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A sketch of M813 Software Development and M814 Software Engineering

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Edited by Christopher Douce, Tuesday, 26 Nov 2024, 18:20

After becoming the module chair of TM354 Software Engineering, I had a look at two related postgraduate modules, M813 Software Development and M814 Software Engineering

These two modules sit alongside a number of other modules that make up the MSc in Computing programme. My intention was to see what related topics and subjects are taught, and whether there were any notable differences about how they were taught. 

This blog aims to highlight some of the key elements of these modules. To prepare this post, I had a good look through the module materials, including the assessment materials, and spoke with each of the module chairs. My intention of looking at these modules is to identify what themes and topics might potentially feed into a future replacement of TM354, or another related module. This summary is by no means comprehensive; the points I pick up on do, of course, reflect my interests.

I hope these notes are useful to anyone who is interested in either software engineering, or postgraduate computing, or both. Towards the end of the blog, I share a quick compare and contrast between the two modules and share some links to resources for anyone who might be interested.

M813 Software Development

M813 aims to “to provide the skills and knowledge necessary to develop software in accordance with current professional practice, approaches and techniques”.

The key module learning aims are to:

  • teach you a variety of fundamental techniques for software development across the software lifecycle, and to provide practice in the use of these techniques
  • give you enough knowledge to be able to choose between different development techniques appropriate for a software development context
  • make you aware of design and technology trade-offs involved in developing enterprise software systems
  • enable you to evaluate current software development practices
  • give you an understanding of current and emerging issues in software development
  • give you the research skills needed to stay at the leading edge of software development.

The module description suggests that students “will have an opportunity to engage with an organisational problem of your choice, working towards a fit-for-purpose software solution” and students “will also have an opportunity to carry out some independent research into issues in software development, including analysing, evaluating and presenting results”.

It makes use of a set text, Head First Design Patterns, accessed through the university library. To help students with the more technical bits, it shares some resources about a graphical tool, Visual Paradigm, which enables students to create diagrams using the Unified Modelling Language (UML).

The module has 10 units of study, which are spread over four blocks. The module’s assessment strategy summarised below, followed by each of the blocks.

Assessment strategy

Like many other modules, there are two parts of assessment: tutor marked assessments (TMAs), and an examinable component, which is an end of module assessment (EMA). Interestingly, the TMAs adopt a more practical and software development skills perspective, whereas the EMA is more about carrying out research which is applied to a study context. To pass the module, students need to gain an average score of 50% in both of the components.

TMAs 1 and 3 account for 30% of the continually assessed part of the module. Due to the practical focus of TMA 2, this assessment accounts for 40% of the overall TMA score.

Block 1: Software development and early lifecycle

This block is described as helping to “learn the principles and techniques of early software lifecycle, from requirements and domain analysis to software specification. You will engage with a number of practices, including capturing and validating requirements, and UML (Unified Modelling Language) modelling with activity and class diagrams.”

The model opens with a research activity which involves finding and reading academic articles. There are three other research activities which build on this first searching activity. These activities helps students to understand what the academic study of software engineering looks like. Plus, when working as a practicing software engineer, it’s important to know how to find and evaluate information about methods, approaches, and frameworks.

This unit beings to introduce students to a tool that they will use during the module; Visual Paradigm. Throughout the module, students will learn more about different UML diagrams, such as use cases, class diagrams, and activity diagrams.

Unit 1, introducing software development, shares a couple of perspectives: a philosophical perspective and a historical perspective (history is always useful), before mentioning risk, quality and then moving onto starting to look at UML.

Unit 2, requirements and use cases, covers the characteristics of requirements and the forms that they can be presented. Unit 3, from the context to the system, starts with activity diagram (which are all about representing a context) through to class diagrams, which is all about beginning to realise a design of software using abstractions. Finally, unit 4, specifying what the system should do, touches on more formal aspects of software specification.

Block 2: Design and code

This next block explores “principles and techniques of software design, construction, testing and version control”. Other topics include design patterns, UML modelling with state diagrams and creating of software using the Java language. Out of all the blocks in the module, this is the one that has a really practical focus.

In addition to links to further video tutorials about Visual Paradigm, there’s some guidance about how to start to use Microsoft Visual Studio Code, and some initial development activities.

Unit 5, design, introduces some basic design principles, and new forms of diagram: communication diagrams and object diagrams. Unit 6, from design to code, shares a bit more detail about the principles of object-oriented programming, and goes onto introducing the topic of configuration management. Unit 7, design patterns, continues the theme of object-oriented programming by introducing a set of patterns from the Gang of Four text, which is complemented by a software development activity. 

Block 3: Software architectures and systems integration

Block 3 goes up a level to explore how to “develop software solutions based on software architectures and frameworks”. 

Unit 8, software architectures introduces the notion of architectural patterns, and how to model patterns using UML. Another useful topic introduced is state machines. An important theme that is highlighted is the idea of layer of software which, in turn, is linked to the notion of persistence (which means ‘how data can be saved’). This is complemented by unit 9, component-based architectures, which offers a specific example.  The module concludes with unit 10, service-oriented architectures.

Block 4: EMA preparation

This fourth block relates to the module’s end of module assessment (EMA), where students have to carry out some applied research into a software context in which they are familiar with. To help students to prepare, there are some useful preparatory resources.

Reflections

I really liked that this module brings in a bit of history, describing the history of object-oriented programming. I also liked that it shared some really useful descriptions about the differences between scholarship and research. There are some common elements between M813 and TM354, such as requirements and the use of UML, but I’ll say more about this in a later section.

M814 Software Engineering

M814 is “about advanced concepts and techniques used throughout the software life cycle” and replaces two earlier 15 point modules: M882 Software Project Management and M883 Requirements Engineering.

The module aims are to:

  • develop your ability in the critical evaluation of the theories, practices and systems used in a range of areas of Computing
  • provide you with a specialised area of study in order that you can experience and develop the frontiers of practice and research in focused aspects of Computing and its application
  • encourage you, through the provision of appropriate educational activities, to develop study and transferable skills applicable to your employment and continuing professional development
  • enable you to develop a deeper understanding of a specialist area of Computing and to contribute to future developments in the field.

Although this module is less ‘applied’ than M813, there are some important elements. Students make use Git and GitHub, and use a simulation and modelling tool, InsightMaker.

The module has four study blocks, containing 26 study units; a lot more than M813. These are summarised in the following sections. Students are also required to consult a set text, Mastering the requirements process by Robertson and Robertson, which is also available through the OU Library.

Assessment strategy

The module has three TMAs and an end of module exam, which is taken remotely (as opposed to an EMA). TMAs 1 and 3 have a weighting of 30% each, with TMA 2 being slightly more substantial, accounting for 40%. Students have to pass both the TMAs and the exam, gaining an average of 50% in each.

The exam covers all module learning outcomes and is split into two sections. For the second section students would have needed to be familiar with a research article.

Block 1: Software engineering context

The first two units, unit 1, software in the information society and unit 2, the organisational and business context, introduces software engineering. This is followed by an introduction to the organisational context through unit 3, organisational context, codes and standards. The title of this unit refers to professional codes, and professional and technical standards. Accompanying topics include software and the law, which includes intellectual properly, trademarking, patents, and data protection (GDPR) legislation. The final unit, unit 4, addresses ethics and values in software engineering.

Block 2: Software engineering methods and processes

Block 2 concerns software engineering methods and processes. The first two units highlights the notion of the process model, project management, and quality management, which includes the ISO 9001 standard and the Capability Maturity Model (CMMI). These are presented in unit 6, software activities and unit 7, software engineering processes. 

The module then covers unit 8, agile processes and unit 9, managing resources, which includes materials about SCRUM, Kanban, and something called the SAFe framework, which is a set of workflow patterns for implementing agile practices. There is also a case study which describes how agile is used in practice. I remember seeing some photographs that show how developers have been sharing information about project status using whiteboard and other displays. The module concludes with unit 10,  managing uncertainty and risk, and unit 11, software quality.

A part of this block makes use of simulation, introducing a ‘simulation modelling tool’ which can be used to experiment with the concept of Brooks’ law. As an aside, this reminds me of a short article https://ppig.org/papers/2002-ppig-14th-hales/ that touched on a similar topic. In the context of M814, I like how the idea of simulation has been applied in an interesting and pedagogically helpful way.

Block 3: Software deployment and evaluation

Block 3 concerns software deployment and evolution. In other words, what happens after implementation. It includes some materials about DevOps (the integration of development with the operation of software), and continual integration and delivery. There are three units: unit 12, software configuration management, which introduces Git and GitHub, unit 13, software deployment, and unit 14, software maintenance and evolution.

This block returns to simulation, specifically exploring Lehman’s 2nd law (Wikipedia), which means that software complexity increases unless something is done to reduce it. Students are also directed to a text book, Continuous Delivery: Reliable Software Releases through Build, Test, and Deployment Automation, by Humble and Farley. 

Block 4: Back to the beginning

The final block returns to the beginning by looking at requirements engineering, extensively drawing on the set text, Mastering the Requirements Process. It introduces what is meant by requirements engineering, a subtopic within software engineering. Unit titles for this block includes scoping the business problem, functional and non-functional requirements, fit criteria and rationale, ensuring quality of requirements, and reusing requirements. The block concludes with a useful section: unit 26, current trends in software engineering.

Reflections

I really liked the introductory sections to this module; they adopt a philosophical tone. I also really like how it uses case studies. What is notable is that there are a lot of materials to get through, but all the topics and units are certainly appropriate and are needed to cover the module in a good amount of depth.

Similarities and differences

There is understandably some cross over between M813 and M814; they complement each other. M813 is more of an ‘applied’ module than either M814 or TM354, but M814 does contain a few practical elements. It’s use of simulations is particularly interesting. In comparison to the undergraduate software engineering module, TM354, the two postgraduate modules do clearly require the application of higher academic skills, such as understanding what it means to carry out scholarship.

In my opinion, there appear to be more similarities between M813 and TM354 than with M814. It is worth noting that TM354 introduces topics that can be found in both postgraduate modules.

TM354 and M813 both emphasise design patterns. An important difference is that in M813, students are required to demonstrate how patterns might be applied, whereas on TM354 students have to necessarily demonstrate their understanding of design patterns that have been chosen by the module team. Both modules also explore the notions of software architectures and state machines.

There are differences between TM354 and M813 in terms of tools. TM354 steers away from the use of diagramming tools, but by way of contrast, M813 makes extensive use of Visual Paradigm. TM354 makes use of NetBeans for the design patterns task, whereas M813 introduces students to Visual Studio Code.

By way of contrast, M814 covers wider variety of concepts which are important to the building of ‘software in the large’; the importance of software maintenance and the characteristics of software quality.

UML is featured in all three modules. They all refer to software development methods and requirements engineering. Significantly, they all use the Roberston and Robertson text. The differ in terms of the depth they explore the topic.

To conclude, software development and software engineering are huge subjects. The three modules that are mentioned in this blog can only begin to scratch the surface. Every problem will have a unique set of requirements, and every problem will require different methods. There are two key elements: people and technology. Software is designed by people and used by people. Where there’s people, there’s always complexity. Adding technology in the mix adds an additional dimension of complexity.

Resources

The following links takes you to some useful OpenLearn resources:

Acknowledgements

Many thanks to Arosha Bandara who spent some time introducing me to some the key elements of M814. I also extend thanks to Yujin Yu. Both Arosha and Yujin are professors of software engineering. The current chair of M814 is Professor Andrea Zisman, who is also a professor of software engineering. Thanks are also extended to the TM354 module team: Michael Ulman, Richard Walker, Petra Wolf and Andrea Zisman.

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Christopher Douce

1st Computing and Communications AL development conference

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Edited by Christopher Douce, Wednesday, 5 Dec 2018, 12:20

Associate lecturer development events generally take two different forms: they are either large multi-faculty ‘generic tutoring’ events that are run at different venues across the UK, or they are small module specific focussed events. From time to time, the university runs a larger events (I remember running a computing and IT event in the London office a few years ago), but these are the exception rather than the rule.

What follows is a summary of what has been called the 1st Computing and Communications AL development conference, which took place at the university student recruitment and support centre (SRSC) in Manchester. Just as with other blogs, this is a personal summary of the event (different colleagues may, of course, have very different experiences and memories!) I’m sharing this summary just in case it might be useful for someone, and also because it will help me remember what happened when I come to do my annual appraisal...

By way of background, the event was for tutors who teach on Computing and IT modules. One of the reasons for running the event is that the subject of computing can pose some interesting tutoring challenges and it would be helpful to share experiences between tutors who teach on the same undergraduate programme. There’s also the importance of community; in recent years the link between tutors and the university department (school) to which they are related to has become more important.

Manchester was chosen as the location for the conference, since it is also home to the Computing and IT student support team (SST). The conference took place over two days: Friday 30 November 2018 and Saturday 1 December 2018. The agenda for each of these days was roughly the same, and tutors were encouraged to sign up for the day that best suited them.

Looking forward: curriculum and school updates

The conference began with a short keynote and introductory presentation by our head of school Arosha Bandara and David Morse, director of teaching. Arosha mentioned the mission and vision of the school: that it aims to ‘empower our students, industry and society, to leverage digital technologies to address the challenges of the future’ and ‘be a world leader in open, innovative distance teaching of computing and communications, founded on excellent research and scholarship’. I noted that the undergraduate degrees were accredited by the British Computer Society, that the school ran a premier Cisco networking academy, and it is playing an important role in an organisation called the Institute of Coding (IoC website). Arosha also touched on research areas that are important within the school, such as technology enhanced learning, software engineering and human-computer interaction (amongst others).

David presented a summary of the computing curriculum and degree programmes, which ranges from introductory level computing through to postgraduate MSc degrees. In collaboration with Maths and Stats, the university will be introducing a new Data Sciences qualification, and the school of Computing and Communications will be introducing a new level 3 Machine Learning and AI module. Looking further to the future, the school is currently recruiting for Cybersecurity lecturers, which might see the emergence of new modules at levels 2 and 3. 

Spot the difference: sharing your practice 

After a brief break to meet and chat with colleagues, there was a series of short 5 minute presentations by tutors about different aspects of their OU teaching. What follows is a summary of the notes that I made during those sessions. 

Some tricks to establish early contact with students 

Charly Lowndes is a very experienced tutor and former OU student who teaches on a range of different modules. One of his tips was: “send them a 2 line email, and tell them to send you a reply to say that they have got it; when you do that, I’ll send you some useful stuff”. Charly also makes an introductory video that he has recorded and uploaded to YouTube; he said that “it’s nice for them to know what you look like”.

Another tips include: if you don’t hear from a student, send them a SMS; populate the module forum with messages; use email rules to process emails (I do this too, filtering on module code). Charly also said “I don’t get stressed if they never get back to me; I had one student who was on his honeymoon” – the point is that the student support team is able to help. Another comment was: “use a range of methods; everyone is different” and use different bits of information provided by the university to try to create a picture of your student.

A strategy for recording student contacts

The second presentation in this session, given by Helen Jefferis, complemented Charly's presentation really well. Assuming that you had made contact with your student, then what? Helen offers a suggestion: use a spreadsheet. Helen begins by downloading a list of students from her TutorHome website, and then adds a set of headings, which includes a simple notes section. I noted down the sentence: “if they reply, things are ticked off; ticks to show that they’re active”. Other approaches may include using tools such as Microsoft OneNote. Also, further information about student interactivity and engagement if available from the OU Analyse tool (which is entire topic all of its own).

Teaching methods on TM470

Jay Chapman gave a brief summary of what it was liked to be a TM470 project module tutor. I found Jay’s session especially interesting since I’m also a TM470 tutor. Jay began by outlining TM470. The module isn’t about teaching technical stuff, it’s about helping students how to write a technical project, and demonstrating how they can build upon the expertise and skills they already have. An important point is that TM470 students can take on different roles: they may be the project leader, the client and the stakeholder. Also, every project is different, but there are some common challenges: planning is important and students can easily fall behind, and a big challenge is the importance of academic writing and critical reflection.

I noted that Jay sends his students an email, then a SMS (if he hasn’t heard from them), and he runs tutorial sessions using video Skype. During these sessions, Jay mentioned that he uses an agenda, and then sticks to it. An important sentence that I noted down which resonates with me (as a TM470 tutor) is: “you have to show me what you did, and how you thought about it”. 

Approaches to working with under-confident students

Jean Weston shared some tips about working with students who might not have high levels of confidence. One tip was to tell them things that they don’t have to do. One suggestion was that with some modules, students don’t need to go outside the module materials. I noted down some practical tips: read the introductory and summary sections first, and it’s certainly okay to read something several times.

When it comes to exams, Jean shared some really great tips. One tip was: write down the blindingly obvious (since the examiner might well be testing whether a student knows the blindingly obvious). Another tip was: “answer the question, the whole question, and nothing but the question”. Also, successfully completing examinations requires you to balance two resources: your brain (what you know and can apply) with the time that is available, and “and answer is better than no answer”.

Other tips are worth remembering, such as: “learn to pick the low fruit, and apply that throughout your study” (or, in other words, ‘it’s okay to be strategic if you need to be’). Also: do get help if you need it, do take the time to talk to somebody if you need to, and take time to understand the vocabulary and complete the activities (since these can directly relate to the assessment questions).

PG teaching: what's the difference?

Joan Jackson gave the first short presentation on the morning of the 1 December. Joan is a tutor on a number of modules, such as M815 Project Management, T847 The MSc Professional Project and T802 Research Project.

One of the big differences that Joan emphasised was the level of skills that can be applied. From her slides, Joan reported that “undergraduate study provides the ‘grounding’ within a field or subject and academic skills” whereas “postgraduate study allows the subject to be explored further to attain a higher level of proficiency through independent study, scholarship, research and professional practice, emphasising critical thinking, synthesis, reflection and effective academic writing”.

An important question is: how do you learn to do all these things? Thankfully, the university has some resources that can be used. I’ll highlight two free OpenLearn courses that may be useful: OpenLearn course: Succeeding in postgraduate study and OpenLearn course: Are you ready for postgraduate study

A further question is: how can tutors develop postgrad skills once the module begins? I made some notes that suggested that there are opportunities: forums can be used to run activities. Students can explore the library to uncover research or discussion papers, than sets of papers can be compared and contrasted. Also, as a brief aside, there are also some resources on the OU Skills for Study pages, such as a resource about Critical Reading.

Cisco accreditation and teaching on Cisco modules

Phil Irving tutors on a number of Cisco modules, such as TM257 Cisco networking (CCNA) part 1, an undergraduate module, and T828 Network Security a postgraduate module.

Phil gave us a bit of history about the OU Cisco Academy (and Cisco as a company) before beginning to talk about the link between Cisco material and the OU approach to study. One of the benefits of the joint approach is that students have the potential to gain an industrial qualification whilst also learning important academic skills, such as academic writing. Students are also incentivised to pass the industrial qualifications. I didn’t know this, but if students pass their Cisco exam, they get back some of their test fees.

Practice tutors: a new approach for apprentices

The final short presentation of the conference was by Christine Gardner and Alexis Lansbury who spoke about the university’s involvement in degree apprenticeships and the role of a practice tutor. Since apprentices have a lot of study to do over quite a short period of time, practice tutors can offer some advice about how to manage their workload. Practice tutors are just one of many people involved with apprentices: there are also module tutors, and functional skills tutors, and the student support team. Practice tutors visit apprentices four times in a year, typically at a student’s workplace, and they will be a consistent contact across four years of study.

An important thing to remember is that degree apprenticeships differ across the UK. There are different programmes in England, Wales and Scotland. There is also something called higher apprenticeships, which can be linked and connected to postgraduate study.

What makes a good online session?

The first of two longer presentations was given by Shena Deuchars. Shena’s presentation was all about the use of breakout rooms in Adobe Connect. A personal confession is that I’ve only ever used breakout rooms twice. The first time was using Blackboard Elluminate (or, OU Live, as the university called it), which seemed to go very well. The second time was using Adobe Connect, and didn’t go well at all (I remember a few voices in my headset saying the words: “what’s going on?!”) and feeling quite embarrassed!

Shena gave us some tips about creating some layouts that we could use to manage breakout rooms. A sequence of actions were suggested: (1) create a new layout, (2) add content to pods, and (3) create rooms. Then to get things going, (4) tutors need to click on the ‘start breakout’ button. Finally, there is the step at the end to end the breakout rooms and to bring everyone back to the plenary space.

Some of the tips were very helpful, such as: try to get people who are willing to use microphones in the same room as each other (you can do this by asking everyone to give you a green tick). Also, in anticipation of a session, a thought is to email everyone to tell everyone that they will get more about of the session if they are prepared to speak (and have a headset).

I found Shena’s session useful, and it was great that she managed to encourage everyone to login to the shared room that she had prepared so everyone could get a feel for how things work. 

During her session I thought about my own recent experience as a current OU student who was recently put into a breakout room. Initially, I wasn’t happy, especially when all of my fellow students volunteered me to summarise all of our discussions during the plenary session. This said, it was really helpful to hear how other students were getting along with their reading. One fellow student made me realise that I hadn’t read some aspects of the module materials as thoroughly as I ought to have done.

One thought I will add about breakout rooms is they take time. I’ve heard it said that a breakout room activity can or should take at least 20 minutes. This means that if you’re doing a number of things in a tutorial, it’s important to pay close attention to timing. In the case of the tutorial that I attended, I found the breakout rooms so useful, and I became so engaged, I was surprised that the tutorial was over so quickly. In retrospect, a thorough debrief or summary after my time in the breakout room would have been useful to help me return to the physical world!

Teaching of problem solving and algorithmic thinking

I’m not going to summarise Friday Jones’s presentation on algorithmic thinking directly, partly because I don’t think I can do it justice. Friday’s talk was one that encouraged us tutors to think about what it means to teach algorithmic thinking and also how we should (or could) respond to students. From my perspective, it contained a number of themes, such as whether we should teach top-down or bottom up, and how students might understand the notion of abstraction.

Some interesting phrases I noted down was: “I teach by epiphany…”, “I taught them that they could solve the problem” and “I don’t want to make tea anymore; I want to question why we do this”; ‘this’ means “they need to ‘get’ why we do what we’re doing”.

Friday’s talk reminded me of another talk that I went to that I saw at the Psychology of Programming Interest group back in September 2018. Friday said that she learnt to program ‘bottom-up’, as did Felienne. Some thought provoking words from her presentation were: “sensimotor level is syntax”, and “motivation leads to skills”. And skills, of course, can be linked to the ability to develop (and implement) abstractions.

Working with the Computing and IT student support team

This second half of the conference was opened by John Woodthorpe, our school student support team lead. In addition to a series of short presentations, tutors were able to have a tour of the SST to learn more about what happens within the Manchester office.

The first presentation was about the Careers and Employability Service (OU website). Next up was a presentation by the colleagues from the Student Recruitment and Fees team. This was then followed by another talk by the SRSC continual improvement and change acceptance team, who look at how to enhance existing student support processes. During the first day of the conference, Claire Blanchard concluded by speaking about the role of the SST from the associate lecturer perspective. Claire also emphasised the role that ALs can play in the school by applying to sit on the computing board of studies.

One thing I got from this session was an understanding of something called the Information Advice and Guidance model (which is referred to by the abbreviation IAG). Although I had heard of this before, I hadn’t really grasped its significance. 

In some senses, IAG can be understood as three progressive stages. Whenever a student calls up the SST, they may first speak with a front line advisor, who may be able to provide some general information. If the query is more complex, such as the need for study advice, the student will then be passed onto a senior advisor (the ‘A’, or ‘advice’ part of the model), who will be able to answer more specific queries. Finally, if the query is one that is both detailed and complex, the student might then begin to receive ongoing detailed guidance from an educational advisor.

Simply put: there are a lot of calls about information, and not so many calls that are about guidance (and some guidance calls can take a lot of time to resolve). 

Activity: Working through student support scenarios

For the penultimate part of the conference, Alexis Lansbury, Computing and IT staff tutor, divided the room up into tables, and gave us a series of student support case studies. Each table had a combination of associate lecturers, staff tutors, and advisors. 

For each case study, we were asked to “discuss how you would respond, what actions you would take, what you are aiming to do to help the student, and whether you would involve other people (ALs, Student Support, Employability Specialists, Staff Tutors) in both the decisions you take, and, the help that you offer”. The case studies covered all levels of study (first year through to final year equivalents), and issues ranging from requests for very long extensions through to catastrophic technical problems. This activity emphasised the importance of taking time to gather information and the need to thoroughly understand different perspectives.

AL development in the school: priorities, needs and opportunities

During the final session, I asked everyone the question: “what would associate lecturer development activities or events would help you to do your job?” Some points that I noted on a whiteboard were: 

  • How to best maintain the student-tutor link
  • Understanding, mitigating and influencing the impact of the group tuition policy (GTP) and learning event management (LEM) system
  • How to best work together in cluster groups
  • How to tailor a session to suit a module and also take account of local geography
  • More discussion and less presentation during AL development events
  • More information and further discussion about the new tutor contract
  • Information about the ‘bigger picture’ (either in terms of the university or the discipline)
  • Discussions and information about how programming is addressed across and between study levels
  • Degree apprenticeships and the potential impact on the tutor role and tutor practice

Reflections

Over two days, over 90 colleagues attended the conference: associate lecturers, staff tutors, central academics, and members of the student support team. A colleague said to me: “it’s a sign of a good conference if you come away learning something new”. I certainly agree! One of the things that I’ve gained from the event is a more detailed understanding of what the SST advisors do, and how important and essential their work is, and what IAG means. I felt that it was a thought provoking and useful event, and I hope that everyone else found it useful too. Fingers crossed we’ll be able to run another one soon.

Acknowledgements

This conference was very much a team effort (with multiple teams)! The main organising and planning group included: Frances Chetwynd, Christine Gardner, Alexis Lansbury, John Woodthorpe and Ann Walshe. Many thanks to Saul Young (and colleagues) and Jana Dobiasova (from ALSPD). Thanks are extended to all presenters, and to Shena Deuchars and Friday Jones who ran the longer sessions, and to Arosha Bandara and David Morse from the school. Thanks are also extended to Stephen Rice, Claire Blanchard, Vic Nicholas, Dawn Johnson and everyone in the student support team who were able to spare their time to come and speak to us; we really appreciate your time!

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Christopher Douce

Study Skills Resources: what is available?

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Edited by Christopher Douce, Monday, 1 Mar 2021, 17:05

The Open University provides a lot of study skills resources, but these are scattered across a number of different sites. This blog post is intended to provide a quick 'summary page' of some of the resources that might be useful for anyone is are studying with the OU (or, in fact, studying at any other universities).

Firstly, a book

After enrolling for my first OU module, I was sent a textbook called The Good Study Guide by Andrew Northedge. I didn't ask for this book, and I had never seen this book before. In fact, I was really surprised to get an unexpected book!

I found the time to sit down and read it, and this was time well spent; it offered a wealth of study tips, resources and strategies.

If you're an OU student and you don't have this book, then do get a copy. If you're an existing OU student, then do make the time to look over this book time and time again: its really useful.

I think I have once written that I hold the view that if I had learnt about this book during my undergraduate days, I might have got better scores in both my essays and my exams!

Skills for Study: a really useful resource

There are some really useful resources that are available online. I particularly recommend that everyone visits the Open University Skills for Study website.

There are two really useful parts of the site (which is separated into tabs): a section about preparing and writing assignments and another section that is about revision and examinations. The preparing and writing assignments is particularly useful; it offers ideas about how to begin an assignment, to create a draft and think about how to edit what has been written.

There are also a set of downloadable study skills booklets. Key topics include: thinking critically, reading and taking notes, and develop effective study strategies. One particularly useful booklet is: preparing assignments (PDF). It contains some really useful sections are about paraphrasing, quoting and referencing, and improving your written English.

Library resources

The OU library is massive: it enables students to access papers and publications that are about anything and everything. The library have developed a set of useful study skills resources, but these are not very easy to find. 

In the help section, there is a link to a section that is all about Referencing and Plagiarism (OU Library website) it contains a really nice animation that explains things. One thing to remember that plagiarism is a term that can be pretty emotive. A key point is that it's important to make sure that you reference all the sources that you use, and that appropriate referencing does two things (1) it shows your tutor how much you've been reading, and (2) shows how you are becoming familiar with what it means to do academic writing.

A further links leads to something called the avoiding plagiarism pathway (OU being digital). This is one page of a wider set of library resources called Being Digital (OU Library services site) which is all about developing digital literacy skills. These pages contain a set of really useful interactive activities (OU being digital) that aim to develop computing, IT, and digital literacy skills.

The library also provides a link to something called the OU Harvard referencing guide. This shows you how to refer to any kind of resource: books, academic papers, conference proceedings, blogs, news articles and videos. If you're not sure whether you can reference something, do check out the OU Harvard guide; this should offer a bit of useful guidance.

Developing good academic practice

The library resource about Referencing and Plagiarism links to a short course that is called Developing Good Academic Practice (OU DGAP website). Although this is a short resource, it is very useful. It helps you to understand what good academic practice is and why it is important.

English language development and Open Learn resources

Some programmes aim to integrate English language development and skills into their modules; this is what Computing and IT does. Other subjects or programmes are slightly different: there is a module called L185 English for Academic Purposes which some Science students might study. Business studies students might study LB170 Communication skills for business and management.

One really cool thing that the Open University does is make a small percentage of its modules available to everyone for free though a site called OpenLearn (OU OpenLearn website). Up to ten percent of all OU modules may be available through OpenLearn, and it also makes some older modules available too.

Essentially, OpenLearn offers free courses. There are a series of English language skills courses (OpenLearn site) that anyone can access. One course, entitled English: skills for learning looks to be particularly useful. Here's a description:

“This course is for anybody who is thinking of studying for a university degree and would like to develop the English reading and writing skills needed to succeed. You'll be introduced to academic reading and effective note-making strategies. You'll develop your essay writing. You'll look at academic style and vocabulary-building strategies. You'll also enhance your understanding of sentence structure and punctuation. You will learn through a range of engaging activities aimed at extending your existing language skills.”

A more recent Open Learn resource has the title: Am I ready to be a distance learner? The summary to this module says: "will help to boost your confidence. You'll explore useful skills so you can discover how ready you are to study and how to develop your study skills in six steps to become a successful distance learner." Sounds useful!

There are also a range of courses that come under the broad title of 'learning to learn'. One course that jumped out at me as being particularly important was called: Learning to learn: Reflecting backward, reflecting forward; I'm mentioning this since reflective writing is particularly important at higher levels of study.

There's also some more OpenLearn resources for postgraduate modules, called Succeeding in postgraduate study; certainly worth a look if your considering taking a MSc.

Resources from other institutions

Students in other universities face exactly the same challenges faced by students in the OU. Since study skills and writing are important issues other universities have developed their own resources. A small sample of what is available is given below. 

One thing to add is: if you're an OU student, do look at the OU resources first before looking elsewhere. It's not that other institutions will offer bad or wrong advice (I always believe that different perspectives can be really useful in terms of understanding things), it's more a matter of terminology: the OU loves its abbreviations and sometimes has a certain way of doing things.

Final thoughts

This post contains link to many different resources and it might feel a bit overwhelming. The trick is to figure out what you need, to consider how you learn, and to then to have a look at some of the resources to see if you find them useful. If you need additional help in figuring out what you need, you should then also consider giving your subject student support team a ring.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Tricia Cronin and Ann Matsunaga; I have drawn on some of the links they have provided in their Resource to support students with English as a second language document.

Updated 1 March 2021

Permalink 2 comments (latest comment by Reaghan Reilly, Thursday, 29 July 2021, 01:32)
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