James Smith

After being awarded his PhD in 2002, James spent some time in industry working as a systems engineer before then joining The Open University (OU) as a Curriculum Manager in the Physics Department (now known as the School of Physical Sciences). He is now a senior manager for the OpenSTEM Labs.

The OpenSTEM Labs challenge the traditional STEM teaching model of students and tutors being collocated in a lab during ‘office hours’. The laboratory connects students to instrumentation, data and equipment for practical enquiries over the internet, where distance is no longer a barrier and where access can be available 24 hours a day.

The experiences a student might encounter range from data driven interactive experiments through to connecting with real, high grade, equipment. There are even two telescopes sited in an international observatory complex on Tenerife.

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