A literal cast of 1000's

The Open University has always prided itself on being different, innovative and able to offer at scale an alternate educational experience. When I first met my colleague Nicky Moss I did not appreciate the scale of what was going to be accomplished. To be honest, I still marvel at what was achieved.

As I write this article, we have just concluded the final CCNA4 Connecting Networks Day School for our full CCNA module T216. By itself, you may think that it is of no particular consequence until you crunch the numbers. Since 2005, when we offered our first CCNA (v3) module at the Open University - we have:

• Reached in the region of 10,000 Cisco Netacad students covering all four courses on the CCNA Routing and Switching programme.
• Used an average of ten centres every year in the UK and Republic of Ireland,
• We have probably taught around 35,000 day school attendances (accounting for drop outs and those taking the alternate experience).
• We have transitioned from V3 to V6 of the Cisco content in this time - with no noticeable issues.
• Our 'pseudo instructor' Anne Droid still gets email from students, in spite of her name and email address.

I do not feel any remorse, nor sadness. Instead I am pleased to know that what we have accomplished is transforming into two new 30 credit modules around the ICND1 and 2. May we teach more and consider in another ten or more years the impact of our efforts.