Whois & Analysis for open.edu

The Open University (OU) is a public distance learning and research university, and one of the biggest universities in the UK for undergraduate education.

The majority of the OU's undergraduate students are based throughout the United Kingdom and principally study off-campus; many of its courses (both undergraduate and postgraduate) can also be studied anywhere in the world.

There are also a number of full-time postgraduate research students based on the 48-hectare university campus where they use the OU facilities for research, as well as more than 1000 members of academic and research staff and over 2500 administrative, operational and support staff.

Adult education is a practice in which adults engage in systematic and sustained self–educating activities in order to gain new forms of knowledge, skills, attitudes, or values.

It can mean any form of learning adults engage in beyond traditional schooling, encompassing basic literacy to personal fulfillment as a lifelong learner.

Distance education or distance learning is the education of students who may not always be physically present at a school.

Traditionally this usually involved correspondence courses wherein the student corresponded with the school via post.

Today it involves online education.

Courses that are conducted (51 percent or more) are either hybrid, blended or 100% whole instruction.

Massive open online courses (MOOCs), offering large-scale interactive participation and open access through the World Wide Web or other network technologies, are recent developments in distance education.

A number of other terms (distributed learning, e-learning, online learning, etc) are used roughly synonymously with distance education.

Undergraduate education is the post-secondary education previous to the postgraduate education.

It includes all the academic programs up to the level of a bachelor's degree.

For example, in the United States an entry level university student is known as an undergraduate, while students of higher degrees are known as graduates.

In some other educational systems and subjects, undergraduate education is post-secondary education up to the level of a master's degree; this is the case for some science courses in Britain and some medicine courses in Europe.

Postgraduate education, or graduate education in North America, involves learning and studying for academic or professional degrees, academic or professional certificates, academic or professional diplomas, or other qualifications for which a first or bachelor's degree generally is required, and it is normally considered to be part of higher education.

In North America, this level is generally referred to as graduate school (or sometimes colloquially as grad school).