Changes at the OU (Law)

Some readers who follow this blog, and who have been enrolled in the LLB at Open University, may already know that this year has been replete with problems at the Open University getting its online system going. The following is a small description of past and ongoing problems – keep in mind that this applies to the law degree, and I cannot speak for other courses.

This academic year, the Open University is attempting to put everything completely online, including the textbooks. The theory behind this is that digital literacy is an essential skill in today's world, and therefore it is essential that students learn to work online and with computers. Aside from the entire course and textbooks being available digitally, there is a new tutorial system: the Open University is attempting to put tutorials in "clusters" – students within particular geographic areas will be assigned to tutors and will be able to book the tutorials according to their geographic location. For those students who do not have access to physical locations for the day school (face-to-face tutorial), there will be two alternative online sessions to make up for each day school. This sounds like an admirable plan. The problem was/is that all of the arrangements have not yet been made and students are unable to access tutorials via their Studenthome page. Therefore many students cannot book their tutorials due to the tutorials not being available online at all and has resulted in some of them missing the initial tutorials over the past week.

The other problem that I see being vented is that some someone in Ireland might say that the tutorial they have access to book is located in Wales, and not locally. Additionally, some of the tutors are not even offering face-to-face/day school tutorials, being only available for the online ones. All in all, the new system is not ready, and has been described as "shambolic".

I hope that this situation is soon sorted and that students and study groups will be able to settle down and get to the business of studying.

Technical tip: the Open University IT helpdesk is saying that there is a problem with Windows 10 and the Blackboard Collaborate software. This is simply not true. I am using Windows 10 and the latest version of Collaborate without any problems; I think the HelpDesk is just too lazy to troubleshoot.