Course Marking - Pay Dispute

CIS

Is anyone else suffering with the refusal of tutors to grade work ?

Iam with the OU , but have just had my latest assignment back , with comments, but no grade.

It included a letter stating that all work except grading would be completed by tutors until the pay strike was resolved.

Happily, he included a comment about what grade he would have given, just no actual grading.

My wifes also annoyed as shes waited 6 weeks for course results that are now being set back on a daily basis until resolution of the marking problems.

Has anyone else had this problem ?, or is it isolated areas reacting to the pay negotiations ?

iwanttosave_2

I am with the OU and have been told that I may not get a grade, it will be commented on definatly but they wont be being marked.

From the noticeboard in my student home

"What this means is that those tutors who are members of this union will be continuing in their full teaching role as normal (so contact with your tutor and your tutorial group activity will not be affected at all )and whilst they will still be giving you detailed feedback on your TMAs, they will not be actually giving you a grade (formally assessing your work) until the dispute has been resolved. Your grades will then be allocated automatically - you do not have to do anything.

CIS

I can agree with why their on strike over pay, went through the same thought of thing with the civil service, but its a bit annoying.

Hopefully other peoples tutors will do what mine did and say what grade he thought the work would achieve if it was to stay teh same across teh course duration.

What course are you doing ?

iwanttosave_2

I am doing health and social care, its the online version.

You?

CIS

Thats the course my wifes doing in september, any good ?

Iam doing the Certificate in Astronmy and Planetry Sciences, S282 +S283, and hopefully the accounting certificate in september.

iwanttosave_2

Yeah it is good, the online one also incoperates a bit of an IT course, so will fly through that bit. I am on my second essay now and its a lot more difficult than I antisipated but getting there.

Oh and the amount of books they send is astronomical, I have 7 course books each averaging 230 pages, then there are books that complment those, then I had to buy 2 other books and a few others _pale_

CIS

The courses Iam doing now for the certificate used to be in 1 course that I did 6 years ago, but they've since split in to 2 and wont allow me to use the previous course against the certificate, so Iam the material again. :eek:

There was 5 books for the one course, which somehow is now 4 books in total to cover the same info split in to 2 courses.

Zziggi

I'm also an OU student. I'm doing a course that finishes in April. The course is 3 TMAs plus and exam in april. I've got a grade for TMA01 but only comments for TMA02&03. The exam is straight after easter.

What grade i get and/or whether i pass the course at the end of april will depend on what course i start straight after this one finishes. When you are paying out between £600 and £1100 on your next course(depending which one i pick - which also depends on my grades) then you want to make an informed choice. I bet they wouldn't give me a refund if i payed for a course, started the course and then, once the pay dispute has ended, find that i failed my original course.

megsykins

All AUT / NATFHE members teaching at all HE institutions (which includes the OU) are supposedly on 'action short of a strike' - ie not setting or marking assessments. Although an online search reveals that it's not that bad at a lot of unis - I just go to a damn militant one! (Apparently 11% of lectures were affected at Exeter, how come over 90% were at Keele?!? :mad: Rant over.) HE courses being taught at FE colleges are not included though, and the strike terms are slightly different between AUT members and NATFHE members.

Anyway, no work will be marked until it's sorted. It will be marked once it is.

You don't really need to worry unless you're depending on marks for graduation, or another course (like Zziggi) in which case pray they sort it out soon (I've got 4 weeks until finals and rumours are that some of our exam papers still haven't been sent to moderators, or even written - what's the point???)

There's lots of info on the NUS website, although the NUS are (stupidly) supporting the AUT.

linzibean

I'm a third year graduating this year. Oh joy. Now It's time to hand in ym work, not only can i not expect it to be looked at any time soon, but I also struggled to get anyone to even look over it because of their "action short of a strike"! All I can say is it's a good time I got it finished in plenty of time (before the strike) so all I really had to do was tidying up and formatting.

Its an atrocious time of year for a strike, the most important term for most third years! It really gtes my back up - also because its not as if the lecturers are on the breadline!! :mad:

Cook_County

And I'd have thought that 3rd years had been taught by now to look for evidence before making assertions. On what evidence do you reach the conclusion that tutors are not on the breadline? Do you know what institutions such as the OU pay (as a clue pay starts at only a couple of thousand pounds a year)...