Open University. Am I mad? :p

seedbead_2

I dropped out of the OU postgraduate foundation course in the social sciences a few years ago, after having completed an MPhil in a conventional university.

After several discussions with my tutor and other OU students via FirstClass, it became evident that we would be marked on our knowledge of the provided course materials only, many of which were severely edited to say the least. Other students spoke about tutors ignoring any references to outside reading they included in assignments and advising them to simply include more of the course materials in their essays. It also became evident that we were expected to reference some rather poor audiovisual materials in our assignments for the sake of proving that we had watched them or listened to them. Anyone with internet access had access to the OU online library but there was zero emphasis on using it. The first 2000 word assignment came with two full A4 pages of ‘instructions’ about what to include, leaving little room for any originality in completing it.

At the start I wasn’t too bothered, as I had downloaded the introductory booklets to some of the later courses which emphasised the importance of further reading and encouraged students to include external materials in their assignments. Just to be certain, I discussed the matter with one of the student advisors who contacted the chairs of each of the courses for me. I was told again that external reading is fine but student assignments are assessed and graded solely on knowledge of the courses as they are written rather than any broader knowledge of the subject. At this point I knew I would find this too frustrating and decided to withdraw from the degree. I just wish I had known this before I had paid nearly €600 in fees.

On the other hand, the course descriptions of some of the postgrad humanities modules do emphasise the need for access to an academic library, so maybe I was just unfortunate in my course choice.

Voyager2002

Seedbead (#42), could you please clarify whether your experience was on a level 1 course or at postgraduate level.

The experience you describe would be reasonable for a level 1 course, where many students do not have the skills to appraise and use correctly reading materials beyond the course content, and where the sheer number of students means that there is a need for uniform marking criteria to ensure fair and consistent standards. However, for modules that could form part of an MA/MSc degree it would be completely inappropriate.

seedbead_2

It was the postgraduate social sciences course D820, which will have its final presentation in May 2008. I had intended to study it as part of the MA in Cultural and Media Studies which has now been withdrawn.

I suppose in fairness to the OU, the course notes which took the place of lectures were excellent and the tutor was friendly and helpful. The OU kindly loaned me some of the materials for one of the later courses in order to help me decide whether to continue with the degree. While there was much less editing of readings, the materials had not been updated for almost a decade, which is unfortunate in an area like Cultural and Media Studies. There were fewer guidelines for assignments (well not more than a few paragraphs anyway), but nearly all of those I saw seemed to have strict word limits of 2000 words or under, which I thought was a bit odd at postgraduate level.

Quite a number of the postgraduate social science modules seem to be coming to the end of their presentations in the next year or two and it will be interesting to see if their successors (if any) are still as 'self contained' as the current courses.

tr3mor

seedbead wrote: »

After several discussions with my tutor and other OU students via FirstClass, it became evident that we would be marked on our knowledge of the provided course materials only, many of which were severely edited to say the least. Other students spoke about tutors ignoring any references to outside reading they included in assignments and advising them to simply include more of the course materials in their essays. It also became evident that we were expected to reference some rather poor audiovisual materials in our assignments for the sake of proving that we had watched them or listened to them. Anyone with internet access had access to the OU online library but there was zero emphasis on using it. The first 2000 word assignment came with two full A4 pages of ‘instructions’ about what to include, leaving little room for any originality in completing it.

That really doesn't sound like what I'm looking for.

Oldernotwiser's suggestion of the London External university looks really hopeful. The module titles on the BSc politics sound really interesting, I might investigate that further.

Does anyone know of other universities doing specific distance learning courses in this kind of field?

pboae

LSE do distance learning http://www.lse.ac.uk/collections/LSEExternalStudy/

EDIT: Ah, just realised they are part of London External, so you've probably seen their courses already.

tr3mor

pboae wrote: »

LSE do distance learning http://www.lse.ac.uk/collections/LSEExternalStudy/

Ah, just realised they are part of London External, so you've probably seen their courses already.

Like you say, they're the same courses as Oldernotwiser pointed out before.

Cheers though! :beer: