A little about me - Lois Ann Morris

Most people in the UK have heard of the Open University and it is also surprisingly well known throughout the world as a major distance learning institution. The OU has students all over the world and new 'offshoots' of the OU have now been established in countries like the USA. Students come from all walks of life and from just about all age groups - united in their goal of further education.

Some study simply because they enjoy studying, others see it as a challenge to keep their brain cells active, professionals find that studying with the OU will contribute valuable extra qualifications to their chosen career, many students combine studying and a job with the aim of changing careers, while a large proportion of OU students left the education path many years ago and are now returning with some trepidation..........

How did I come to study with the OU?

I came into the latter group, having achieved two good 'A' Level grades in English and French then struggled through half a term of a Bi-Lingual Secretarial college course I didn't really enjoy before dropping out and ending up in the Hotel and Catering Industry as a management trainee. Less than two years later, having met the "Man of my Dreams", I was married at the tender age of twenty one and we worked for a couple of years as Deputy Management in a busy market town hotel. Our subsequent move to the Isles of Scilly in 1981 was to take over a family guest house and here we have lived ever since. In 1985 our son was born, and in 1987 our daughter arrived, whose unexpected diagnosis of Autism came in 1991.

Recently, our lives changed with the decision to close our very successful and popular Guest House in 2000, convert to self-catering accommodation over winter and re-open in July 2001. We have also been taking a much larger part in running another family business, The Nan Heath Studio, selling prints, cards, notelets, postcards and calendars featuring the delicate watercolour paintings of my husband's late aunt. With these changes came more regular and civilized working hours together with the opportunity for me to enrol with the Open University and resume my education which had stuttered to a halt over twenty years ago!

What courses does the Open University offer?

To serve the diverse needs of its student community, the OU has broadened its curriculum to offer a much wider range of courses and options. Students can still take a degree that combines an eclectic choice of subjects but, increasingly, many are choosing to pursue named degrees in varied disciplines. To complement the traditional 60 point and 30 point undergraduate degree courses, the OU has also introduced a range of 10 point courses which are proving popular, together with a series of short "Openings" Courses designed to ease the would-be student back into good study habits after years away from education.

My own OU experience so far.....

I started my OU studies with the "Openings" course Y003 "Breakthrough to Maths, Science and Technology" in the autumn of 2000. Lasting about twelve weeks, this course offered regular telephone tutorials with my tutor, textbooks, audio tapes and a video tape. It was a gentle re-introduction to the routines and skills necessary for effective home study. I submitted several pieces of written work which were marked and returned with helpful comments from the tutor. The last assignment was a review of my progress and I was able to discuss with my Tutor possible options for further education with the Open University. (I had already decided on T171 before I started the Breakthrough course and had enrolled for the February 2001 presentation).

Since this was only the third presentation of T171 - "You, Your Computer and the Net", there was wide discussion amongst students about how much practical computer experience was required to tackle this course. It seemed that many new students were overwhelmed by the initial requirements for installation of software and getting to grips with the First Class conferencing system. Given the very wide range of computer experience present in the T171 students, some found the course easy while others floundered and struggled. Despite the best efforts of more-experienced students to offer help through the online course conferences, the drop-out rate for T171 was distressingly high. The Open University has now split Module One from the presentation of T171 that I did, and is offering it as a separate 10 point short course - TU170. It is now recommending that TU170 is a valuable first step to studying T171 (which has acquired a new Module Three dealing with e-Commerce).

There was also much discussion about Web Site/Page creation during the course. Yes, you do have to write Web Reports as web sites, in HTML, with images and links etc. But no, this is not a course aimed at training Web Designers (although there are moves afoot to persuade the OU to offer such a course). Nevertheless, the web skills acquired during T171 have led many students to create their own websites - some for T171 itself, like this one, some for other people/organisations and others as personal sites.

What are the requirements for studying with the OU?

There is no doubt that signing up to do an Open University course is a significant commitment of your time, energy and determination. T171 was especially demanding because students got involved in online conferences, helping each other, surfing the web, chatting, getting distracted...... Many of us seemed to spend far longer on T171 than the eight hours a week which a Level One course is supposed to require. On the other hand, the development of Study Skills is integral to an OU Level One course and many of the activities in T171 were designed to teach us such skills. Organising a study timetable was quite a challenge - especially since the OU year runs from February to October in most cases which involves fitting in studies around summer holidays and offspring.

The amazing sense of community amongst the OU students was something that I hadn't been expecting. Living as I do, in a remote part of the UK, I envisaged studying alone, unable to attend face-to-face tutorials with my fellow Tutor Group students. But the First Class online conferencing system was quite a revelation - not only were there course-specific conferences for T171 (accessible only to T171 students) but there were information and general interest conferences as well covering an astonishing range of subjects and interests. It proved to be very easy to be distracted when studying.....