Free learning resources are core to our social mission, but we are also aware that the return on investment in this area is a very important by-product in terms of reputation building, brand recognition, new market opportunities, technology innovation, partnership formation and, most significantly triggering new student registrations. We have aligned the systems that we use for core student provision with those for our public OER provision. Therefore, as we invest and develop our student systems, the public systems also benefit (and vice versa).
We aim to ensure this mutual benefit approach is also applied in our work in developing and delivering systems to support others in free learning. We are also keen to ensure that any software or hardware systems have support communities that will remain at available, affordable, at scale and resilient.