Out with the old and in with the new.

Although I officially started M263 at the beginning of October, this blog has been a bit quiet over the last eight weeks. I have been very busy with other stuff (of which more later) but the main reason that my second year of study hasn't been documented very thoroughly so far is psychological. Until the results for Year 1 were in, I didn't feel Year 2 had really started.

Well, they came today. So expect lots of M263 posts over the coming weeks. As was to be expected, the actual overall scores reflect the fact that I elected to skip a TMA in each course. But the good part (and the reason I skipped them) is that these two courses are purely Pass or Fail affairs and scores are not recorded as part of my degree.

Now, I must get back to the TMA!

M150




T175

C47

M150 Guide to Pass Marks PART 2: "The Revenge"

Here's a bit of a light-hearted post in a week that should really see me getting down to some proper work on M263. Yes, it's all fairly inconsequential stuff. OK, it's almost totally inconsequential! But I'm only poking fun...

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I just read the following on my student home page:

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M150: CMA41 score - feedback delayed
Please note that your score for CMA41 will not be displayed on your HomePage. You will only see an acknowledgment of receipt. Final scores cannot be confirmed until after the results have been considered by the M150 Examination and Assessment Board. You will receive feedback on your CMA and your score by letter. The letters are normally despatched in December after the Examination result letters are despatched. Please note that the two letters will be sent separately.

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OK, first the funny bits:

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"Examination result letters"??? I didn't have an examination in this subject!

Is it me?

"...letters are...despatched...after the...result letters.

The two letters will be sent separately."

That is NOT me!

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Next: less amusing but still, I admit, fairly trivial. (Hey - the alternative to typing this rubbish is study, so gimme a break!)

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I'm wondering what "final scores" means in this context. Does it mean overall course score or moderated CMA41 score? The fact that the actual CMA41 scores themselves have been delayed implies that latter. But CMA stands for computer-marked assignmen; it was a multiple-choice affair. There is simply no case for witholding our CMA scores for moderation. My guess is that it's our earlier assignments which are being subjected to moderation and the business with the CMA scores is a bit of a red herring... simply a convenient way of not letting a student feel he has all his marks* at this stage, lest some problem with TMAs comes to light over the coming weeks.

.Were this guess right, it would mean that assignment scores which are presently deemed provisional (ie. potentially wrong) HAVE been issued, while the one set of scores which should be incontrovertible has NOT. This would certainly offend Mr Spock's sensibilities and be pretty much indefensible. But not actually crazy. What would be crazy would be my guess being wrong, and the multiple-choice computer-marked assignment being moderated. If that's the case, I will just have to climb up through my skylight and shake my fist at the heavens, shouting "Stop it!"

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* Or, perhaps the whole online submission system is so poorly set up that releasing the final scores (whether they be CMA/ECA or whatever) effectively ends the course before TMA moderation can be completed. If that particular tail (some OU software) is wagging this particular dog (an OU course in data, computing and information), then I weep for the future.

Year 2, Day 1: Off topic!

M263 officially kicks off today. It's a good thing that the first few weeks are so undemanding, as I have rather a lot on in Second Life at the moment: My most demanding activity right now is helping do co-ordinate the Schomebase Art Exhibition. The involves not only soliciting exhibits from artists, but convincing those artists that they can and should specify how and where their stuff is displayed. I'm also keenly - though peripherally - involved with a project to build a working model of the Beagle 2 Mars lander. Well, my involvement was peripheral until I found myself "volunteered" to actually do a bit of the building - something I have not had a moment for since. Other forces, of which I cannot yet speak, are driving me to bite the bullet and get to grips with the required techniques, so spacecraft work is on my schedule for the coming week. At this week's nOUbie Centre planning meeting we discussed the selection of snapshots representing our activities. Mr Bloody Funny here quipped that as well as categories for tutorials, field trips, etc, we could have one for "funny stuff." This was only a joke, but I see my name has appeared next to the word "Comedy" on the mission statement. Serves me right. The most recent and surprising SL activity I find myself swept up in is the SLam-dram Panto! The role I've been cast in is a pretty surreal one, and - not being an actor as such - I hope that I can come up with a costume to carry me through!


It's been a long time coming (a year!) but I've finally drifted off-topic a bit, haven't I?

Or have I?

Second Life has been a big part of my online activity since April, but I've not really harped on about it here because it isn't "Open University study" as such. But I'm going to relax that rule a bit, because while it may only feature occasionally on my courses it has more than a passing relevance to my chosen subject area. I have documented some of my SL stuff elsewhere over the year and failed totally to mention yet more stuff - so expect to find some backdated posts being pasted here.

Monday Morning, 3am

My M263 course materials were delivered last week. After the obligatory book-sniffing and software installation, they were consigned to the bedroom midden. There they languished till Saturday evening when I found Jonathan Strange and Mr Norell failing to have their intended soporific effect.

I started reading Unit 1 and was pleasantly surprised to find just about everything new and fresh. I suppose I had expected "building blocks of software" to be a bit woolly, but so far it looks just the opposite. I'm always a bit wary of new terminology, definitions, syntax, etc in materials like this though. I can't help wondering how much of it is the personal invention of the author and how much is universal. Time will tell. Google too.

Still, I cannot get excited about printed course materials.
I was waiting for the searchable stuff.

In the early hours of Monday I was prowling the new M263 Web pages. I was able to download some Vista patch for Wordpad. Not sure if this is one and the same as Workpad, which I installed from the course CD last week. I also downloaded all the course units as PDF files (bless 'em - I do loathe PDF specifally, but you can't beat an e-book when it comes to revision.) Too, (yes, "too" David; not "similarly" - not even a little bit) I found an online course calendar and tried to work off some of my puppy-like enthusiasm by documenting my nocturnal visit.

Still I gamboled in toilet paper, so I set to and did TMA01. By sun up this had calmed me down slightly, but did nothing to kerb my growing passion for the course. I managed to keep my head though...

It seems I can only submit the first half of TMA01 right now, as it goes under the guise of TMA00 and that's the only option on the upload page. I came very close to submitting Part 1, but fear of hanging myself stayed my hand. Plenty of time yet... and it's just possible that over the coming weeks I'll realise that as well as being cocky when I did that TMA, I got every answer wrong.

Is three inches such a wretched height to be?

After last week's debacle (of which more later - I have an unpublished post saved) I thought I'd like to get M150's CMA41 out of the way. It's not due till the end of the month but, since submitting it an hour or so ago, I've officially finished my first year of university. (Bloody hell! Described like that, my spasmodic studies since February suddenly seem a gestalt. And a very worthwhile one at that!)

"One sixth of the way through my degree" doesn't sound so very impressive. But the time absolutely flew by - double it and I'm one third of the way! Plus: An extra little bonus is that if (and it is still an "if") I pass both M150 and T175 I'll get the Certificate in Information Technology and Computing.

CMA41 done and dusted.

Final "Meldrew post" of THIS year, or first of NEXT year?

A few days ago I used the Open University's Web site to reserve a place on each of my next two planned courses.

Despite the fact that the envelopes subsequently delivered contained forms etc, I saw a note to the effect that payment and registration could be made by telephone. Eager to get things squared away ASAP I phoned 0845 300 6090 - after making sure my wife was standing by with her plastic! My call was taken by a very pleasant lady with a German accent. I explained that I had reserved a place on M263, reserved a place on M255, and now wished to pay what I owed and finalise registration.

For the uninitiated, I'll just mention that every OU student is allocated a unique Personal Identifier Number. On occasions like the one being described this PI Number saves a lot of time, because all information regarding name, address, courses studied, courses reserved, etc is associated with this one number.

Everything seemed to go swimmingly.

There was a moment of irony when I offered to pass the phone to my wife so that the plastic could strut its stuff. "Oh no!" said the lady on the phone, "It has to be you, so that we know the course is really being booked for you."

So OK... companies insisting that the named card-holder comes to the phone are being pretty naive and I wish they wouldn't do it. But turning down the offer in case there's some frankly inconceivable module-fraud afoot is just daft. And, I daresay, it's probably at odds with what the card issuer would wish!

But anyway...

We did the deed with card number, expiry date, etc.
(Isn't that little three-digit "security code" on the signature strip cute? Imagine the trouble banks would be in if the bad guys ever thought of writing that number down!)

And that was that.

Or so I thought.

Or so I would have let myself think had I not long ago learned my lesson about people entrusted with important jobs.

I watched my student home page. The following morning what had hitherto been a greyed-out link became a real one leading to the (as yet inactive) M263 Course Website.

What's missing from this picture? Yes! M255.

I telephoned.

I asked whether I had, in fact, been registered on M255 after all. Had the fees even been settled for that course?

Yes, the fees are done and dusted.

But registration? "No, you can't do that over the phone. You have to fill in the form and send it in."

Remember folks: This rule applies to only 50% of my courses. M263 is a done deal in every respect other than actually studying and passing. Unbe-fukken-lievable. I came up with a theory to account for this strange state of affairs.

I ran this theory past a contact of mine who has a profound knowledge of OU administrative procedure in general and course registrations in particular.

My theory was confirmed.

Wanna know what it was?

Tough!

If the staff of that particular Open University department aren't courteous enough to explain their haphazard and potentially disastrous procedures, and - worse - actually fail to mention the procedures exist, I'm not about to do it for them here.