A safe space and shared goals: embedding community in the OU experience

With over 200,000 students each year The Open University (OU) is one of the largest providers of higher education at a distance in the UK. Its open access policy results in a diverse student body, many of whom are combining study with employment, caring responsibilities or have a disability. The nature of OU study means that flexibility is at the core of everything we do, and this provides great opportunities for students to study who, for whatever reason, would be unable to attend a traditional university. However, this flexibility comes at a cost. 

It has long been recognised that many distance learning students feel isolated and disconnected from staff and other students (Pearson and WonkHE 2022 and Butcher and Rose-Adams, 2015).  In mainstream brick universities, work in the student engagement area has identified that a sense of belonging and participation in university life are associated with greater satisfaction and success.  

Fostering student belonging 

In 2022, the OU identified a need to build on previous work to explore how community and belonging were experienced by students, and to establish some ways to increase a sense of community and belonging. At this time, the world was in the grip of the coronavirus pandemic which resulted in lockdowns and people became physically isolated. To address this, people were trying to use digital means to communicate, maintain communities and address isolation.  

All educational providers were now providing teaching at a distance. This was more problematic for face-to-face institutions, but the OU as a digital learning provider, already had platforms in place such as comprehensive online tutorials and Student Hub Live – an OU platform for community, featuring a range of online interactive events open to all students. These included study skills workshops as well as activity-based sessions aimed at carers and neurodiverse students, which focused on wellbeing and sharing information.  

However, it was felt we could do more to develop a sense of belonging.  

Students can experience belonging in a variety of ways in their student journey, and only some of these are linked directly to teaching (or the curriculum). Belonging can develop through formal learning opportunities, for example, induction, mentoring and within class-based activities inside modules. Other opportunities to form communities and develop belonging can happen in social spaces.  However, all of these are much more difficult to enable in the virtual environment.  

The aim of establishing the nature of the correlation between progression, retention and a sense of belonging has been the holy grail for many institutions. It is well known that students who participate in extracurricular events are more likely to succeed and have higher attainment (Thomas, Butcher and Rose-Adams, 2015).  

To further explore belonging it was felt that Advance HE’s Building Belonging Change Impact Programme offered a potential for discussion with other institutions who had similar concerns and an opportunity to discuss how one might measure a sense of belonging and sharing best practice. 

The Building Belonging Change Impact Programme

A team of four from across the OU joined together to be the representatives on the Advance HE programme. Each came from a different area and brought differing skills and experiences. As we prepared for the meetings, we felt excited about the potential to explore aspects of belonging such as measurement, hopeful there would be solutions to some of these challenging problems. We were also eager to explore how different institutions conceptualised these issues through workshop discussions. 

The programme enabled each project team to set and share with other institutions clear, short-term objectives to achieve by the end of the programme. One of the key outcomes for the Open University group was the establishment of an institution-wide network of colleagues dedicated to building student belonging. This group of stakeholders would become the conduit for exploring how we can take an institutional approach to belonging that is consistent and embedded for our students.  

In January 2025, we set up a Viva Engage community developing a set of objectives outlining the purpose of the group and what we aim to achieve. We invited colleagues to join that had been part of previous community and belonging initiatives. Within a week, we had over 40 members and it has been slowly growing with now over 100 members directly part of the group, and an additional 100+ colleagues being involved in knowledge sharing activities.  

The enthusiasm for and acknowledgement of the importance of community and belonging is slowly spreading, with representation from all faculties, the four nations and a wide range of professional services.  

Agreeing a definition of ‘belonging’ 

Our first community meeting took place in March 2025. Our aims at the session were to agree the vision, group aims and an agreed definition of belonging. With over 50 staff and students registered to attend, this was not going to be an easy task!  

The session started with an overview of the Advance HE Building Belonging Change Impact Programme and explained where it fitted into the work already undertaken at the OU on belonging and mattering. We then conducted several mini workshops where we were able to solicit the views of the attendees via the use of a Padlet on the agreed definition of belonging. Finding a definition of belonging was key to all institutions who took part in the programme. It was acknowledged that we did not have to have the same definition but there would be commonalities. 

Our agreed definition of belonging is, “A feeling of being in a safe space where students and staff are accepted, valued, included, and encouraged, and knowing we are an essential part of the University community's life and activities”.   

For us at the OU, we felt that a safe place was key to enable students to engage as fully as they wish with the OU community.  Key words that reflected this “Safe Place” included acceptance, and valued inclusion in an environment that was encouraging.   

We recognise that belonging and community are different for everyone and while some students will wish to be totally emersed in this world, for others their belonging and community needs are filled in other aspects of their life. 

Within our team this event resulted in us exploring ownership of belonging. Clearly everyone within the University has a role to play in creating a sense of belonging. Incorporating belonging into our Student Charter and policy documents are necessary to generate that overall feeling for both staff and students of belonging. 

What's next?

Our next few community events focus on starting to develop a belonging and mattering community toolkit to enable colleagues to share best practice and useful resources. We already have a few on the list shared as part of the Advance HE Building Belonging Change Impact Programme. 

Our overall goal is to have belonging at the centre of all our strategies, policies and working methods, but we know this will take time. Small steps are needed to make a big change. 

While the OU had already identified a need to consider the value of belonging and community and how this was experienced by our students during the pandemic, which had resulted in pockets of good practice across the University, there was no consistent approach.   

Advance HE’s Building Belonging Change Impact Programme has resulted in a more focused collaborative approach to improving the student and staff experience by creating opportunities to belong. By meeting other universities, we have gained an appreciation that we are not alone in trying to develop belonging and community and the opportunity to share ideas and experiences has been invaluable.  

Michelle Carrington – Senior Experience and Insights Manager, Digital Services and Design; Karen Bowen – Senior Lecturer, WELS, School of ECYS; Carol Edwards- Senior Lecturer in Legal Online Pedagogy, and co-founder of the Law School Belonging Project and Rachel Garnham – Senior Manager, Student Voice, Office of PVC (Students) at The Open University. 

References

Thomas, L., 2012. Building student engagement and belonging in Higher Education at a time of change. Paul Hamlyn Foundation, 100(1-99), pp.1-102. 

Thomas, Butcher, J. and Rose-Adams, J., 2015. Part-time learners in open and distance learning: Revisiting the critical importance of choice, flexibility and employability. Open Learning: The Journal of Open, Distance and e-Learning, 30(2), pp.127-137. 2012).  

Blake, S., Capper G. and Jackson, A. (2022) Building Belonging in Higher Education: Recommendations for developing an integrated institutional approach. Available at: https://wonkhe.com/wp-content/wonkhe-uploads/2022/10/Building-Belonging-October-2022.pdf  (Accessed 19 March 2024).