- 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…

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…

T224’s TMAs are weighted as follows:

TMA01     15%
TMA02     30%
TMA03     30%
TMA04     25%

My highest TMA score was on TMA04; the lowest, on TMA03. On TMA01 and TMA02 I had the same score – although the different weighting means they contribute different amounts to my Overall Continuous Assessment Score (OCAS).

So. The substitution score is the weighted average of your POCAS & exam score; it cannot be used to substitute any higher TMA score; and where there’s a choice of eligible TMAs, it must substitute the one that makes the lowest contribution to the OCAS. Fairly clear rules – there’s a paper worksheet to help you work it all out yourself, but both Marx and the Assessment Calculator on StudentHome will both work it out for you.

Here’s where the fun starts. In my case, once you get an exam score of 85% or over (a requirement for a Distinction, which is what I’m interested in), there are 3 distinct score ranges that produce different results:

85%-89%
An exam result in this range gives a substitution score that can only be used to replace my lowest TMA score – which conveniently was on one of the highest-weighted TMAs. End result: an OCAS over 85% and a guaranteed distinction.

90%-91%
At 90%, with a slightly higher substitution score, another TMA score comes into the substitution range – and it’s TMA01, the one with the lowest weighting (same original score as for TMA02, but because it contributes less to the POCAS because of its lower weighting, it’s the one that gets substituted) – and because of that, the OCAS is left below the 85% threshold, leaving me with a Pass 2.

92%-100%
In this range, even when applied against the lowest-weighted TMA, the substitution score is enough to guarantee an OCAS over 85%, and puts the overall result into the Distinction range again.

I can follow how the rules work easily enough, and on courses where the TMAs are equally-weighted there wouldn’t be an issue. As I’ve shown, though, different weightings can throw up some frankly silly inconsistencies. Hopefully, this is one of those circumstances where the Examination and Assessment Board can exercise a little discretion – otherwise I’ll be one very unhappy bunny should I score 90% on October’s exam…

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…

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…!