Publish at the Open University as an undergraduate I'm an undergraduate at the Open University (OU), which allows me to study part-time and from home (actually even from a different country). Getting my BSc will take me other several years, but I want to start gaining experience with doing research and start publishing papers. Specifically my field would be the Semantic Web and I already have lots of industry experience in this subject, just not much academic experience yet. So I found this institute at the OU called the Knowledge Media Institute (KMi) that actually does quite interesting Semantic Web work. I contacted some professors from various labs in the institute and none seem to offer remote internships.

Now to my question: how do other OU students start publishing given that there isn't really a campus and you're most likely in another country?

PS: I know research is usually accomplished face-to-face, but this relates specifically to OU which is a highly-accredited online university. There must still be a way to do research for an undegrad at OU.
At the risk of sounding obvious let me share some advice that will not be specific to OU.

First, wherever you are, you can do research on your own, although it's usually a tough call while being at the undergraduate level. 

A somewhat more realistic option could be locating and contacting the academics in your field at a university reasonably close to your location (so that you can at some point contact them in person) and get them interested in supervising your research jointly with the OU people or on their own.

The problem with the second option is how to get the people at your local university interested in working with you but perhaps you could get some letters of recommendation from your teachers at OU to help your cause.