OpenMusings

Whoops. A while has passed since the last update, so here’s a catch-up post.

- Wrote to my MP for the first time over the ELQ funding issue – which affects me, as it would knock short courses on the head, along with the idea I’ve been toying with of doing a BSc(Hons) Physical Science once my current degree is out of the way. Positive reply form her, and she’s signed the Early Day Motion, so I’m fairly happy with that. For all the good it’ll do, knowing this Government…

- T224 complete & results are out – Pass 2, which I’m a little disappointed but not surprised about, as I was caught out by a number of exam questions around Block 3 of the course (Bluetooth, specifically). It doesn’t count towards my Honours classification, so I can live with it. More on that later…

- S199 – which I’ve complained about previously – ended up deferring to the January submission date. I ended up starting it from scratch again – fortunately, it’s made a lot more sense the second time around, so I’m a lot more confident about it now.

- M359 and S186 kick off in February. Since they overlap with the end of M257, it’s going to be a busy few months…

- …which will also coincide with the arrival of our 2nd child, due in June. So is the M257 exam. This could be a problem…

- along with all the OU stuff, I’ve also been taking work-related exams. I now hold Certified Ethical Hacker and Computer Hacking Forensic Investigator certifications. If I ever get to use them, work’s going to get a lot more interesting…

Busy few months passed. Busier few months coming. One word: eek…

Hmm. I sense an unfortunate coming-together of deadlines across three courses that means October / November is going to be hectic…

T224 Exam: 16th October
S199 ECA deadline: 31st October
M257 TMA01 deadline: 15th November

I think my one-month break is about to come back and bite me. The original plan had been to have S199 completed by the end of September – that would have given me 2 weeks to revise for the T224 exam, then into M257 with plenty of time to meet the TMA deadline.

Unfortunately, S199 is proving to be the trickiest 10-pointer I’ve done so far, and it looks like I won’t be finished with it by the end of the month. The revision time for T224 is non-negotiable, so I’ll have to finish S199 after the exam – which then leaves me very short on time to complete the first few M257 units & TMA01. Argh.

Should’ve started M257 when the books arrived, I guess…

Okay, my T224/TMA04 mark is now in, and I’ve redone my substitution sums – as I suspected, if I’d scored 85% on the final TMA, I’d have been in the position where I would have needed to score 85% – not a mark higher or lower – to get a distinction for this course, thanks to the way substitution works on courses where the TMAs aren’t all weighted equally. With the score I got on the final TMA, there’s the equally strange situation where any score over 85% on the exam will guarantee me a distinction, except 90% or 91%. Confused? Read on below the cut and I’ll try to explain…

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With T224 coming to an end, I’ve been playing around with Marx and the OU’s own Assessment Calculator to work out what I’ll potentially need to get a distinction on the course. With T224 not counting towards the honours calculation on the degree I’m working towards, the pass grade isn’t really important as such, but there’s a level of personal pride there that makes me want to the top grade. Start as you mean to go on, and all that.

I’m currently waiting on my mark from TMA04, but depending what I get there, the substitution system is throwing up some unusual vagaries that seem to flow from the different weightings on T224′s assignments (TMA01 15%, TMA02 30%, TMA03 30%, TMA04 25%) that could leave me needing a very specific mark on the exam (85%) to guarantee a distinction – any lower and the OES is below the threshold, any higher and the substitution score switches to a TMA with a different weighting and leaves me short on the OCAS. It’s all theoretical at the moment, but I’ll be looking into this a bit more once I have my TMA04 score, as I’d consider the possibility of getting a Distinction for scoring 85% in the exam, but a Pass 2 for scoring 86%, to be something of a glitch in the system…

M255′s out of the way now, and I’ve just submitted TMA04 for T224. Since the T224 exam’s not until mid-October & my next SSC (S199 Modelling the Climate) doesn’t begin for another month, I’m at a loose end for a month. This is a new experience for me – although I suspect someone will have a list of chores for me, now that I’m not disappearing into the study 4 days a week.

A thought about S199. This involves using a distributed processing tool (climateprediction.net) for the duration of the course – my “general use” PC is an old G4 Mac mini, which doesn’t meet the system requirements for BOINC CPDN, so I’ll have to fire up The Beast: my Windows XP gaming PC. The problem with this is that The Beast generates so much heat (and chews through so much electricity) that it’s almost a climate change factor in its own right. Somehow this doesn’t seem quite right…!