Andy Lane

Andy Lane is Emeritus Professor of Environmental Systems at The Open University, and was the founding Director of the OpenLearn programme from 2006-09.

My teaching, research and scholarship covers (i) the management of complex environmental situations and (ii) systems of open education. I use systems thinking approaches to frame the teaching, research and scholarship in both domains and use visual methods (normally diagramming) as a means to engage participants.

The work on systems of open education takes the phenomenon of open education resources and extends that to open educational policies and practices and how that influences formal, non-formal and informal education for both classroom-based and distance learning-based HEIs. I have published extensively on this work.

In 2021 I was awarded the International Council for Open and Distance Education’s Prize of Excellence for Lifelong Contribution to Open, Flexible and Distance Learning.