I am Director of the Institute of Educational Technology (IET) at The Open University. IET ensures that the Open University is a leader in open approaches to learning and teaching based on understanding what is possible; trying out ideas, and reflecting on what happens and why. The Institute also ensures that the Open University is a world leader in research in educational technology. The themes for our research are: Digital Scholarship (led by Martin Weller); Learning in an Open World (led by Grainne Conole) and Next Generation Distance Learning (led by Agnes Kukulska-Hulme).