Reply to: No more English Lit

[DoctorStrangelove]

I loved the old OU TV programmes! They did move onto DVD for a while, which was just as entertaining.

Towards the end you could tell the quadruplex VTRs weren't set up particularly well & the tapes were wearing out.

Sunday mornings had some cracking stuff from the OU in those days.

BBC2 didn't start* until 20:00 19:00 for a long time, showing OU programmes from 18:00 to 20:00 19:00 IIRC.

*Sadly the Radio Times thing only lists the BBC progs, doesn't include the OU progs.

[SueEllen]

I loved the old OU TV programmes! They did move onto DVD for a while, which was just as entertaining.

I think I concentrated more on the "fashion" than the content.

[ladymuck]

I loved the old OU TV programmes! They did move onto DVD for a while, which was just as entertaining.

[northernladuk]

I don't have an issue with prices going up but I don't expect a degradation in service as a result. The overall offering is very poor compared to when I first started studying with them.

I remember the days of monthly in-person tutorials, books, science kits, week-long summer camps (at an extra but not unreasonable charge). I know that times move on and online brings the opportunity for efficiency, blended learning, and reaching a wider audience but I feel they have gotten the balance wrong. When you're struggling to understand something and don't know how to ask the question, being forced to type it into a chat box on an online tutorial or online forum is hard work compared to having a chat with the tutor at the monthly meetup.

They are literally becoming a "computer says no" outfit because they have trimmed back the people and replaced them with technology.

I hope for the money they've updated their courses.

One thing that did make me giggle was doing the M101 Maths foundation and having to watch the TV programmes. In the late 90's they were still using programmes made in the 70's hosted by a guy with massive hair, brown cauduroy pants and jumper with patches on the sleeves.

I can't remember the course code but I did one called 'Communicating Technology' a few years after M101 and the case study was on an 8 track cassette and some other projection technology I'd never heard of either. Lucky I wasn't relying on the content for my career at that point

[SueEllen]

Maybe languages are better than the sciences? I'm glad she had a good experience, and maybe the online thing is more generational and I'm just behind the times

I doubt it.

I think they are relying on people to have others around them to help them out, which is not the point of the courses and will increase their drop out rates.

[ladymuck]

My daughter dropped out of high school, and after a few jobs did an OU German and French BA course, graduating four years ago. She enjoyed - and it put her in a great stead when her teacher training college went online due to Covid.

Maybe languages are better than the sciences? I'm glad she had a good experience, and maybe the online thing is more generational and I'm just behind the times

[Gibbon]

It used to be excellent. Now it's just another commercial distance learning company.

Agreed and with your 'rant' (BTW admin could we have a 'special' font for /RANT please?).

I started in 2009 and I was blown away quite honestly with the materials and the F2F tutorials. Then they started downgrading everything including content. They took away the level 3 Latin course which after completing you could read original Virgil, because some students said it was too hard!! That was the best 12 months of my OU life. Then they came up with a revisionist course on the Roman Empire that taught that when the Barbarian invasions started in the late empire that the settlements in Gaul built walls because they looked pretty?????

The Masters was good and made my head hurt in a good way, but I had to fight hard to do what I wanted for the dissertation.

[Andy2022]

And yet they still make our kids do it for GCSE

16yr old has just done his and he absolutely hated English Lit, and I had exactly the same experience several decades ago

[NotAllThere]

It used to be excellent. Now it's just another commercial distance learning company.

My daughter dropped out of high school, and after a few jobs did an OU German and French BA course, graduating four years ago. She enjoyed - and it put her in a great stead when her teacher training college went online due to Covid.

[DoctorStrangelove]

I was pretty unimpressed when I looked at the OU offerings a couple of years ago, not a patch on the courses of yore.

[ladymuck]

Well, OU just went down in my estimation. I had heard only good things about it.

It used to be excellent. Now it's just another commercial distance learning company.

[ladymuck]

ladymuck the reason they put the prices up is because the government reduced funding for the OU and allowed students to get loans to pay for the course modules in England. The last vice chancellor of the OU got chased out of the job because of how he implemented government policy.

https://www.theguardian.com/educatio...-no-confidence

I don't have an issue with prices going up but I don't expect a degradation in service as a result. The overall offering is very poor compared to when I first started studying with them.

I remember the days of monthly in-person tutorials, books, science kits, week-long summer camps (at an extra but not unreasonable charge). I know that times move on and online brings the opportunity for efficiency, blended learning, and reaching a wider audience but I feel they have gotten the balance wrong. When you're struggling to understand something and don't know how to ask the question, being forced to type it into a chat box on an online tutorial or online forum is hard work compared to having a chat with the tutor at the monthly meetup.

They are literally becoming a "computer says no" outfit because they have trimmed back the people and replaced them with technology.

[SueEllen]

ladymuck the reason they put the prices up is because the government reduced funding for the OU and allowed students to get loans to pay for the course modules in England. The last vice chancellor of the OU got chased out of the job because of how he implemented government policy.

https://www.theguardian.com/educatio...-no-confidence

[jamesbrown]

Well, OU just went down in my estimation. I had heard only good things about it.

[ladymuck]

Why's that?

[RANT]

I don't like the rigidity of the course selection - I get that you need to pick from courses around a topic, that's not what I mean. I knew I didn't want to do a 60 point course in the last academic year so I picked a 30 point from the options available for the line of study I'm on. That meant I was blocked from picking any 60 point courses this year because of my "unique", "non-standard" study approach. I have spent three weeks trying to find out why I can't select a 60 point course to start in October and it's basically because the website is coded to a set process and isn't flexible enough to accommodate people who know what time they have available. For me to get onto the 60 point course I want to do, I have to phone up and explain why I didn't do the 60 points last academic year and so didn't follow their notions of what an acceptable course order is.

I hate reading everything on a website or PDF and bemoan the removal of physical books with a decent index. The websites have a dire search method which rarely returns what I need to find whereas a well written index in a book allows for very quick searching for salient information. I spend all day starting at a PC, I want to read a book. They will allow you to pay extra for a printed copy of the materials but that is a printed copy of the webpages, no index. It took me two weeks to get a straight answer to that question as the course team didn't understand that a printout of the website copy is not a book and why should I pay extra for something that is included in the course fee.

Finally, since they moved all engagement online (years before covid came along) they put the prices up and whilst technically still cheaper than studying at a traditional university, the overall service offering and experience is poor value for money.

[/RANT]