How your voice has made a difference
This page provides an opportunity to see the valuable feedback received from students across a wide range of communication channels, and to see what the OU has done in response.
Please note this video is now a couple of years old so some people no longer have the same title. The current Students Association leadership can be seen on their website.
Choose a topic from the drop-down list below to see how students can have an impact on their university experience and be empowered to help shape the University. Next time you are asked to give your opinion, you know that the OU is taking this feedback seriously and will respond.
You said...
The workload on Investigating psychology (DE300) was too high compared to other modules.
We did...
Investigating psychology (DE300) is the final module on our British Psychological Society (BPS) accredited modules and as such it is supposed to be challenging. However, we agree that although the DE300 workload meets OU guidelines, it contains a very broad curriculum span with all of the BPS core domains of psychology taught and assessed. We are exploring possible changes to the coverage in DE300 to help balance the content in combination with other Stage 3 options.
Psychology
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You said...
That the Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) materials for learning about statistics in research methods were distributed across several weeks making it difficult to find and access specific items.
We did...
We have converted the six weeks of quantitative methods materials into pdf files so that the methods teaching can be viewed as a whole and/or printed out more easily.
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You said...
You want more criminology teaching.
We did...
We are investing heavily in the new criminology curriculum, the first module of which will be available in 2018.
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You said...
You want recordings of online tutorials to be available.
We did...
We have been working with the faculty to ensure we move towards recordings being available wherever possible.
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You said...
You want tutorial handouts to be available to everyone.
We did...
We have been working with the faculty to ensure that tutorial handouts are available online for everyone to access.
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You said...
The Student Resource Portal is a valuable source of information and advice.
We did...
The Qualifications Online website is being replaced by individual subject websites as the preferred destination for online support and advice. The Computing & Communications website will be made available for postgraduate qualifications March 2018 and for undergraduate qualifications in June 2018. We will move the content that is currently hosted on the Student Resource Portal to the Computing & Communications website in the early part of 2018 and update it so that the information on modules is more comprehensive. We will also be moving content that is currently hosted on the Undergraduate Computing and IT website onto the subject website.
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You said...
Those students who took the programming ‘boot-camp’ before studying one of the level two modules M250 Object-oriented Java programming, M269 Algorithms, data structures and computability, or TT284 Web technologies were appreciative of the boot-camp and found it helpful.
We did...
The programming boot-camp is a short, week-long, tutor-supported resource, based around a Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) workspace, much like a module website. It is intended to support students moving on to one of our level two modules that include programming, such as TT284, M269, or M250. We have been actively encouraging students to sign-up for the boot-camp (it is free, by the way). Since we introduced the boot-camp in 2015 we have been improving the advice and guidance that is offered to students beforehand so that only those students who will gain most benefit from the boot-camp sign-up.
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You said...
Entry diagnostic quizzes are welcome as part of the help available for students when choosing their next module.
We did...
We hope to roll out more 'Are You Ready For?' quizzes and integrate these into Module Chooser so they become part of the process of selecting a new module. We will be working on improving the guidance on what you should do if you do not perform well in the quiz, and make this guidance and the quizzes available through the subject website.
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You said...
You wanted more information on items such as the topics and skills covered in a module and its assessment strategy together with more accurate estimates of study times and periods where group work is required.
We did...
We have included much of this information for modules on the new biology/health science and Chemistry resources pages and will ensure that this is developed further for all modules on the new Science subject site once it is available.
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You said...
You would like to know what modules are being planned for your qualification in the next 1-5 years.
We did...
We will endeavour to provide this information via the Science subject site as soon as we can, however this will be dependent on OU approval processes.
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