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Tony Hirst

User Profile Image User Tony Hirst
Member since : Apr-22-2008 (Verified)
2 Ideas, 4 Comments, 4 Votes

User Activity Stream

Ideas Posted

At the moment OU courses start on specific dates once or twice a year. If you just miss a course start date you may have to wait up to a year to study it.

I think it would be easier if I could start to take a course whenever I wanted to...
The OpenLearn website ( http://openlearn.open.ac.uk ) makes some materials from current and previous courses available for free. Should the OU make all its material freely available in this way?

Comments Posted

Teach online to compete, British universities told

Anthea Lipsett
Tuesday May 13, 2008
EducationGuardian.co.uk

"Universities should make their course materials freely available online, according to a paper for the latest edition of ppr, the publication of influential thinktank the Institute for Public Policy Research."
http://education.guardian.co.uk/higher/news/story/0,,2279637,00.html?gusrc=rss&feed=technologyfull

The paper in question is this one: http://docs.google.com/View?docid=dcz4t3dt_83cx9hq3c7 "Open Source and the Benefits of Education" by Leo Max Pollak
Tony Hirst 1 year ago
I know several people who recruit students onto OU courses under the YASS scheme, and my experience is that a certain proportion of those students actually study e.g. short courses "full time" over a short period, rather than over the 10 weeks the courses nominally run for.

As for peer support - this can take different forms: 1) active conversations with other students; 2) tracking other students conversations as a lurker; 3) using course conferences/forums as a searchable FAQ database,

For students who prefer mode 3 in the list above, then access to archived conferences could be valuable?
Tony Hirst 1 year ago
Do you mean for staff on site, staff at home, or students?
Tony Hirst 1 year ago
Would it be possible to set up different course category areas loosely related to programme/degree areas, that could be used to identify new course ideas in programme areas? Not sure how you'd then support ideas for new programme areas, rather than courses, though?