OpenMusings

Thanks to everyone who voted in the SSC results poll – an overwhelming 100% in favour of the OU continuing to provide percentage scores along with the Learning Outcomes comments. Unfortunately, the contacts I’ve had with some folks at the OU & OUSA doesn’t give me much hope seeing anyone’s minds changed – a classic case of the decision having been made that this is what students need, without I think student actually being consulted on the change…

News of this one was posted to the Course Requests conference earlier in the week, and is right up my alley:

Certificate in Introductory Astronomy (in association with Manchester University)
Level 1 Certificate. It requires 60 points at level 1.
Of the 60 points, you need a minimum of 20 points and maximum of 40 points from S151, S194, S196, S197, S198;
and a minimum of 20 points and maximum of 40 points from the Distance Learning Courses offered by Manchester University.

The distance courses are I think the courses offered through Jodrell Bank Observatory, and you can find details of them here. I’ve been working through a batch of courses as part of the Certificate in Contemporary Science – there are some queries around re-using Level 1 short courses for multiple certificates that I’m trying to get an answer for, but if I can re-use ‘em this is a done deal. Even if they can’t, I can always unlink a few from CCS and use that as an excuse to do a few more short courses…

If you really want to convert the Learning Objective comments to a score, this would work:

• Assign a score of 0-4 to each Learning Objective, so that:
  • 0 = Not Achieved
  • 1 = Not Quite Achieved
  • 2 = Just Achieved
  • 3 = Achieved
  • 4 = Well Achieved
• Multiply out the number of Learning Outcomes tested by the course / ECA by 4, to get a maximum possible score.
• Tally up the points for each LO to give a total score
• Convert to a percentage to give yourself a meaningful result

So, using S194 as an example (as it’s what I have to hand) – the ECA paper lists 16 Learning Objectives that the paper tests. 16*4 = 64, so when I finally get the results I can go through the feedback and work out my total out of 64. (Total/64)*100 = a percentage score for the course.

As methods go, it’s a bit of a blunt instrument – it treats all LOs as equal, when in practice there should really be some weighting applied as some will be harder to prove than others – but as a rough-and-ready method to get a percentage score for comparison purposes & for self-motivation, it would work.

Although I’d much rather the OU did that for me.

S197 results were out yesterday for the 2007B presentation, along with a bunch of other science short courses, and I’m happy to say I got what I wanted:

What that screenshot doesn’t show is the OES score (because I keep such things to myself) – which seems to be an endangered species at the moment. This presentation of S197 was the last that will give a score, the current presentation of S194 that I’m working on won’t give a score, and that little habit will soon be spreading to other courses, apparently. I’m not happy about this. Read on below the cut for why…

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Personally I prefer OpenOffice, but MS Office has its fans – the OneNote component in particular seems to be all the rage at the moment amongst students. The big drawback with MS Office, though, is the cost – the student price for Office 2007 Enterprise Edition is £89.99, while OneNote 2007 on its own will put you back £15.

But there is a way that some people can get hold of a copy of MS Office 2007 Enterprise Edition (which includes OneNote), direct from Microsoft, for just £17.49 including postage & packaging. Details below the cut.

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Another post inspired by the folks over at OUSA 10-pointers, this time looking at what qualifications are worth. The Qualifications and Curriculum Authority’s website lists the various National Vocational Qualification NVQ levels, alongside the Framework for Higher Education Qualifications (FHEQ) levels, to give a fairly good idea of where the OU’s certificates and diplomas slot in on the scale. As an idea, A-Levels are Level 3, Certificates in Higher Education (like the Certificate in Contemporary Science you’d get for completing 6 science short courses) are Level 4, and so on. Here’s a handy link to the full table.

A poster over in the OUSA 10 Pointers conference.. er, forum (grr to changing the “official” terminology for no good reason) was lamenting the end of A171 (Start Writing for the Internet) – it’s in the middle of its final presentation at the moment, and they were sorry they’d missed it.

I did A171, and I have to say there were a few problems with it, most noticeably that in my mind it was overly-prescriptive in its “teaching”. Here’s the thing: it’s a university-level course. One of the things that a university is meant to teach its students is independent thinking – most courses will present the facts, and present advise about how you should treat those facts, but if you’re to do well at this level one of the things you usually have to show is your ability to take information, analyse it, and come to your own conclusions about how it should be used. A171 never really let you do that.

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Technically, this course stared back on 12 May, but thanks to the M255 exam looming on the horizon I only got around to opening the course materials yesterday.  Not bad self-control, if I do say so myself.  Course description’s here, and you can read more about my first impressions below the cut.

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The last exam I sat was way back in 1989, when I did my GCSEs.  On Tuesday, I had the joys of sitting the M255 exam – and after checking out the past & specimen papers for the course, I wasn’t hugely confident.  Having to wade through Belfast’s flash floods to get to the exam centre didn’t help my mood, either.

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Welcome to OpenMusings, where I’ll be taking occasional looks at the Open University courses I’ve been working through – and being one of those people who can’t seem to resist clicking the “Register” button, there are a lot of ‘em.  What makes me qualified to comment?  Well, nothing, to be honest – I’m just your average part-time student who’s enjoying what the OU provide, and want to provide what I hope will be some useful insights for anyone considering trying the courses I’ve been working on.  Feel free to make your own contributions, too.  And now, on to the first post…