Student Voice Newsletter April 2024

OU Students Association Elections

The OU Students Association Student Leadership Team and Student Trustees are elected by students, for students. Every single student member has the opportunity to nominate themselves in the student elections, and all get to have a say in who represents them during the voting period. The OU Students Association Elections are in full swing and you can now view all the candidates for all the roles!

The OU Students Association Elections will be open for voting from Friday 19 April - Wednesday 8 May. It is important the every student votes to ensure that the OU Students Association is led by the students you decide.

OU Students Association Conference

The OU Students Association Conference 2024 will be held on Saturday 15 June, and the OU Students Association are excited to welcome as many OU students as possible to this incredible online event! Taking place every two years, Conference is an important opportunity for students to have a say in how the Students Association is run – and to have your voices heard. The event is full of opportunities to get involved with the Students Association, engage with other students and gain valuable skills. Since the event is being held online, the OU Students Association are pleased to be able to welcome all OU students to attend Conference. In being able to invite all OU students who wish to attend, Conference 2024 will be our most accessible and democratic one yet.

For more information on the Conference and how to attend, please visit the OU Students Association Conference webpage.

Student Voice Festival - Share you feedback!

The Student Voice Festival was a 15 day event, with over 40 sessions and over a 100 speakers! We are thankful for every student who came to a session and gave us valuable feedback. We are now working with all our session oranisers to ensure that they respond to your feedback.

Now, we are evaluating how the Festival went and we need your feedback on your experience of the Festival. Please fill out the survey to tell us what you think - to find the survey, please refer back to your emails.

You Said, We Did - Assessment Framework

In April 2023, the University asked students signed up to the Curriculum Design Student Panel about their experience of assessment at the OU. Of the 287 respondents, 85% had studied more than one module while 47% had sought advice or support to understand a module assessment strategy. 61% either strongly agreed or agreed that it would be beneficial to simplify the various assessment strategies across different modules at the OU, mainly to prevent confusion and to increase consistency.

In response colleagues at the OU reviewed the way we plan our assessment strategies, and considered how we could make our assessment delivery across all modules more consistent. A new Assessment Framework was approved and launched in January 2024, which will ensure that as students progress through and between modules they will experience more consistency in assessment strategies. This change will be implemented over time, as we will review assessment plans for specific modules as part of our normal processes.

The OU Students Association was closely involved in the development of this new framework, welcoming it as “a really good common-sense approach.