you wish, to meet, co-operate and chat with other people from around the world. Good luck! Want to know who else is studying with you? Then take a look at this list:http://bit.ly/v1jYgZ

04 / 11 / 11: The first online chat session for Round 3 takes place on Monday at 6pm UK Time: The session will be a general introduction to the course and what it is about. Anyone can attend and you do not need to register before hand, however if you are planning on attending can you post to this thread so we have get an indication of how many we might expect. If you are new to using online text chat on your computer look at our Setting up Online Chat Sessions help page and our Technical Issues forum thread. 

03 / 11 / 11: Dates for next week's diary: Monday: Course formally begins with Module 1 and Module 0 AND Welcome chat session in the evening (for details see the timetable). Thursday: Module 1 introduction session at 7pm UK time.

03 / 11 / 11: Another half dozen participants post introductions: Welcome to Bernard, Claudina, Samuel, Christophe, Mba Conrad and Ojolubodun and thanks for your posts on the welcome forums (see Meet11).  

02 / 11 /11: Welcome to more Round 3 participants - thanks to Joann, Norolhoda, Sridhar, Gustavo, Nestoruriel and Munawar for dropping in to the forums and saying hi. To join the pre-course introductions visit http:// tinyurl.com/ openEDMeet11 (this is a new thread so note some introductions have been made on this other forum thread).

01/11/11: Meet your peers -over 100 people have now registered for Round 3 from almost 50 countries. We have prepared a list of the participants and opened a special Meet and Greet forum thread Read more about it here.

28/10/11: Minor changes of the website structure - As you might have·already·noticed, we are still doing some final tweaking on the course website. What do think of the changes? Are they making things clearer? How could we improve the site? Please post your comments at the support board.

28/10/11: Great to see a few round 3 participants have already posted to the forum to say hi! Welcome Michael, Afzal, Martin, Ana, Kula, Wang Meng and Soro and thanks for you contributions. If you have already registered for the course, why not join them in the course welcome forum thread.

26/10/11: openED begins to twitter and tweet! Over the next months you will be able to follow the openED round 3 course via twitter. We'll be posting news, reminders about module starts, deadlines and meetings, updates, and maybe even having the odd twitter discussion! This is a new addition to the course so we're looking forward to seeing how it goes. Take a look at the openED_course twitter page and make sure you follow us today! Also you can tag your own openED course tweets with the hashtag #openEDr3.

26/10/11: Introductory online chat session: 7 November, 18:00 (UK Time). The purposes of this session will be to welcome participants, talk about the course and how it works, and to discuss your questions. Click here for more.

26/10/11: Two weeks to go! Over the past week the openED website has welcomed over 500 visitors. Have you registered yet?!

25/10/11: Timetable: Over the next week we will be posting the times for all the Round 3 chat sessions. If you are interested in helping facilitate these session check out the Educators Hub forum area.

21/10/11: Start dates for Round 3 announced (start dates of the course modules). Round 3 will begin on 7th November with Module 1. There will be 4 modules happening before Christmas and 6 will take place between January and February. Remember, you can study one, two or many modules.