Thursday 15 August 2013

Student Support

There is a wealth of learning support available for OU students that can sometimes be hard to find.
I'm going to try and put up links for the ones I use the most.


OUSA Forums



Hidden in the depths of your module site will be a link to the OUSA forums, the OU have recently moved the forums over and there are several dead links on the site but this one should take you to the main area.


http://learn1.open.ac.uk/mod/glossary/view.php?id=8063&mode=cat

You can search for your module code, or by category of study. There are also degree specific forums including one for students like me doing the randomness of an Open degree. 

Library support

  • Journal and Article access
It's worth noting that you might have to utilise the alternative Athens log in to access some of the journals but once you've figured that out then you're good to go :)


  • There are also online training sessions available. 

http://www.open.ac.uk/library/events/online-training-sessions

Here you can participate in Elluminate training sessions in everything from Elluminate itself, to plagiarism and literature searches. You can also watch previously recorded sessions if you're unable to make a live session.


Facebook

Every module I've done has had a couple of groups spring up, there tends to be a main large moderated group plus a couple of off-shoots for those who don't like the moderation. Personally, I like the large groups and think a bit of moderation is needed to ensure that trolling, bad behaviour and rudeness is limited whilst allowing students to support each other.

There is a large (unofficial) Open University facebook group that is moderated and has files with links to module groups, blogs and other useful information - https://www.facebook.com/groups/TheOpenUniversity/

If you don't have a facebook account already and are wary of social media or privacy issue, it is relatively simple to create a bare bones account with privacy locked down just to access study groups.

The facebook help guides are pretty simple to follow - https://www.facebook.com/help/


I'll add more to this blog when I've had more coffee ;)

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