Open University www.open.ac.uk Review

Open University www.open.ac.uk
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Guest's review of Open University www.open.ac.uk

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“The open university completely incompetent. ”

Written on: 27/10/2010

The open university completely incompetent.



They cancelled my place on a course without even notifying me and went so far as to say I should have phoned them earlier than the week before my course started to find out details of the course. Obviously a phone call or email from them was too much to ask.



I was then told if i wanted to apply for late consideration i must pay a higher fee upfront.



Mistakes happen of course but for them to blame me for their mistake is unacceptable and I would not recommend anyone to part with their hard earned money for a course with the OU, if they can sort out something as simple as the administration then it says very little of the ability to provide a high level of education.

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Saippuakauppias's Comment

Written on: 24/05/2012

Spot on. Never ever dare criticize or query anything and if a mistake has been made, it will always be the students fault for not 'understanding' the system.
I wanted to change tutor groups, as I had an impossibly dismissive and rude tutor, whose negative attitude really undermined my confidence and I subsequently lost all motivation for my current module. I contacted the student support, hoping for just that - support. They promised to look into it and to expect contact from the staff tutor. It turned out that someone somewhere had muddled up my phone number and the staff tutor could not get through. When I found out and pointed out that they had listed a wrong phone number for me (the correct one was on my student record) , I was told off for not giving out my mobile number as an alternative. I hardly ever use it and it can be weeks before I check the messages, so not an ideal way of getting in touch with me. After explaining this to the the 'support' person, she suggested, that I had misunderstood the whole situation and that my tutor was one of the best in the faculty and that I must have made a mistake, 'no-one had ever complained about him before'. Yet apparently the student support is always happy to 'have a chat' if I needed to get something off my chest '... How utterly patronizing!
I have been an OU student since 2006 and most of experiences have been fairly positive, but must say, that had this been my first brush with the institution, it surely would have been the last. Unfortunately I am too close to gaining my degree to quit now, but for anyone reading this: the OU views itself as a charity and expects the students to be grateful for being allowed to study there, constructive criticism and concern from students is not welcomed at all. The tutors are often patronizing and superior (not all thankfully) and the support staff are incompetent at best. It may have been cheap before, but you only get what you pay for most definitely.

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Guest's Comment

Written on: 14/06/2012

ill agree with Saippuakauppias experience. BTW what a name, sorry, and i have a long one myself

... name of course:)

" the OU views itself as a charity and expects the students to be grateful for being allowed to study there, constructive criticism and concern from students is not welcomed at all. The tutors are often patronizing and superior (not all thankfully) and the support staff are incompetent at best. It may have been cheap before, but you only get what you pay for most definitely."

Ok thats what she/he said and after getting through half these reviews that kind of is the hub of the problems. But perhaps its also good skills to deal with dismissive, pedantic overworked tutors , because in real life situations (especially academic) you are going to end up dealing with far worse.

Good new is OU is completely great way to get the letters after your name, basic grounding etc if you have another life, and if you are prepared to be organized and committed and not go into courses above your head or you cant do, its all OK. Plus the convenience, it all being planned out, brilliant in that sense, although there are free online universities now in america developing rapidly so OU model better start watching out and up its game somewhat (which i dont see happening).

Problems for me arise, well when there is a problem. In a regular uni one meeting can resolve it quickly. The online faceless bureaucracy of the OU does something akin to a business that is trying to serve its own interests
first, plus all the usual hassle trying to solve anything online. Then don't ever argue with their grading, unless you want an extra mini-module in online ballbreaking ! or tackle them on the errors they make (thankfully nothing massive) , and golden rule, NEVER try to excel by going above and beyond the call of the course material or being creative. They really, completely hate that more than anything else because many tutors are overworked and you may just stimulate them to think, when they dont want to (i.e. because they overworked).

This is a highly quantized structured system, with the aim to show you can comprehend and apply parts of certain fields in the manner their consultants advise them. Thats it. Just accept it. If you want to be creative in the area you study, have some other project on the side so the tedium of the course methods does not put you off the subject.

Lastly, I would like to see where the money goes. There should be a pool of get stuff done quickly dynamic independent troubleshooters who have general knowledge and who actually take an interest in the students aims, and have a review discussion, suggest courses etc, etc, that you can go talk to more heart to heart and they can act as agent negotiators between you, tutors and the system (which are mostly female).

Otherwise you can end up either lost in their system unable to figure a lot about it, or stuck with pedantic tutor, and any problems etc leads you straight to incompetent / not interested lah de dah pass the buck to their other non interested friend across the hall bureaucracy, which you have no choice but to resign yourself to.

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