• http://learn.open.ac.uk/course/view.php?id=1764 (Molecular Science)
• http://learn.open.ac.uk/course/view.php?id=1763 (Psychology)

Over the next few days I hope to familiarise myself with this Virtual Learning Environment and see how far I can push the default template into doing the things we want it to do.

I shall report my findings here.

2. What were your reasons for studying this particular course?
(Question unchanged in 2005 – students can give as many reasons as they choose)
As in 2004, the main reason in student’s decision to study the specific course was as part of a programme of study to achieve an OU qualification/award. (82%, compared to 85% in 2004) The other three factors were cited by fewer students: As preparation for study elsewhere – 2%, As a one-off course with no intention of future study – 4%, Aiming to take more OU courses but undecided on qualification/award – 12%.

There was a difference between new and continuing students who responded that they were studying as part of a programme of study: 65% of new undergraduate students gave this response compared to 86% of continuing students, and 81% of undergraduates overall. Although it is unsurprising that new students are more likely to be undecided, this is an important finding and represents a key point for advice and guidance. For post-graduate students, this response was given by 84% of new students, 97% of continuing students and 95% of postgraduates overall.

IET: Courses Surveyed in November 2005

87.7% of under 25s are on a programme of study…

Compared to 2% on a one-off course. So says the 2004 IET data.

Whilst it will be useful to create two prototype websites to try out ideas, the eventual aim would be to inform the work into the next version of Student Home. At a time where there are more and more websites trying to grab our student’s attention, it would make much more sense for the programme level information to be integrated with the main Student Home view.

Student Home – how it looks today

At some recent workshops we identified the main topics of information that students might find at a programme-level of support.

Psychology

• Welcome (to Psychology. Video clip from programme manager)
• Psychology at the OU – high level teaching and research story, why psychology is great at the OU, recognition.
• People (faculty staff, regional staff, tutors and students)
• Planning your qualification – qualifications, courses, opoen programme, taster material, are you ready check, award regulations, exit options (if you’re no longer interested in psychology!)
• Effective Study – getting started, subject-specific materials (inc. video clips of student stories on effective strategies), references, library links, people to support study, downloadable material.
• Personal and Career Development

Molecular Science

• Welcome
• Molecular Science at the OU
• Chemistry department
• Next course – is it for me? taster material
• Residential schools
• Effective study
• Personal and Career Development

Similarities

Interestingly, on the two seperate workshops, faculty staff managed to come up with practically identical items thay would like to see in the programme-level view. Most of the differences were not to do with actual concepts but the labelling of these concepts. For example, Psychology had a section called people whilst Molecular Science had a section called Chemistry department. Both amount to the same thing.

Student Noticeboard

Both faculties said they would like a Student Noticeboard. Something like the OU Intranet Noticeboard, where student could exchange information in a public forum as they would using a traiditional (physical) student noticeboard at a traditional university. In fact, so important was this virtual community aspect that both faculties agreed that it should be the focal point of the programme-level homepage. The noticeboard would be divided, like OU Intranet Home, between official messages and informal notices.

Intranet Home – as it looks today

Student home links

Both faculties said they would like to see links to Student Home and the course e-desktops on a programme-level website. There was some idea that if possible, a lot of information the student can access through Student Home would be directly available on the programme-level view.

The implications for this are that the actual Student Home view would become redundant to the students who are on a programe of study. They would probably favour the programme level view because it would be more specific to their current status as an OU student and therefore bookmark the page, bypassing the main Student Home view.

To cater for this fact and to avoid duplication of data across different views, it would be far more preferable for the student-level view to be merged with Student Home so the student has a single view contextual to their current state as an OU student. As far as the programme-level vision is concerned, Student Home would be a kind of portal view with the focal point of a student messageboard with links to other contextually relevant around it.

We are now liaising with Harriet Buckingham of the integrated online experience VLE project to plan the way forward with this.

Courses -vs- Programmes

The OU is completely different to conventional UK universities in the way it presents courses as the main object of study. Have a look at the OU Courses and Qualifications and then at the equivalents at, say Southampton University, Bath University and Bristol University. Notice that the emphasis is on a programme of study or a study subject. What we consider to be a course is what most students at traditional institutions would consider a ‘module’. Yet again it’s all a question of semantics. However, we want to attract more students to the OU and therefore need to speak in familiar terms. From a support point of view, programmes are a great way of providing solid and meaningful study paths. Programme based support is as much about the points between courses/modules as the courses/modules themselves.

Making things less strange

Most prospective students will be familiar with studying a degree and the way the OU does things might seem a little alien to them. So The PILS team was setup to address this need. You can find out more on the PILS website.

Web-based support

Web based support is a big part of the PILS project and we’re developing up some pilots to see how we might go about supporting students on two selected programmes – Psychology and Molecular Science.

Who’s involved

Working with faculty representatives, PILS staff, colleagues from my own team and those from Learning and Teaching Solutions (LTS), we hope to create some tangible web site prototypes that can feed into the work being carried out by Harriet Buckingham and her work for the Integrated online experience. Part of this work revolves around the next version of Student Home. We hope that rather than create yet another website for students to remember, we can add contextual and relevant information to a programme view of Student Home. Our ideas, including a student noticeboard are to be discussed in a Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) workshop tomorrow afternoon.

I welcome your thoughts and comments on anything related to online programme based support. I will try and keep our developments posted to this blog.