edX 6.00x – time for the final exam, but will MOOCs be bad for social mobility?
There’s just a day or so to go before the edX 6.00x final exam is opened up. There’s a 12 hour window to complete it in and the course team estimate that it will take around 4 hours of effort. I’m...
View ArticleedX 6.00x – final thoughts
I completed the edX 6.00x final exam last weekend, but as its been a ridiculously busy week at work (which finally finished around 5pm yesterday) I haven’t had the time to put pen to paper (or finger...
View ArticleedX 6.00x: end of course certificates and US embargoes
In keeping with the generally bumpy ride on this course, its ending also didn’t go quite to plan. Completion certificates for those of us who achieved 55% or more were eventually issued a few days...
View ArticleWhy oh why …
… isn’t Q methodology even mentioned in the OU Psychology degree, let alone taught? I’m currently making my way through the 3rd chapter of Simon Watts and Paul Stenner’s 2012 book “Doing Q...
View ArticleLast year there was a 26.6% decline in the numbers of part-time university...
… starting courses and the decline is 37% from just two years ago. David Willetts is apparently so concerned that he’s asked Eric Thomas, the Universities UK president and Vice-Chancellor of Bristol...
View ArticleMisunderstanding of the day – or just touting for business?
MOOCs (like those offered by edX) are free for students to participate in. If they weren’t, their business model would be largely indistinguishable from distance learning institutions like the Open...
View ArticleHow have OU student numbers been affected by the £2,500 module fee in England?
Following the news last week that enrolments to HE courses by part-time students had fallen by 26.6% in the year after the introduction of the new tuition fees regime, I decided to do a little bit of...
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The crisis in the UK part-time higher education sector
The crisis in part time higher education in the UK, June 2013
View ArticlePart-time HE study is largely ignored by the IPPR’s ‘critical path’ report
Well, that was underwhelming. Having been alerted by the Times Higher Education last Friday to expect some real insights into how to address the crisis in part-time higher education (a 40% decline in...
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Misrepresenting statistics doesn’t help social mobility
I read with interest earlier on today the news of the Social Mobility Commission’s report into access to higher education. As I’ve said here before, improving social mobility is vitally important to...
View ArticleThe return of the psycho
Prompted by a message this morning on the OU Psychology Graduates Facebook group, I’ve been re-reading the prospectus for the Occupational Psychology MSc I’ve been accepted onto at Leicester...
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Link rot
One of the enduring problems of running a website or blog is the curse of link rot. Whenever I write articles I always try to find (non-wikipedia if possible) sources to back up my arguments. However,...
View ArticleDo you want a graduate career without getting covered in oozy, yukky stuff?...
According to Chart 4 of 2011/12 destination of leavers from higher education, published by the Higher Education Statistics Agency, the highest unemployment rates for UK resident graduates with first...
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Don’t forget the print button
FutureLearn seems to be in the final stages of getting ready for launch, as an invitation on its homepage is now allowing people to register their interest for courses that are due to start in...
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The business of MOOCs
The Open University’s foray into the world of MOOCs, FutureLearn, is to open for ‘Beta’ students later this month with the first courses due to start in October. FutureLearn is somewhat behind the...
View ArticleMOOCs – a warning from history?
The launch of FutureLearn earlier on today brought to mind a passage from J.G. Farrell’s Booker Prize winning novel “The Siege of Krishnapur”. For several nights the Collector had stayed up until dawn...
View ArticleVirtually Registered
When I registered as an undergraduate student at Warwick in 1982, queuing became an unexpected feature of life. I queued for my library card, for my accommodation, to sign onto my course and most...
View ArticleMy MSc is underway …
… and the clock is already ticking, with just 13 days to go before I need to submit a 1,000 word early assignment. The topic for the assignment is on how different approaches to psychology contribute...
View ArticleLeave it out!
I’ve successfully completed a first draft of my Early Assignment this weekend, so that leaves me with a week to tidy it up and tweak it. It’s been fairly difficult getting back in the swing of writing...
View Article1,000 word essays are harder to write than 2,000 word essays
Six years ago when I first started to study psychology I would never have believed that a 1,000 word essay was more difficult to write than a 2,000 word essay. After all, a 1,000 word essay is half as...
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