If you have sent your tutor an email and you have not heard anything back from them, there are a number of things you can do. Before offering some practical tips and pointers, I’ll begin by sharing a bit of useful context.
More often than not, OU tutors typically work part time for the university. This means that they are unlikely to respond to a message immediately. When I used to work for the university part-time, I tended to access my OU email every couple of days to see if I had any messages.
A tutor’s contract doesn’t specifically stipulate student response times, since each module has different requirements. Instead, there is the implicit notion that tutors should respond within a reasonable amount of time. What is reasonable, of course, differs between modules and the point of study in a module. Putting this to one side, a useful rule of thumb is: 2 to 3 working days is generally considered to be a reasonable amount of time (not taking into account Christmas, easter and bank holidays). This is, of course, a personal opinion.
Things to do
- If you haven’t heard from a tutor, the first thing I would do is to have a read of the tutor’s welcome letter or introductory email. What do they say about their availability? Perhaps they have given some information about alternative ways to contact them.
- The next thing I would do is to look on the tutor’s tutor group forum (TGF). If a tutor goes on leave, or will be away, they are encouraged to send all students a group email, and to post a message to their TGF. If you haven’t subscribed to your tutor’s TGF, which enables you to receive notification emails, please do so. The question to ask, when looking at a TGF is: has a tutor made a post about their availability?
- If nothing has been posted to the TGF, give your tutor a ring. Use the phone number mentioned in their introductory letter, or use the tutor’s number that is given on the ‘tutor and tutorial dates’ link. Every OU tutor will have their own telephone number. If there isn’t an answer, do leave a Voicemail message. If you have tried to make a call, do make a note of the date and time of the call.
- If your question is simple, do consider posting it to one of the module wide discussion forums that may be available. These are often monitored by forum moderators, other tutors, and members of the module team.
- If you haven’t heard back from your tutor, and you need them to help with something specific, do feel free to mention that you haven’t heard from them by posting a message to one of the module forums. I would use one of the more formal forum areas, rather than an informal café area, since this way there’s more chance your message will be noticed. You don’t need to name your tutor. Your message will be picked up by a forum moderator, who will pass your query to someone in the school. Don’t worry if it takes a bit of time for the message to get to the right place.
- If you need an urgent answer to a question, a final approach is to give your student support team a ring. They are there to help with any study related issues. Do mention that you have had some difficulty contacting your tutor. Your call will be logged as a formal query, which will then be passed onto a tutor’s line manager. The priority will always be to make sure that your tutor is okay, and is able to support you effectively.
Take away point
The biggest take away point that I would like to share is: if in doubt, say something. We can only fix a problem if we know that a problem exists. Sometimes, like all of us, tutors need help and support. There are, of course, always other ways to get help if you really need it.
Other resources
In addition to your tutor, another ‘go to’ place for support is the ‘Student Support Team’ link that you can find on your StudentHome page. This provides a form that enables you to message the team directly. It also provides a direct telephone number of your student support team. The team you call will be specific to your subject area.
There is also something called the university student charter, which also might be useful to have a quick look at.
Acknowledgements
Many thanks to TM354 and TM470 tutor Kawal Banga for his helpful practical suggestions. Thanks are also extended to Michael Bowkis, who helped, in part, to guide me through the current tutor terms and conditions.