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One of the important components of the TM470 EMA is your literature review.

The literature review component serves a number of purposes:

• It tells your examiner what you have read, and enables them to understand where you are coming from. In other words, what you present in a literature review enables the examiner to understand, broadly, what your project is all about. 
• It enables you to demonstrate to your EMA examiner your research and critical thinking skills. 
• It allows you to demonstrate your writing and communication skills. Just as your TM470 EMA is a narrative of your entire project, the literature review within that broader narrative (or story) presents a narrative  (or story) about your reading and your research.

The literature review can be primarily linked to the following TM470 learning outcome:

LO4: Gather, analyse and evaluate relevant information to complete the project successfully.

It can also be linked to the following learning outcomes:

LO3: Identify, list and justify the resources, skills and activities needed to carry out the project successfully. Identify and address any associated risks.

LO7: Communicate information, ideas, problems and solutions clearly

A really important rule of thumb is: if you use a resource in the body of your report, that resource should be introduced within the literature review section. A resource might be any number of different things, depending on what your project is all about: it might be some module materials, a textbook, an academic paper, or even some software. Also, if you have something in the references section, it should have been ideally in the literature review section (although it is okay to occasionally break that rule, if it helps with the writing and presentation of your project report).

What follows are a set of what I hope to be useful ideas about how best to complete a TM470 project literature review.

Starting the literature review

An important question to ask is: how do I start my literature search? The biggest tip I can offer is: begin with what you know. This might be the specifics about a project, or maybe beginning with some of the level 3 module materials that you have previously studied. If you have studied TM356 Interaction Design and the User Experience, for example, a really good place to start is the module materials, and the accompanying set text. The textbook contains a lot of references which you can look to, and you can find many of these resources in the university library.

The OU library is also a great place to start too. It contains a whole host of useful resources, such as eBooks, and hundreds of thousands of academic articles that have been published in academic journals. When starting out to look at a subject they have not looked at before, some researchers carry out searches of library databases using a systematic approach, making notes of what keywords they have used, and what they have found.

Another tip is: if you find an interesting paper in the OU library it is sometimes possible to find out how many times a paper or article has been referenced, and what papers have referenced the paper that you have found. Looking at the popularity of papers, and chains of referencing can enable you to find out what papers or bits of research have been influential in a subject area. Sometimes, it is also useful to look to see what other papers a particular author has written about.

A final tip in carrying out a literature search: ask your tutor! The TM470 module team try to match students and student projects with tutors who have a particular specialism. After having an initial discussion with your tutor about your project, it is completely okay to ask the question: do you have any suggestions?

Criticality

During the course of your TM470 project, you might look at a lot of resources. Whilst it might be tempting to show everything that you’re read or looked at whilst working on your literature review, please don’t. You need to be selective, and you need to do this to demonstrate your critical thinking skills. 

More information about what this means is available in the OU booklet about Thinking Critically.

In terms of TM470, it is important to ask: how does this resource influence, affect, or relate to my project? A good literature review will introduce some concepts or ideas, which are referenced. These concepts or ideas are then used or applied within the body of a report to solve a particular problem.

Resources

In TM470, there are a number of useful resources that you may have seen, that you should be aiming to revisit whilst you work on your project.

The two key bits of module materials that you must review have the title: Preparing a Literature Search, and Reviewing Literature. A recommendation is to get a printout of these resources (by using the “view as single page” option), and work through each of the activities. You should also have a listen to the Finding and using research podcast. 

From the Preparing a Literature Search resource, do pay particular attention to the four stages of a literature search. The Reviewing Literature resource offers a set of useful pointers in the introduction which helps you to look at resources. 

Regarding this second resource, the following bit of advice is important: “This template isn’t always applicable, not least because it can become monotonous to read. You will need to make your own decisions about which elements should be included and which omitted.” These two sentences relate to the point about criticality, and the need to write a literature review that is appropriate for your own project.

On the subject of writing, a good resource to look to is the OU’s pages about Developing academic English. I also recommend The Good Study Guide, which is available to download as a PDF. Chapters that may be particularly useful when writing the literature review (and your EMA report) are Chapter 9, Researching online, Chapter 10, Writing the way ‘they’ want, and Chapter 11, Managing the writing process.

Referencing

If you use, or write about a resource in your project report, you need to make sure that you reference it correctly. In your TMAs and EMAs, there are two key bits to think about: the first is how to reference something within the body of your report (when you’re referring to something), and the second is how to provide a reference to a resource within the references section towards the end of your EMA. Another rule of thumb is: if you are writing about a resource, you need to reference it. Similarly, if you quote from a resource, you definitely need to reference it. 

The OU makes use of the Harvard referencing system, which is both comprehensive and flexible. Using this system, you can reference just about anything. Not only can you reference books and journal articles, you can also reference art works, web pages, and software. The OU has a subscription to a web resource called CiteThemRight. If you’re unsure how to reference something, do have a look at this website. 

When referencing papers or textbooks, a firm recommendation is to make sure that you also include page numbers. The reason for this is simple. Including page numbers clearly demonstrates attention to detail, and gives your EMA examiner further evidence of your depth of reading and understanding.

Finally, do make sure that you reference (and demonstrate an understanding of) earlier OU modules you have studied. This is a really efficient way to demonstrate to your examiner what topics or subjects your project relates to. You can reference any OU module material, whether it is a module website, a PDF, or printed module block. If you’re unsure about how to reference materials from any of your earlier studies, do ask your tutor.

Common Questions

Do ask your tutor any questions that you might have whilst carrying out a literature review. Here are some answers to some common questions, which might be useful.

Q: How many references should I provide?

A: There is no hard and fast rule for this, since every TM470 is different. You should choose enough resources to demonstrate the reading that you have needed to do, to complete a project that shows technical skills and knowledge you have gained during your degree studies. If pushed, I would say that a distinction quality EMA report might reference as many as 20 resources, but these resources must be important, relevant, and applied within the body of your project. In other words, your chosen resources should have influenced the work that you have done.

Q: How much time should I spend on the literature review?

A: Again, there is no hard and fast answer to this one. Some EMA reports are all about carrying out research. In a research focussed EMA, you might spend more time doing a literature review than you would for a very practical EMA. Overall, the literature review section contributes towards 20% of the overall EMA mark, but this doesn’t mean that you should only spend 20% of the time. A suggestion is to approach the literature review iteratively. For example, whilst trying to solve a technical problem, you might have to do more reading, which means that you might have to go back and to edit your literature review section.

Q: How long should the literature review be?

I’m afraid I’m going to give you a similar answer to all the others: it depends on your project! The TM470 module guidance suggests that you should be able to write everything you need to write within the 10k word limit. Given the importance of the literature review to a number of learning outcomes, I would say that the literature review is quite a substantial section within your EMA: it sets the scene, and goes a long way to demonstrating your critical thinking and problem solving skills (through the resources that you choose). Some project will have longer literature review sections than others. It should be as long as it needs to be, given the aims and objectives of your project.

Summary

This blog has shared bits of advice (and some links) that might be useful when it comes to writing your TM470 literature review.

One of the most useful bits of advice about report writing that someone gave me was: make sure it is interesting. 

Although this bit of advice related to EU project deliverables, it is just as applicable to your TM470 EMA. 

Your TM470 EMA is a technical narrative (a story) about your project. The literature review section within your report is a narrative within a bigger narrative; it is the story of your reading. It is a story which introduces resources which you will then go onto apply later on within your report. It is an important section which demonstrates the depth of your reading, and shares what you know about with the examiner.

Other blog posts that relate to the study of TM470 can be found through the TM470 blog tag.

Good luck with your literature review, and remember to make good use of your tutor, by asking them lots of questions.

This blog post aims to summarise aspects of the OU’s professional doctorate (EdD) programme, placing particular emphasis on the topic of education.

What has been presented here has been collated from a number of different resources. My primarily aim of preparing this post was to help me to get familiar with the new structure of the taught part of the programme. I’m also sharing it since it might be useful for either existing or prospective students, or for students who might also be studying for a disciplinary based PhD, since the EdD materials offer some helpful pointers

The programme that is roughly summarised here is different from previous years, since it contains a substantial and important taught component to help students prepare for their research that follows. Although the programme contains a number of really important residential schools, I’m highlighting the academic subjects that are explored.

Year 1

The programme guide introduces the first year as follows: “Year 1 … will focus on getting you started with your research, with a particular focus on contextual background of your research and the literature review. Year 1 includes an induction residential weekend, four modules of study with four accompanying online seminars, and the completion of two formative assignments and one summative assignment."

Module 1: Getting started

This first module is about setting the scene. Drawing on the module guide, this first module “will help you get started with your doctoral studies. The module covers what is involved in studying for a PD, time management, supervision, and the Researching Professional Development Framework.” It is intended to be studied within the first couple of weeks of starting the programme. The first section introduces the notion of the professional doctorate, and this is followed by a section about planning and managing your research project. A bit of advice (for students) that I’ve read was: “think about your doctoral studies as a project”.

Section 3 is entitled your development as a researching professional. It introduces the Researching Professional Development Framework (RPDF) (Vitae website), a tool designed to help your development during your doctoral studies.

This is followed by section about Professional Academic Communication in English (PACE), and introduces students to some useful some online resources, where students share their experiences of academic writing.

Supervision is an important element of an EdD programme, and also becoming familiar with the research process. The final section of this first module is entitled “Making the most of your supervision”. Students are directed to the Code of practice for supervisors and research students, and other resources such as the university’s research degrees handbook.

Module 2: Context for educational research

This second module will “guide you through exploring the specific context of your research, including the international, national, institutional and individual context within which your research is located. It also covers the importance of your professional identity, and the standards and principles for good quality research within your area” (EdD programme guide, p.9). 

This module is split into three sections. The first is further understanding the context for research. Students are asked to consider different perspectives of their research: macro-level, meso-level and micro-level. A further aim is to identify who the different stakeholders might be.

The next section, the professional as a researcher is all about “exploring the concepts of professional identity, agency, structure and reflexivity”. Reflection and reflexivity is explored as a key topic, which emphasises how important it is to relate our own position and identities to the research that is taking place.

The final section is entitled “standards for good practice in research”. This section is about ethics, the importance of ethical guidelines, power imbalances and how they might influence research, the student voice and co-research.

When a student has completed this section, it is roughly time to submit the first formative assessment. As well as introducing a research project, students are required to consider the context of the research, and the role of the researcher.

Module 3: Reviewing the literature

The literature review is one of the really important outcomes from doctoral research. This module, which is scheduled to begin in the new year “provides guidance to conducting and writing a literature review, including searching for literature, reviewing literature, referencing and reference management tools, and writing the literature review” (EdD programme guide, p.9). Key topics that are explored include what it means to searching for literature, review literature, reference literature, write a literature review, and to write critically. There is also a section that introduces the concept of a systematic literature review. Whilst carrying out reading within a subject, students may find a number of systematic literature review papers that offers a summary of a similar or related topic.

Module 4: Principles of research design

This final module of the first year introduces students to key terms and research concepts. It “aims to stimulate further thinking about your research design and covers topics such as ontology, epistemology and research paradigms, logics of enquiry and an introduction to quantitative and qualitative research” (EdD programme guide, p9).

Moving to year 2

During this first year, students will be required to carry out a number of assessments. During the time where there is no formal study scheduled, students will be expected to be carrying out reading and study.

Year 2

As well as having a taught section, students attend a residential weekend. In November 2021, this was hosted as an online event, where students were able to attend various sessions. Resources shared from this event, and earlier events are available online.

Module 5: Considering a research methodology

This first second year module “provides guidance about different research methodologies including experimental quantitative research, ethnography, grounded theory, case study research, action research, phenomenology and narrative inquiry”. There is a section for each of these methods, which also provides a set of resources, which can be useful to understand more about a particular method. If studying these materials, a suggestion is to only go digging for resources which you think are most appropriate for your particular project. A lot of resources are highlighted.

Module 6: Approaches to data collection

In some senses, this module follows on from the previous module about methodology, but it succinctly summarises the different approaches that could be adopted. From the programme guide, this module “will help you start thinking about the practical aspects of your research project by introducing common data collect methods and sources of data. Topics covered includes interviews, focus groups, observations, questionnaires, visual and creative methods, secondary data and documents and artefacts. As with the previous module, each section provides a very detailed references section that enables students to get a more detailed introduction and insight into different approaches.

Module 7: Professional conduct and research ethics

When it comes to EdD and PhD research, ethics is one of my favourite subjects. This module is said to “encourage your ethical thinking and assist you in developing a robust application for ethical approval for your planned research. Topics covered will include professional conduct, close to practice research, making an OU ethics application, …. and research data management.” Two sections are notable: there is a section about ethics and educational research, and ethics about health and social care research; students should choose whichever strand is most appropriate. One section that I must emphasise is the section that relates to academic and research conduct. There is also encouragement to carry out what is called a Data Protection Impact Assessment (DPIA), if personal data is kept and retained.

Module 8: Qualitative data analysis and presenting results

Qualitative data is rich non-numeric data that can be interpreted to provide meanings and explanations. This module will introduce “methods of qualitative analysis, including thematic analysis, discourse analysis, document analysis and multimodal analysis.” If a student is interested in carrying out interviews with participants to gather interests and perspectives, this section offers a really helpful guidance about how to begin to make sense of data that is collected. Such data, of course, must be made sense of in light of the reading that has been carried out, and also the perspective of the researcher. During data analysis, a student might use a tool such as NVivo to organise qualitative data.

Module 9: Quantitative data analysis

Quantitative data is all about numerical data. This final module introduces “various methods of quantitative analysing including testing for differences between means, correlation analysis, linear regression and logistic regression.” Specifically, “this module will require you to use SPSS, and you will need to download this onto your computer before starting the module”. If a student is going to be carrying our survey research, or is to be carrying out experiments to test hypothesis, this section is going to be really important. It is also important to recognise that methods can be mixed. For example, an interview study could reveal themes that could be studied in greater depth through a survey. Conversely, a survey may reveal an unexpected situation that can only be further understood by asking questions.

Moving to year 3

Year 2 marks the end of the formal study part of the EdD. Students will be invited to make a poster presentation to outline their research plans, and move to the second stage.

Years 3 and 4

The EdD program guide summarises years 2 and 3 as follows: “during stage 2 you will follow a more independent and individual programme of work with the continuing support of your supervisors. During year 3 there will be formative assessments at spaced intervals in order to help you progress and to provide formal opportunities for feedback.” (p.11).

A number of useful resources are provided on the EdD websites (there is a site for year 3, and another site for year 4). Highlights include a document that attempts to answer the question “How many qualitative interviews is enough?”, which has been prepared by Baler and Edwards, and a couple of video resources that have the title “stories from the field”. 

Reflections

Many of the themes and topics mentioned within the taught aspect of the EdD programme reminded me of themes and topics that were explored within the OU’s MA in Education programme, which offers a “lead in” to this programme. Although MA students may find some of the material familiar, I hold the view that the taught section is really useful in terms of setting the groundwork for the detailed data gathering and analysis that takes place later during the later years of study and research.

I came to the EdD programme from the discipline of computing, where I completed my own doctoral studies in the late 90’s. One thing I’m struck by is the thoroughness of the EdD programme. It is only by having gone through the OU MA in Education, and having done my own doctoral research do I really appreciate the detailed discussions about epistemology, ontology and methodology. 

It is also really interesting that the softer side of computing applies many of the methods and approaches that Education does; the commonality lies with the adoption of methods from the social sciences. A lot of computing and education research is all about people, what they do, and what they learn.

At the same time as being a supervisor for a current EdD student, I’m also a supervisor for a disciplinary PhD student. The approaches are quite different, in the sense that although there is more supervision for the PhD candidate, there is less structure, in the sense that there isn’t the taught component. One of the things that I am going to do is direct my PhD student to look at some of the materials that are exposed through the EdD modules. The cross over between the two is, of course, people.

References

The Open University (2020) Doctorate in Education (EdD) Programme Guide.

Acknowledgements

All these sections have been summarised from different resources from the EdD programme. Acknowledgements are specifically extended to Dr Carol Azumah Dennis, EdD Programme Leader and Dr Philippa Waterhouse, DHSC Programme Leader.

On 10 June 22, I attended a continuing professional development event for degree apprenticeship practice tutors. I’m a practice tutor for the OU’s Digital and Technology Solutions degree apprenticeship scheme. The university also runs schemes that relate to business, nursing and policing.

This blog post is a short summary of some of the themes that were discussed and explored within this event. It is primarily intended as a record of my own CPD, and I’m sharing it more widely just in case it might be of interest to other delegates, and colleagues who are responsible for the CPD of the degree apprenticeship programme.

The aim of the event was the develop the quality of practice tuition and to share best practice. The event began with an overview, and some definitions. I was surprised to learn that there were 400 PTs (or PT contracts) being managed across the university. Regarding the definitions, a PT was a practice tutor, who is someone who works with apprentices and employers. An AL is an associate lecturer, or a module tutor. 

Quality assurance of practice tuition

The aim of this first session, presented by Anna Colantoni and Barb Cochee was to help practice tutors gain an understanding of the aims of the quality assurance project, and its project deliverables, also providing an opportunity for discussion. 

I noted down that the quality assurance project contained 6 project deliverables which were managed in 2 strands. The first strand was about technology and data strand, which included eportfolio implementation, data infrastructure, and technology infrastructure. The teaching support and quality improvement strand included deliverables relating to practice tuition, governance, apprentice and employer guidance and support.

We were presented with some definitions through a question: what is quality assurance, and what does it involve?

• “quality assurance is the act or process of confirming the quality standards are being met”.
• “A programme for the systematic monitoring and evaluation of the various aspects of a project, services, or facility to ensure that standards of quality are being met”.

Examples of activities that relate to quality assurance include the monitoring of marking, gathering of feedback from apprentices or employers, mentoring from staff, and carrying out observations of practice tutor meetings and tutorials.

I noted that there was a difference between quality assurance and quality enhancement. Enhancement means: “improvement of quality brought about through cycles of continuous improvement and innovation”, with the point that there isn’t a final end point, and culture can play a role.

During this session, I also made note of some project outputs. These included the practice tutor quality framework and accompanying papers. These papers relate to tripartite meeting standards (meetings between a practice tutor, apprentice, and the apprentice’s line manager), the tripartite meeting observation process, and a PT professional development framework. Further development activities includes a review of the apprenticeship hub review; a dedicated VLE site, which is used to share information.

Progress review meetings –what should good look like?

The aim of this second session, facilitated by Jo Bartlett, Vicki Caldwell and Lucy Caton (Academic Leads, Practice Tuition, Apprenticeships Change Programme) was to share updates about good practice guidance, share details of the observation of progress review meetings, and to share ideas about good practice and challenges of progress review meetings.

This session explored the tripartite progress review meetings, which take place between an apprentice, an employer and a practice tutor. The meetings were described as “complex, cross boundary working”.

I noted down the following from a summary: the role of the practice tutor is to oversee the work based-learning that takes place; sometimes this can relate to programme requirements, or regulatory requirements. Key tasks can include setting of learning plans, setting of objectives, applying academic learning to academic setting, encouragement of reflecting, opportunities to shadow others. Also, the meetings help the practice tutor understand the work setting and help the apprentice and the employer understand their study and learning programme.

I also noted that it is important that our student (apprentice) feels well supported, and engage in a wide range of activities. In the apprenticeship, the employer has a role of providing opportunities to help learner apply and develop the academic learning.

During this session we were put into different breakout rooms. There was a room about “encouraging reflection”, a room about “addressing barriers to learning”, and two more about “ensuring relevant learning opportunities” and “setting SMART objectives”. We were given a direction: share good practice and something that you may have done to overcome some challenges.

I was put into the “encouraging reflection group”, and found myself amongst a group of PTs who work with nursing and police apprentices. 

A key point was: students need to be encouraged, to understand and develop a reflective mindset. A couple of frameworks were shared and mentioned, such as the “what, so what, now what?” by Rolfe et al. Other models were mentioned, such as those by Gibbs and Kolb. We were directed to the University of Edinburgh reflective toolkit and some OpenLearn resources were mentioned, such as Learning to teach: becoming a reflective practitioner which highlight different reflective models.

Back in the plenary room, we gathered feedback from the different rooms. I’ve managed to summarise feedback from two of the groups.

Barriers to learning opportunities: this group discussed the importance of the learning environment, organisational culture, organisational understanding, and requirements. Other points included he importance of the line management engagement, and ensuring off-the-job time. A PT has the opportunity to emphasise the benefits of the degree apprenticeship to the organisation in terms of student progress and development.

Setting SMART objectives: get the employer to create 3 objectives, which are then used within the discussions that are used within the meeting discussions. Consider how they may be linked to the educational objectives.

Reflections upon supporting learners to apply theory into practice 

Following on from our breakout room discussions about reflections, the next session was facilitated by Sarah Bloomfield (Lecturer in Work based Learning, FBL), Evelyn Mooney (Lecturer, Adult Nursing, WELS) and Anthony Johnston (Staff Tutor, STEM). Rather than focussing only on reflections, this session also emphasised work-based learning, and the role that it plays in a degree apprenticeship.

We were presented a question: what is work based learning? It could be considered to be learning for work, learning at work, or learning through work. A comment was that these definitions relate to a framework that is used within the degree apprenticeship standard, which is about the development of knowledge, skills and behaviours.

Next up was a presentation of an adaptation of Kolb’s reflective cycle, which featured experiencing issues in practice, taking action and trying something new, using theories and concepts to think differently, and reflecting on practice (or, what has been done). Theories can be thought of as tools, or a lens, which can be used to how to look at problems or how things are done.

Another question was: wow can PTs help with the work-based learning? There are, of course the quarterly reviews (which can be tripartite meetings), but also practice tutors can facilitate progress reviews.

In my own work as a practice tutor, I make extensive use of a review form. It was mentioned that on these forms, it would be useful to emphasise which new knowledge, skills and behaviours have been gained. Also consider asking: has there been anything that is new and interesting?

Just like the previous session, we were put into breakout rooms. We were asked two questions: (1) What strategies do you use to help learners apply theory/knowledge into their practice? (2) What challenges do you face in doing so?

During our room, we held the view that it might be useful for practice tutors to have a discussion with a module tutor to understand not only where the student is, but also to get a more detailed appreciation of the module materials.

During the plenary session, the use of forms or prompts to help to draw out conversations were discussed. A useful question could be, “tell me something that you have read that has informed your practice”. Also, asking open questions is important, such as, “tell us about what you are doing at the moment?” Pinpoint something that is helpful for them to focus on. 

Effectively supporting learners with additional needs

This session, facilitated by Michelle Adams (Senior Manager, Disability Support Team) and Claire Cooper (Manager, Disability Support Team) was less interactive, and was more about the providing of information to practice tutors about the support the university provides to students with disabilities.

A student may disclose a disability at any point. If a student discloses a disability to a tutor or a practice tutor they are, in effect, disclosing a disability to the university. When this happens, the disability support team creates a student profile through the use of a disability support form. If appropriate, students are encouraged to apply for the disabled students allowance, and can apply to the access to work scheme.

Disabled student allowances is externally funded by the government, and there are four types of award: specialist equipment, non-medical helper support, general allowance, travel allowance. The university also provides an auxiliary aids team and a small equipment loan scheme to bridge the gap between applying for support, and receiving support. The university provides different interim loan kits. The exact composition of the scheme differs according to the needs of students.

The New AL Contract: your questions answered

I split my time between the last two sessions. I began with the session about the new AL Contract, which was facilitated by Dan Sloan (Senior Manager, AL Services/AL Change Programme) and Sam Murphy (Implementation Programme Lead), and then moved to the other session about peer support.

This session began with some definitions that tutors and practice tutors might see on their contract details. Some key terms and topics were about FTE, and the differences between contracted FTE, delivery FTE, and allocated TRA days.

If you are reading this blog as someone who is internal to the university, you will be able to find a set of resources and posts that relate to the new AL contract. A notable post is one that summarises how your FTE if calculated.

Developing opportunities for peer support

This final session was facilitated by Barbara Cochee (Senior Manager, PT Training and Development, ALSPD) and Olivia Rowland (Content Designer, ALSPD). To facilitate the discussions, we were asked who our peer were, what does peer support look like, what might benefits of peer support might bring, and what support might you need to make this happen?

This session featured quite a wide ranging discussion. We discussed the importance of face-to-face meetings, and the role of module tutors.  It was acknowledged that, for some programmes, there can sometimes be a distance between the academic tutors and the academic assessors. For some apprentices (such as those within nursing programmes), students need to pass the academic studies as well as their practice studies (or, practical skills that they need to master).

A thought that I did have is that, in some ways, practice tutors represent a bit of administrative and academic glue in a degree apprenticeship programme. They exist as glue between academic modules and tutors, glue between employer and programme, glue between the apprentice and the work-based learning, glue between academic and work-based learning, and offer pointers to additional resources, and connecting together different aspects of support together. 

In terms of the practice tutor community that I’m a member of, perhaps the best form of peer support comes from a school perspective, and linked to a particular degree apprenticeship programme that I’m helping to support. I don’t know very many other practice tutors. It would be great to know a few more, if only to more directly understand that I’m offering the right kind of support.

Reflections

I think this was the first event of its type that I’ve been to. It was a large event; there were around 100 delegates. I was a little grumpy about the earlier sessions about quality assurance. I have the view that quality emerges from the relationships that exists between people – specifically, colleagues, tutors, and students.

Hearing about the perspectives from other faculties was helpful, especially in terms of hearing different views about the role of the practice tutor, and what they contribute during the tripartite meetings. Overall, I found the discussions the most helpful, and I would welcome the opportunity to participate in more of these events.

One thing that I would like to hear more about is more stories: stories from the employers, stories from tutors and, most importantly, stories from apprentices.

As well as being a tutor, and a staff tutor, I’m also a student. At the moment, I’m studying the arts and humanities, and I’m part way through the equivalent of my first year. I’m really enjoying it, and I can certainly say that I have learnt a few things.

This short post summarises some really helpful hints and tips about responding to a TMA question. These key points have been taken from from the A111 Discovering the arts and humanities study skills materials, written by Judith Rice. During my studying of this module, these points have really stood out in terms of being helpful. These tips may be relevant for other subjects and disciplines, not just the arts and humanities. 

Question words: how, why and what?

This tip emphases that “questions like these are asking you to make a judgement of some kind”. For the arts and humanities modules, there is “the expectation is that you use evidence from the sources or module book to support your answer”, so make sure that you reference module materials, and quote judiciously to demonstrate your understanding, and to show your reading. 

Compare and contrast

The essence of this tip is as follows: “if an assignment asks you to compare two sources, you are expected to look at ways in which they are similar and ways in which they are different. If the word ‘contrast’ is in there too, you should look especially hard for differences between them”. This is all about demonstrating your thinking as well as demonstrating your knowledge of the materials. 

Describe

This keyword “indicates that you are being asked to talk about what you see in a picture, hear in a piece of music, or read in a text; it could also indicate that you should give an account of what happened over a period of time.”

Explore

Explore isn’t a word that I’ve seen very regularly in TMAs, but when explore is used “you are being asked to look at an issue or an idea in a balanced manner, probably across a number of different examples. A definite ‘answer’ is not required but you will need to examine the evidence to look out for patterns.”

Consider

Like explore, this isn’t a TMA word that I’m very familiar with. The module materials offers a bit of guidance: “the task here is very similar to the one signalled by the word ‘Explore’, but there is slightly more emphasis on weighing up the evidence in order to reach some kind of balanced assessment in your conclusion.”

Assess

Simply put, assess is all about making “some kind of judgement or measurement, and to think about various aspects of a source or collection of sources.” Again, do reference any appropriate module resources.

Explain

Finally, “explain” is all about giving “reasons for something.”

Preparing to answer TMA questions

When answering a TMA question, I have started to adopt a particular way of working. 

I begin by flicking through all the module materials, making a note of the significant headings. I then take a bit of time to review some of the key bits of module materials to make sure that I haven’t missed anything. When I have reacquainted myself with everything with the main themes that the module team are trying to convey, I then have a good look at the key words to get a feel for what they are fishing for.

Another approach that I’ve adopted, depending on the question, is to make sure that I have all the references in order before starting the writing. To do this, I do a bit of digging into the CiteThemRight website to remind myself how to reference everything I might need to reference, such as module materials, set texts and anything else.

Other tips, resources and blogs

TMA questions are connected to module learning outcomes. In addition to focussing on the TMA questions themselves, it is sometimes useful to have a good look into what the module team are looking to assess. Put another way, by looking at the learning outcomes and the accompanying activities may well help you to “get into the head of the module team”.

There are a range of other resources that can be useful. Some of these are summarised in earlier blogs about study skills. I also regularly recommend the Good Study Guide (pdf).

When studying TM470, students are required to design, plan and carry out a short project that will enable them to show off the skills and knowledge that they have gained from their earlier level 3 students. To pass this module, students have to submit a detailed project report, which can also be thought of as a dissertation.

Since student projects can take many different forms, the TM470 module materials offer general guidance that need to be interpreted by students. A suggested report structure might work well for one type of project, but not for another. Students might decide on a research project (looking into a very specific problem in a lot of detail), an evaluation project (comparing one product, tool, system or approach to another), or an implementation project (choosing to design and implement code that solves a well-defined problem).

In absence of some very specific guidance about how to structure of project report, this blog post offers a summary of some of the guidance that I have offered (and continue to offer) during some of my TM470 EMA preparation tutorials. After my tutorials, I also share a link to this blog post to the TM470 students that I am supporting.

I must offer a disclaimer: this guidance will not fit all projects. Students must decide about whether the below suggested structure it is appropriate for their own project. Also, they must also decide on whether their report demonstrates that the TM470 learning outcomes have been met.

Before summarising the suggested structure, I have three tips for students:

1. Ensure that your report is as readable as possible (but do make sure it remains a formal report). The project marker may be unfamiliar with the subject that you are writing about. Take time to set the scene and explain concepts that may be unfamiliar to a reader.
2. Do have a look through the OU Skills for Study resources (OU website). In particular, I’m a fan of The Good Study Guide which you can find through the OU study booklets page (OU website). The Good Study Guide offers some really helpful advice about researching and writing.
3. Think of the project report as a ‘technical narrative’, or a ‘technical story’. It is also a story that can contain other narratives. There is a story about your planning, a story about your reading, a story about what has been done, and what has been learnt. Make your technical story as interesting as you can.

1. Introduction

In this section, present a really short introduction to the whole project. Try to summarise it in a couple of sentences. Then, provide the reader with a pointer towards what they can expect to see in the next sections. This will ‘prime’ them for what is coming up in the next section. You might also want to allude to what you have achieved, but don’t tell them everything; this is presented in the next sections.

2. Problem description

In this section, go into a bit more detail about what your project. You might want to explain a bit more about the project context or setting. Background information will help the EMA examiner to understand what your project is all about. In some ways, think of the opening sections of the report as a ‘spiral’, where you gradually lead the examiner towards the detail of what you’ve done. In some way, you’re teaching the reader about your project.

3. Preparation and planning

In the previous section, you’ve told the examiner what you’re going to do. This section is all about how you’re going to do it. Since sharing detail about your project plan is important, it is a good idea to split this section into a number of subheadings.

3.1 Project Model

A suggestion is to begin by telling the examiner about the project model you’ve chosen. Do have a look at the module materials about this, and what this means. In other words, you could use this section to summarise the project planning approach that you have chosen, and why it is appropriate. 

3.X Resources, skills, activities, risks, plan…

What might follow is a series of subsections about resources that you need, skills, potential risks to the project, and also something about this high level plans. Do say something about what you’re going to be doing, and also what tools you might have used to decide on what you’re going to be doing and when.

4. Legal, social, ethical and professional issues

Legal social ethical and professional issues (LSEPI) are important, especially in TM470. As future Computing and IT professionals, it is important to be mindful about the impact of a project or development on wider society, and any implications it might have. Also, if a project involves working with people to uncover requirements, it is important that you treat everyone in an ethical way. The module team offers a bit of guidance about this topic, but for further inspiration it might be a good idea to have a quick look through the British Computer Society Code of Conduct (BCS website).

5. Literature review

This section is all about showing the examiner what you have read or studied, and how this has influenced the project work that have done. I’ve suggested it comes at this point, after the LSEPI section, since the identification of some legal, social, ethical or professional issues might raise questions that can only be answered by further reading.

There are different ways to structure a literature review. Two ways are: by theme, or by time. In other words, by the subjects that you have read about, or the order in which you have read things. I always prefer thematic literature reviews since they enable the writer to adopt a more critical approach. This means you can more directly and easily compare and contrast different opinions from different sources.

In this section, do try to reference as widely as possible. Do take the time to reference other modules you have studied (including textbooks and module blocks), any technical text books you might be using in the next section, and also do a bit of digging into the OU library (which all students have access to).

Fellow tutors have offered the following guidance: “show you understand the importance of a source; show you recognize the limitations of your sources; show how the literature has influenced the direction of the project and informed your thinking, and show how the literature has justified decisions”.

6. Project work

This is one of the most important sections of the report. It shows the examiner what you have done. It should ideally be a series of case studies that presents a narrative (story) of what you have done, and should relate back to the plan that you have described. To structure everything, it is a good idea to separate everything out into a series of subheadings; one for each mini case study.

Drawing on comments from fellow TM470 tutors, the examiner needs to get a feel for the project as a whole, the solution you created, and whether you solved the problem. Importantly, this section should demonstrate your technical and presentation skills, and should be concise.

If you have a project where you have generated a lot of materials, such as interview scripts, survey results, source code, or diagrams, you need to make a choice about what goes in this section, and what you choose to put in an appendix. One way to answer this question is to ask yourself: is this an example of my best work? If so, put something in this section.

7. Review and reflection

By the time you get to this section, you would have prepared a plan, have done some research, and have carried out some project work. This section is all about telling the examiner what you have learnt from the experience of running your project. 

To help you to begin to answer this question, think of those “WH” questions: what, how, when, and why? Ask yourself the following questions: Did you follow your plan? Did you learn the right thing, and the right time, to solve the right problem? How did what you learn help or hinder your project? Also, how did you expand on your level 3 studies?

The more thoughtful your review and reflection section appears, and the more that you appear to have learnt by completing the project, the more evidence there will be that you have obtained some of the TM470 learning outcomes.

8. Summary

To wrap everything up neatly, I tell students to write a short summary. A suggestion is: to offer a reminder about what the project was all about, what project model was chosen, summarise what has achieved, and then to share three things that have been learnt by completing the project. In some senses, this final summary should mirror the introduction section.

9. References

Clear referencing is really important. The aim of this section is to enable the examiner to find an original source, report, textbook, or anything else that has helped you with your project. It also offers a neat summary of all the reading that you’ve done.

For TM470, you only need a references section, not a bibliography and a references section. If you use a resource in the body of your text, make sure that you refer to it in this section. Make sure that you present everything in alphabetical order, and mention dates of publication. If you’re unsure how to format any resource, book, paper, technical report, or bit of software, do refer to the CiteThemRight website.

Appendices

A project report can have any number of appendices. You can use an appendix to share supplementary materials to help the examiner to get a feel for what you’ve done during the course of your project. 

There are no hard and fast rules about how many appendices you should have since every project is different. You might use them to show excerpts of source code, diagrams, consent forms, and data that you might have collected during the course of your project. Whatever works best for you. You should, however, always reference each appendix from within the body of the report, just to make the examiner aware that this may be an important part of your report.

Although you must try to limit your project report to 10k words, there is no limit to how many additional words you can provide within the appendices (but the module team does encourage everyone to be reasonable).

Acknowledgements

You can include an acknowledgement section in your project report, along with a glossary if you feel it is appropriate to include one. 

This acknowledgement section is for this blog post, rather than for a project report. I would like to acknowledge Chris Thompson and Karl Wilcox, who have been very generous in sharing their tutorial resources with me. I would also like to acknowledge Alexis Lansbury, who is my TM470 line manager.

On 17 June 21, the OU School of Computing and Communications in collaboration with CISSE UK, the UK chapter of the Colloquium for Information Systems Security ran its first online workshop on cyber security education. 

This post offers a rough summary of the event for anyone who wasn’t able to attend. This article also shares links to accompanying resources. The structure of this post reflects the structure of the event, and offers a set of reflections and potential next steps.

The event covers two broad themes: employment and skills, and curriculum. During the second theme, the event splits into two streams: one for higher education, and another for participants who are related to CyberFirst, which covers the 11-17 age group.

One thing that I will mention is that I only managed to attend three quarters of the event, and had to leave before the final panel discussions. This said, co-presenters and delegates, have shared with me some links and themes that were raised during the final discussion session.

Introduction and Overview

Arosha Bandara and Chitra Balakrishna, from the OU, and Phil Legg from the University of West of England and CISSE opened the workshop. Chitra stated that its aim workshop was to bring together different stakeholders, to gain a common understanding of key challenges in cyber security education and to focus on curriculum, curriculum delivery, and skills development.

Phil took the opportunity to share something about CISSE UK. It aims to bring together cyber security educators across the UK, it aims to share and collaborate, and to find ways to do things better. Phil made the point that institutions are all trying to learn how things are done in the distance learning context.

After the introductions and welcome, it was time for two keynotes from colleagues from the National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC).  

Keynote 1: NCSC - Cyber Growth Academia Team

Chris E introduced the NCSC, which is the National technical authority for cyber security. It has what is known as a Cyber Growth Academia Team. The NCSE has a strategy to develop skills and support education and does this by having an interest in developing graduates and apprentices. I made a note of the point that: “everyone should have access to high quality cyber security education”.

An important resource for anyone interested in this area is the Cyber Security Body of Knowledge (Cybok.org).

There was references to different pathways, such as master’s degrees, integrated master’s, bachelor’s degrees, and degree apprenticeships. Universities are also introducing combined courses, where cyber security is combined with another subject. 

There are a number of NCSE certified degrees (NCSE website) and Academic Centres of Excellence in Cyber Security Education (ACEs-CSE) (NCSE website).

Themes that were important for cyber security study include: reach, availability of resources, expertise, and building for the future (sustainability). Another note I made was the point that further education (post 16 education) is producing a lot of really good people, but there are questions of what we might be able to best support them. During this event I recognised the familiar metaphor of a “leaky pipeline” regarding cyber security skills. This means that some students might not become cyber security professionals.

Returning to some of the themes of the workshop, an important question to raise (and discuss) was: is there a need to tweak the accreditation guidelines to take account of the current global pandemic? Perhaps assessments need to be adjusted and students need to be pushed and tested when materials are delivered online.

Keynote 2: NCSC - CyberFirst Team

This section keynote, presented by Patrick B, had an intriguing subtitle: cyber defence against the dark arts. This immediately begs some questions: what is meant by dark arts, and what is meant by ‘cyber defense’? 

Patrick is the CyberFirst (NCSC website) school and college education lead. CyberFirst is described as “developing the UK's next generation of cyber professionals through our student bursaries, courses for 11-17 year olds and competitions”. The focus is, of course, to develop secondary school students.

A question I noted was: “What can CyberFirst and the academic eco system do for each other?” Implicit in this question is another question of how can they collaborate and more directly align with each other? A further question to ask about concerns which issues schools are asking for help with.

A challenge, of course, lies with differences. The school sector is, of course, very different to the higher education sector, and there are different education systems, partly due to different devolved education authorities. Whilst students can specialise (in cyber security themes) at post-18, it is harder for students to understand and appreciate the significance of these specialisms at an earlier level. Given that cyber security needs specialists, there is the question of how we signpost the routes to different pathways.

Keeping with the theme of difference, I also noted down the words that “we need to make our sector more inclusive”, and the point was made that there is a gender imbalance. Patrick later made the point that 94% of girls don’t study computer science GCSE. The important need to address the theme of difference was also expressed in the words: “we need more of different types of people”.

Some of the challenges were expressed by Patrick in terms of “in tray” problems: how do we make young people more cyber aware? Also, how do we help teachers with their own cyber security? And finally, how do we showcase cyber as a career and study pathway?

In terms of the first problem, how do we make young people cyber aware? I noted down the view that whilst e-safety might be covered as a subject within schools, young people don’t get formal support about cyber security. Perhaps there needs to be learning by doing to fully understand cyber hygiene, and to also convey the safe use of cyber security tools.

Regarding teachers and school staff, Patrick made the point that Ransomware is becoming an issue, and some groups of students may need support to understand “what is legal and not” in terms of computer use and misuse. Also, teachers may also need help to understand the different types of attacks that may appear within the school setting and how to respond to them.

In terms of showcasing cyber as a career and study pathway, it is important to recognise and emphasise diversity with the Cyboc. During Patrick’s talk I noted that there “are 16 different cyber security roles, as defined by cyber security council”.  These roles are connected to a variety of disciplines, such as law, history (in terms of being able to carry out research), data science, computing, and mathematics.

One suggestion might be the concept of eMentoring, which could be related to the setting up clubs, cyber activities, and reaching out to industry. There was also a call for cross institution and cross discipline conversations and collaboration.

The final slide of Patrick’s presentation has the title of: “the hope”. It was hoped that this first conference would bring communities together, that it would facilitate cross institutional conversations and collaborations. There was also the point that: “we need all parts of the eco system to be pulling together, if we wish to effect change”.

After the event, a couple of resources were shared. The first is some STEM Learning Resources (stem.org.uk) This site presents some teacher guidance, activity sheets, and some links to further resources. The second link is to the National Centre for Computing Education website for resources and support (teachcomputing.org) which presents some lesson plans for key stages 1 through 4.

Introducing CISSE UK

Natalie Coull from the University of Abertay, Charles Clarke from Kingston University, and Phil Legg from the University of West of England jointly introduced CISSE UK (website), which is an abbreviation for “Colloquium for information systems security”. Charles described CISSE as national network of cyber security education professionals. CISSE UK is inspired by CISSE USA. What follows is a set of notes that were made during the CISSE presentation, and points taken from slides which were shared after the event.

Charles’s presentation had the subheading: collaborate to innovate. He introduced the CISSE vision, which was to: “to establish a culture of outstanding innovative and state of the art cyber security education (CSE) in the UK”. An important point I noted down was: can’t do everything our own, and that CISSE is a part of a rich and diverse CSE ecosystem which comprises of government (NCSE teams), industry (through stakeholders such as practioners, employees and employers), academia (students, educators, IT teams) as well as other groups such as professional associations and community organisations.

CISSE hosts events and has an impact programme. A related issue and question is: how is it possible to make a community or an organisation such as CISSE sustainable? CISSE look to encourage and extend engagement by developing .an outcomes driven membership initiative, which launches in 2021. 

Events themselves are not enough; members will have ways to evidence engagement. Members will be able to quantify and evidence engagement in a way that can be recognised across government, industry and academia. Evidence may take the form of attending CISSE recognised events, publishing in the area of cyber security (which can take different forms), providing mentoring, and service on NCSE certified degree panels. There might also evidence of engagement within projects that aim to enhance cyber security employability amongst students.

I noted down a 6 point call for action: (1) more input from industry to inform and validate programme and student employability, (2) mentoring in academia, (3) CSE events, (4) CSE publication – we need people to share their publications, (5) involvement in cyber security education experienced-centred projects, and (6) recording evidence of involvement in NCSE certified degrees or impact panels.

The presentation concluded with a point about the importance of collaboration between colleagues from different institutions. If you are interested in cyber security education, you were encouraged to get in touch.

Theme 1: Employment and skills

This first theme, which was available to all delegates, was about employment and skills. Each presentation was delivered through a short 5 minute video recording, and was followed by a facilitated panel discussion, aimed at further exploring some of the themes that were highlighted by the presenters (who were also present during the presentation section).

What follows is an edited version of the abstracts that accompany the presentation. Although the words have been prepared by the presentation authors, their words have been edited for brevity, for this blog. 

Presentation 1: Do we need industry certifications within Computer Security Degrees?

The first presentation was from Chaminda Hewage from Cardiff Metropolitan university. Chaminda’s presentation aimed to ask a number of important questions that relate to industrial certifications: “Can students obtain the industry certifications upon graduation? Or obtain them from elsewhere while they study for the degree? Do we need to force students through a series of certifications? Is it really necessary? Do they provide the required knowledge? Do employers expect you to graduate with industry certifications?”

Chaminda’s abstract states that “computer security degrees aim to provide the required theoretical underpinning, fundamentals and provide the required knowledge and skills to prepare the students for future employment. To this end QAA and subject specific organizations such as NCSC, BCS, CIISec and CyBok provide guidelines and best practices to achieve the essential and desirable graduate qualities”

He goes onto state that he “believe[s] that educators need to find a right balance between the theoretical concepts and industry focus[ed] content” Chaminda “would like to find the answer … [to]  how much employers really value these industry certification at entry level” and holds the view that “a wider discussion should take place on this to identify the impact and issues associated with integrating certifications in cyber security degree programme[s]”

There are some clear tensions that are worthy of explanation. In his abstract, Chaminda asks whether students “need to chase endless industry certifications by different vendors?” and poses an important issue, namely that “students may be sacrificing the main ethos of higher education by following a series of vendor specific training.” He concludes with a question: “perhaps, there is no escape from industry certification due to the nature of the discipline?”

Presentation 2: An Investigation and Evaluation of Cyber Security Graduate Job Roles for Improving Students’ Employability Skills

The second presentation, by Simrandeep Kalsi, Mastaneh Davis and Nabeel Khan from Kingston, complemented Chaminda’s presentation really well. Simrandeep’s abstract emphasised the following points: “The cyber security skills in the UK labour market study conducted by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport (Gov.uk, 2021), has indicated there is an increased demand for cyber security professionals in all sectors of the industry, however, significant numbers of these job roles remain unfilled.” Further information can be found by visiting the Cyber security skills in the UK labour market 2021 publication (Gov.uk).

To further understand the situation, “an investigation was conducted into whether the experience of searching for cyber security job roles can be improved; and if the clarity, accuracy, and relevance of job search outcomes can be enhanced in a manner that proactively informs an aspiring cyber security practitioner’s career decision. Quantitative analysis was conducted on cyber related job descriptions … in order to identify the attributes that students and graduates need to develop in order to match employer needs and improve their employment prospects.”

 “Results obtained from the analysis conducted on the job descriptions show that 49.8% of the job roles from the 472 analysed were for university graduates, and 6.6% also stated that they would accept candidates who have completed graduate apprenticeships. … A very surprisingly finding was that 89.4% of the job descriptions did not specify the need for experience.”

“The result of this study highlighted important key employability skills including having a positive attitude to continuous development and lifelong learning, listening skills, and the desirability of being a proactive individual, the latter potentially being a standout point amongst many recruiters. … These results are illustrated through 6 infographics, which could be of considerable value for higher education institutions for monitoring and addressing the cyber employability skills gap, and to enhance the experience of students when searching for cyber security job roles.”

Presentation 3: Cybersecurity apprentices – practice makes perfect? 

In some senses, degree apprentices have the potential to bridge the gap between academic study and the development of practical skills. The third presentation of the morning, by Kay Bromley, David Parry and Steve Walker present their “initial experience with the OU’s Scottish Graduate Apprenticeship in Cyber Security, and in particular the experiences of practice tutors.”

They introduce their presentation as follows: “as well as meeting the requirements for an Open University degree, apprentices also need to demonstrate the ‘core skills’ for cyber security specified in the Skills Development Scotland/Scottish Funding Council’s framework. Practice tutors provide a link between the University and its taught curriculum, the apprentice and the employer. They meet regularly with apprentices and employers. For the Scottish apprenticeships. Students do one of four Professional Practice modules, one each year, on which the practice tutor is also a module tutor.”

The professional practice modules, which are supported by a practice tutor aim to: “help students to integrate taught material into their workplace activities; develop independent learning skills, and study specialist content not covered elsewhere in the taught curriculum.”

They also offer some reflection on the practice tutor experience on the professional practice modules. It is important to note that “the pandemic has been a major issue for employers and apprentices, generating unanticipated workload for some, slowing communications within employer organisations, or apprentices being furloughed; At introductory levels apprentices and employers have tended not to take advantage of the flexibility available to them. There is a substantial overhead in learning about the structure of the apprenticeship and how to link this to the workplace; Cyber security is a sensitive subject for employers.”

More information about the Scottish Graduate Apprenticeship in Cyber Security can be found by visiting the Apprenticeships.Scot website.

Presentation 4: Opportunities and challenges of a CyberEPQ - Making basic skills in cyber security education accessible to both adolescents and adults

The final presentation of this section was by Konstantinos Mersinas and Caroline Moeckel, who consider skills from a broader perspective, whilst also returning to the themes of education and qualifications that were addressed in the first presentation. They “have created the Extended Project Qualification (EPQ) in Cyber Security to target age groups which have received relatively less focus in cyber security education. These groups are adolescents (14 to 18 year olds) and adults, often working in the industry, but not necessarily in cyber security.”

They offer a useful summary: “The EPQ is built in line with the National Occupational Standards (NOS) and its educational materials are aligned with the Chartered Institute of Information Security (CIISec). We have designed an educational curriculum to align it with the NCSC Cyber Security Body of Knowledge (CyBOK). … Our achievements include, on the one hand, the provision of a basic set of cyber security skills and knowledge to school students to allow them to proceed with studies in higher education. In that sense, the programme acts as a bridge between GCSE Studies and a university degree. On the other hand, we provide CPD to adults and professionals in the industry who can enrich their skills and employability, and advance their careers further.”

As a qualification, the EPQ appears to be interesting. They go onto write: “We believe that our initiative is accessible to almost everyone as it does not require previous knowledge of cyber security, is financially affordable and has always been delivered fully online, supported by regular web conference calls and meetings. We firmly believe that the programme has been successful in introducing cyber security to the younger generations and providing important cyber security knowledge to adults and professionals over the last 5 years, with learners moving into related university courses or securing (entry level) employment in the area”

Employment and Skills Discussion

A short discussion session was co-chaired by Natalie Coull and Charles Clarke. They began by asking Chaminda the question: “what are the best practices?” The answer I noted was in terms of the need for discussions between certification authorities and employers. Also, academics should be involved, since there is the need to gain clarity about what to focus on. 

Natalie asked all presenters whether industrial qualifications or certifications were able to successfully evidence hands on skills. A related question was: to what extent should universities be providing hands on skills, and what is the role of certification bodies in this? Put another way: will employers just take our word for it if a student has the necessary skills if they hold a particular qualification?

Charles asked another question, which was: do certifications add experience? Chitra added that it is necessary to consider the purpose of qualifications, how much are vendor driven and how much knowledge and experience driven. A point was also made that the skills landscape that is always evolving and changing.

Another point I noted was Charles’ reflection that it is important to include employers. There is also the importance and significance of industrial placements, but these are limited in numbers. A reflection was that Simrandeep’s research into the job market, should it be done continually.

The discussion moved onto the topic of pedagogy. Konstantinos suggested the role of a weekly meeting with students to discuss a current topic, which may include activities to review journals and then to reflect on what has been learnt. 

A final question I noted down, that again relates to the topic of education and training, or certificate and qualification: to what extent do certificates play a role in getting through or past a HR gateway? They might well be used in this way, but it is important to consider, more broadly, the effectiveness of cyber security recruitment within organisations.

Theme 2: Curriculum

The second presentation session was split into two strands, a Higher Education Breakout, which is summarised below, and a CyberFirst Breakout (NCSE website). CyberFirst is described as “a programme of opportunities to help young people aged 11 - 17 years explore their passion for tech by introducing them to the fast paced world of cyber security”, which is supported by the NCSE and CISSE events. 

Presentation 5: OWASP Open Application Security Curriculum Project

The first presentation of this second theme was by Adrian Winckles, from Anglia Ruskin university. Adrian’s presentation began by introducing OWASP’s main purpose, which was to “be the thriving global community that drives visibility and evolution in the safety and security of the world’s software.” Some further context is provided: “a common problem with many security education programmes (whether cyber or InfoSec) or even traditional computer science programmes is that they do not address application security adequately, if at all.” More information about OWASP, the Open Web Application Security Project is available through the OWASP.org website.

Adrian highlights that there is an opportunity “to pull together its wide-ranging expertise, projects, and dedicated volunteers to engage in these types of education programmes and initiatives by developing an educational strategy for undergraduate and postgraduate students. This could take the form of an open “Standard” curriculum template which can be adopted and adapted by diverse educational partners and organisations.”

Presentation 6: Enhancing the Cyber Security Curriculum Through Experiential Learning

Andy Reed and Christine Gardner from the School of Computing and Communications present a different perspective, focussing on an important aspect of teaching. This presentation connects the earlier discussion about whether graduates (or certificate holders) have the appropriate skills. Andy and Christine highlight that the “landscape of cyber security develops at a considerable pace, so too does need to provide adaptive teaching and learning experiences, to assist learners in developing transferable practical skills”. The development of student skills relates to the use of “various virtual learning tools and techniques”

Different tools are mentioned, such as Netlab+ from NDG and the Cisco Packet Tracer tool which is used with various OU Cisco modules. For teaching and doctorial research. Other tools were mentioned, such as NS2 and NetSim, which can be used to simulate large scale networks. Research students can share outputs from these tools their research community, 

Presentation 7: Cyber Education during Pandemic: Approaches and Lessons Learned

Thomas Win and Phil Legg, both from the University of West of England, shared some recent experiences of teaching cyber security: “the COVID-19 pandemic has necessitated a radical paradigm shift in cyber education and the delivery of modules therein, both in delivering lectures and practical sessions. We experimented with different means of delivery during the 2020/21 academic year and aim to share our perspectives and lessons learned as we navigated around the challenges posed to our module delivery.”

During their presentation, they mention “MS Teams to facilitate interactivity and gauge student understanding” and have used “real-world case studies in delivering subjects such as Ethical Hacking. In a session on memory-based exploits students were asked to research on the recently-discovered Google Chrome vulnerabilities. Coupled with breakout rooms on MS Teams, they were able to engage in peer-learning alongside research-informed learning.”

They shared some aspects of their pedagogy: “we also used physical hardware such as Micro:Bit devices in programming practicals. We further extended this in a trial running of online capture-the-flag exercises linked to physical IoT devices the behaviour of which can be observed over an online video call, and also offered some reflections: “we have found … the opportunity to explore and adopt a new teaching paradigm in cyber education pedagogy.”

A concluding reflection is that: “online interactions have changed how we - both staff and students - will interact in the future. What is important to recognise, is that in many cases, establishing offline connections first means that we can have more meaningful interactions when moving to online - the same is true for how student groups interact. As we move into 2021/22, we will want to ensure we keep sight of these lessons from the previous year to continue to improve cyber security education.

During Thomas’s presentation, I also noted down the points that contact time with students was more valuable, and contact time is important to understand where students are in terms of understanding the lecture materials. A tentative conclusion is that: blended learning is here to stay.

Curriculum Discussion

This second discussion session, which was centred around curriculum, was also chaired by Natalie Coull and Charles Clarke. Natalie opened up with a question to Andy and Christine: is it time consuming to set up the experiential learning activities? 

In the OU there is a support team that manages the physical NetLabs hardware and infrastructure. In the OU context, a module team is often able to reuse an experiential design year on year. It is possible to see what students have done by asking students to share their configuration files and by reviewing live logs. A related point is that teaching also tries to draw on the student’s context.

Natalie asked Thomas about building relationships with students. A reflection was that some students may lose confidence when speaking in the classroom. It is also important to consider how to encourage students to return the classroom. Different approaches might be to create non-traditional activities such as assignment workshops, or use approaches such as gamification.

Thomas was asked a particularly challenging question: how to you engage students who don’t engage with pre-recoded videos. The answer I noted down was in terms of building or presenting incentives, such as providing an overview, or a summary, or give them a “cliff hanger”, and link recordings to assessments. 

Being a cyber security tutor

The penultimate session of the day, which was about the advantages and benefits of becoming a cyber security tutor in higher education (specifically within the OU) was presented by Arosha Bandara and Ian Kennedy.

Arosha began by outlining the role of a tutor. Through distance learning, students have opportunities to study materials in their own time (but must complete important assessments by certain dates). Tutors act as a guide and facilitator, helping students to make sense of the module materials that have been prepared by module teams. In some ways, tutors adopt what some consider to be a ‘flipped classroom’ approach, where students work through materials in advance of a tutorial, which are all currently delivered online. 

Tutors also provide correspondence tuition to students, which is an important aspect of distance teaching. Students are given tailored feedback and guidance, to help them to understand how to further understand module concepts, understanding and skills.

More information about the role of a tutor (including a cyber security tutor) can be found by visiting this free Badged Open Course (BOC): Being and OU Tutor in STEM: Computing and Communications (OpenLearn). There are also a series of videos, entitled Teaching on TM352: Web, Mobile and Cloud Computing (YouTube) which might be of interest to prospective OU computing tutors.

Arosha and Ian answered the important question of: who might become a tutor? Tutors have varying background. They might be academics from other institutions (HE or FE), post-doctoral researchers, or they might be practioners working in industry. The industrial experience of tutors is both welcome an important as whilst academics may have theoretical knowledge, they may lack practical experience at the “cyber security coal face”. Another perspective is that it is hard to get practical experience whilst working an academic context.

The advantages work both ways. From an industrial perspective, a practioner background is very useful to an academic community. Conversely, an academic role does give some practioner-tutors the opportunity to “dig deep” into certain topics and develop a higher level academic perspective to augment what is a very important and pragmatic approach to problem solving.

If you are interested in potentially becoming a tutor within the OU, do visit the OU tutor recruitment site and select the "Faculty of Maths, Computing & Technology". You should then be able to find a list of modules that are currently being advertised. More information about how to apply can be found through the How to Apply page. A big tip for anyone who is considering applying is: always ensure that you provide sufficient evidence to show that you meet the person spec criteria. For OU modules, there are two parts: a generic bit (which is about teaching), and a module specific bit. A suggestion is to copy all the points from each part of the person spec onto your application form, and provide at least 3 sentences of supporting evidence underneath, so everything is as clear as possible for whoever makes the recruitment decisions.

Panel discussion: how do we enhance and support diversity in cyber security? 

The workshop concluded with a panel discussion that was chaired by Ian Kennedy, a cyber security lecturer from the OU. Member of the discussion panel included delegates from Deloitte, Accenture Security, and the UK Cyber Security Council.

Although I wasn’t able to attend this final session, I heard that there were discussions about how and where to embed cyber education in the school sector. After the event, I was also sent a couple of links that were highlighted within the final session. The first link has the title “Why the Seven Personae of Cyber?” (CyberEQA.org) which explores diversity of roles that can exist within the broad subject of cyber security. Relating to the importance theme of gender within cyber security, there was also a reference to the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media (Seejane.org)

Reflections

One of the themes that really struck me was the richness of cyber security as a subject, which reflects an important link to the theme of diversity, which was emphasised by the workshop. On one hand, there are the really hard core technical bits. On the other there are other subjects that have a softer, and essential human edge to them. There are different tools that need to be understood and appreciated: there are technical tools, and there are institutional practices and policies. All these aspects are, of course, mediated through people, organisations and structures. All this suggests that cyber security professional need different skill sets, and may gravitate towards the subject from different directions.

Another theme that struck me as being significant was the importance of cyber security within schools the schools’ sector. I noted down that there was a clear difference between the importance of safety awareness and detailed cyber security education. There are clear debates that surround the extent to which it should be embedded within teaching.

I enjoyed the diversity of the presentations, and I do encourage anyone who is interested in this subject, and this event, to view the short presentation that can be accessed through this blog. I especially liked Simrandeep’s qualitative study. Cyber security is a fast moving subject, and her study represents a practical and useful snapshot of the needs of the sector at a particular point in time.  It would be interesting to carry out a replication in a few years to see what had changed.

Another highlight was the summary of CISSE. UK A reflection is that collaboration and support between institutions whilst working in a fast changing sector is both important and helpful. After hearing Charles’ description of what it is, and how it works, I’m now very tempted to sign up. 

Finally, it was great to see how many colleagues were interested in this event. 87 delegates attended the event, but there were over 200 registrations. Looking forwards, it would be great to run a similar event again. We have a lot to learn from each other.

Acknowledgements

Many of the words and themes presented within the blog come from a range of different sources: from the speakers, from their presentations and from their abstracts. Acknowledgements are extended to colleagues who read early versions of this blog.

M250 Object-oriented Java programming (OU website) is changing. On 25 May I attended a short module briefing which summarised some of the changes to existing M250 tutors which will be introduced to the 21 J (October) presentation of the module.

One of the reasons for the need for a change is that earlier modules, namely TM111 and TM112 now have more programming content, and there is a need to ‘beef up’ M250 to help students when they move onto a sister module: M269. The new version of M250 will be more practical.

A good place to visit to find out about Computing and IT modules is through the Computing and IT subject site. Within this site, there is a page that is all about M250 Object-oriented Java programming where students can access some sample exam questions, some M250 'prequel' materials, and complete a really helpful Self-assessment quiz.

It is expected that chapters 1 to 3 of the module materials (probably in ePub form) will be available as 'taster' materials for the module. There are also some links to library resources. M250 students can also access discounts from certain Oracle certification exams (but I don’t know to much about this). Students who are fully registered on the module will, of course, have access to an ePub version of all the materials.

Key changes

The key M250 learning outcomes remain unchanged. The new version of the module will be based around Objects First with Java by Barnes and Kölling (book website) which will be used with BlueJ version 4.1.3, which comes with JDK 8. Students will, of course, be sent a copy of this textbook. This set text will be supported by material known as chapter companions and extension materials for those students who want to study further. Unlike the previous version of the module, students will not be using bits of software, such as the object microworlds, or the OU workspace.

An important point I noted down regarding the set text is that students are not (immediately) expected to understand everything that they see. There will also be some more video materials to support students.

There will also be some style changes. The keyword ‘this’ is not going to be used as much, or emphasised, and the new version of the module will make use of some more standard terminology. There will be a couple of new things, such as try-with-resources (which I don’t yet know anything about), using the hashcode method, and doing a bit of computational modelling (which is covered in chapter 12).

Assessments

Just as before, the module will have 3 TMAs. TMA 1 will address the foundations of object-orientation, classes, objects, and introduce the ArrayList. TMA 2 will cover packages and import statements, collections and access modifiers. TMA 3 will cover the more advanced concepts of inheritance, polymorphism, interfaces, exceptions, and file input/output.

Students must gain an overall score of 40%, and must pass the examinable component with a score of at least 30%. There are no threshold requirements for the continually assessed part of the module (the TMA bit, which is known as OCAS).

The way that the marking will be done is going to be slightly different. There will be points for different categories, and tutors will be encouraged to highlight where mistakes have been made.

Reflections

Another thing I have heard is that the way that tutorials are being organised is also going to change. The number of clusters (groups of tutors) across the UK is being reduced, which means that there will be larger numbers of tutors working together to deliver tutorials. There is, I understand, a plan for groups of tutors (or individual tutors) to present a tutorial that focuses on certain chapters of the Objects First set text. I think this is a really good idea, and should increase the teaching and learning opportunities available for students.

One change that I am curious about is the way that the TMAs are assessed in the new version of the module. It strikes me that tutors will be given more freedom to assign marks for work done, whilst working within guidelines provided by the module team. The current M250 marking guidance is very prescriptive, but sometimes students do provide worthy (and interesting) answers that have not been thought of by the module team. In some ways, the new way of working will enable us to make more academic judgements about the work that has been submitted. Perhaps this change also represents an interesting opportunity for scholarship.

1 May 21

It was a quiet day, so I settled down to read the final two chapters of the final book: the chapter about Buddhism and the chapter about philosophy. I got part way through the Buddhism one, and then needed a sleep! I don’t think this any reflection on the quality of the writing or the topic, but rather that I was tired from a very busy week.

I also noticed an interesting article in the Saturday newspaper: Germany first to hand back Benin bronzes looted by British. Although I expected I would focus on the theatre and music question, I feel drawn to the history and art question. I think I’ve made my mind up about what I’m going to do for TMA 6.

2 May 21

I finished my first read of the final two chapters of the Crossing Boundaries book. I’m a little unsure about what “the noble eightfold path” in Buddhism means in a practical sense, but the chapter was more about informing students about different traditions and leading students onto a chapter on philosophy. I enjoyed the section which described Hume, and the descriptions about rationalism and empiricism.

It’s got to a point where I need to be strategic. 

My next steps are to work through the online materials that relate to the history of Benin, and art history, and make a bunch of notes. I then need to make a TMA plan and start writing since I need to submit my TMA 6 early. Although I understand that I may have technically passed the module due to my averages, going through the TMA writing process may well help me learn a few more things (and develop a few more skills). I’ve decided to set myself a target: to get everything done in two weeks, which is a week before the cut-off date.

13 May 21

I’ve read though the online materials, with the exception of listening to the audio materials.

Today I’m going back over some of the printed materials whilst on a short holiday in Dorset. As well as reading a couple of chapters, I’ve managed to get a couple of walks in. Although I didn’t read very much, it was helpful remember what bits I can find where when I begin to pull everything together.

16 May 21

After a day and a bit of marking TMAs, it’s back to study again.

I have five objectives today: to listen to the audio material, to listen to a video that was shared on the A111 Facebook group, to finish my re-reading, re-read the TMA question a couple of time, and then to start the essay. I’ll also have a look around to see if there are any recordings of tutorials that might be useful too. 

Just before I settled down to write my TMA, I decided to have a quick look at the module website just to make sure I had ticked everything off, and there wasn’t anything further I needed to look at. I realised I had missed a unit! I worked through the materials, made a bunch of notes, revisited my previous TMA feedback, and looked at some notes about preparing the final TMA. Finally, I had a good look at the EMA question again, making a couple of notes about what I need to include.

I had planned on writing the whole TMA in a day, but instead, I was scuppered by finding more materials to study. It was time well spent. Now that I worked through the additional audio and video material, I feel as if I’m just about ready to go with the writing.

18 May 21

The writing begins. 

Writing directly into the word processor, I laid out a set of headings that related to the broad structure of the essay, ticking off some points I had written on a physical piece of paper as I go. 

When the broad structure was settled, I crafted the opening paragraph, the introduction. I then started to flesh out different sections, and asked myself the question: “why didn’t I bookmark the chapters with post-it notes?”

I turned my attention to an important aspect of the essay: describing one of the artworks that were mentioned in the module materials. After a couple of hours of editing, writing and re-writing, I started to get tired, so I decided to call it a day.

19 May 21

The writing continues. 

I reminded myself of the headings I had set out, and then tackled the historical text bit of the essay, reviewing one of the primary sources from the module materials. I then moved onto referring some of the materials that were features on the module website. After a bit of restructuring, I wrote the conclusion. I hope I wasn’t going too far, but I also shared a personal opinion. My thinking was that an opinion would help to personalise the essay, and also express some of the ideas I had been learning.

After a few more hours, I felt that my TMA 6 was pretty much there and ready to go.

20 May 21

A bit of proof reading, and a small number of corrections. I’m about 100 words short of the word count, but I’m happy with what I’ve written, so it’s going in.

It’s done. A111 finished.

What’s next?

I need to buy the set texts for A112. That’s going to be my summer reading.

Over the Christmas break I managed to acquire a new affliction: ‘Netflix back’. It’s a short-term physiological condition that is caused by lolling about on the sofa watching too much telly.

I really needed a break from everything over Christmas, and thankfully I was able to get a bit of downtime, which involved watching loads of Scandinavian crime dramas.

In my last column I wrote about feeling on the edge of burnout. The feeling of “just about getting everything done” returned within a couple of weeks.

It has now been over a year since I have last physically seen my staff tutor colleagues. The last time was at an event about the new AL contract which took place in Leeds. In normal times, we would be regularly meeting in the Computing and Communications staff tutor room at Walton Hall. In that room (a real one) we would regularly chat about what is going on, find out about what has been said in various meetings, and collectively solve all kinds of little problems and glitches.

Those friendly but essential informal meetings over a cup of coffee that we used to have (or ‘hub chats’ as some of us call them) have become a whole lot more formal. A chance encounter and a quick catch up has morphed into a complex multistage process, which begins with an email, moves on to a diary check, moves on to another email, and then finally on to a virtual meeting. This partly reflects the significant increase in emails I have been receiving over the last year.

We’ve discovered some new phrases.

The most obvious one is: “you’re on mute”, followed by the slightly more esoteric “is that a legacy hand?”, which refers to a spurious virtual hand that had been raised in either MS Teams or Adobe Connect meetings.

In the last few weeks, some staff tutor colleagues have been sent some very sensible queries by tutors that we ought to be able to answer, but are not equipped to answer, such as “what does my projected FTE contain?” and “what are my additional duties?”

All this confusion led to one thing: anxiety.

At the heart of this was a fundamental issue: I had no understanding of how I might be able to support tutors under the terms of the tutor contract, and everyone was telling me that the new tutor contract was to begin in October.

At the beginning of March, the new tutor contract project team appeared to have finally woken up to the fact that they need to understand what staff tutors and student experience managers actually do. To help to unpack this puzzle, they asked staff tutors from each of the faculties to sign up to an impressive number of workshops. From my perspective, it was almost impossible to participate since I’ve been busy preparing for an April presentation.

Amidst all my day to day activities, the emails to tutors, the online conferences, the induction events, and grade appeals, the new tutor contract occupied my thoughts and worries.

I was anxious since there were questions that I couldn’t answer. I was anxious because I didn’t know what tools and systems I might be using to make things work. I was anxious because I want to do the best possible job I can to help all my tutor and staff tutor colleagues but I didn’t know how to do this.

I started to have trouble sleeping, and I know this wasn’t down to all those Scandinavian crime dramas I’ve been watching on Netflix.

On 22 March, I received an email from the university secretary, Dave Hall, saying that the implementation of the new tutor contract had been paused.

The challenge for us now is to encourage the project team to take stock, and begin to consider how we can all practically realise the contract in a way that is pragmatic, sensible and realistic. Any future implementation plan must also be incremental and inclusive.

The university will be a better place when ALs are on permanent contracts. We need to continue to make the case for sensible tools and processes. From a staff tutor’s perspective, we’ve got a lot of work to do to make that happen.

This article first appeared in Snowball Issue 99, March 2021. Snowball is the newsletter for Open University associate newsletters and is published quarterly.

In more usual times, I would probably be attending a face-to-face AL development conference. Since everyone in the university is working at home, the university ran an online cross-faculty AL development conference on Thursday 4 March 2021. 

What follows is a set of edited notes I made during the event. It’s intended as a rough record of the event, so I can remember what happened. Wherever possible, I tried to directly quote some of the speaker, but I won’t promise I’ve got all their words spot on. This said, I do hope I have honestly reflected points that were shared during the sessions.

Keynote: Marcia Wilson

The event kicked off with an opening keynote from Professor Marcia Wilson, Dean of Equality, Diversity and Inclusion. Here are some notes that were sent around in advance of Marcia’s presentation (which have been edited down for brevity): “Prior to the OU, Marcia worked at the University of East London for 12 years where she established the UK’s first Office for Institutional Equity (OIE) … . Her work includes equality projects with Universities UK to tackle racism in higher education institutes. … Marcia has spent 30 years teaching and conducting research in higher education and is a multiple award winner for her leadership and equalities work.”

Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to make it to this very first session due to work commitments, but I must refer to an earlier presentation that was given by Marcia at an event called Dismantling Racial Inequalities in Higher Education which I found to be really through provoking. 

AL Contract Change Programme Update

Bruce Heil and Carey Stephens, from UCU and the AL contract programme management team, presented updates about the contract implementation. This was a popular session, attracting 108 delegates.

UCU summary

Bruce highlighted a period of accelerated negotiations that were on going at the time of the conference. He emphasised that there was an aim to build a stable tuition workforce, to enable better future planning and emphasised that a step-by-step approach was taken “to make sure we get the changes right”. 

Bruce emphasised that this will be a permanent contract, rather than a piece work contract, and one would encompass module tuition appointments, annual leave, and tuition related activities, such as TMA monitoring, EMA marking, and time that relates to academic currency (which means: keeping up to date with your subject). Benefits for ALs include security and certainty. Benefits for the faculties includes “simpler processes for allocating work now to maintain AL FTE” and longer term planning and development. The benefits for university include opportunities to enhance student experience. 

Regarding the implementation, the plan is to migrate to new contract in October 21, and phase in the ways of working over a period of 2 years. I noted down that there would be 4 phases of change: prep to migration, development of processes and procedures (up until 22J), and in 23D the deployment of a workload management system.

A key difference between the old and the new contract is that tutors will no longer need to apply for contracts. Instead, there will be a discussion between a tutor and their line manager (staff tutor or student experience manager), and this will give security and certainty. Spare or unused capacity can be allocated to extra students or modular work, and tutors will be working to a defined FTE figure that relates to an annualised salary which will be paid over 12 months rather than just for the period of the contract. There is also a longer term idea, which is that tutors will have one line manager.

Other updates include that the FTE for practice tuition has been agreed, and the provisional FTE (which is currently calculated from October 20) will be updated with any further appointments that have been made.

Management summary

Cary stated that the new contract will bring ALs in line with other staff, and the FTE score represents the workload rather than the tasks. Tutors can expect an agreed FTE value to be maintained.

From this session, I noted down some questions and answers, such as: how can I increase my FTE before the official start of the new contract? The answer was: you will need to apply to modules as you did before.  Also, how can I decrease my FTE before the start? There will be a query and appeals process which can be used before the start of the contract.

An important question was: what is meant by historic tuition related activities? These are additional duty contracts, which are all gathered together, and averaged out over a 3 year period between August 17 through to July 20.

Key workload areas (in terms of making the contract work) includes a new capability procedure, a skills audit process, and prioritising conversations with ALs whose modules are coming towards the end of their presentation. There is also the need for guidance to help faculties to maintain a tutor’s FTE and developing workload allocation processes to manage workload fluctuations

A good question was: will I have the same flexibility to decide what work I will take on? “There may be occasions where you have capacity and are reasonably requested to take on a piece of work that you can do but would not normally consider.” There will be a conversation where you may be asked to take on a piece of work.

Also, rather than taking a personal leave of absence, tutors will be able to submit an “agile working request”. Another important point is that if student numbers fall, tutors may be asked to carry out additional duties to make up their time that is expressed within the FTE score.

I made a note of the important question: how will these TRAs be managed? The answer I’ve noted down was: “we’re at the ‘how do we do this’ phase?”

Q&A session

Q: I have over 0.3 of historical duties. I haven’t seen any statement of what are covered and what are not. Can we have one? A: you would have to go through your payslips over the last 3 years.

Q: I want to reduce my FTE. Is there a minimum FTE? What will be the notice period of a contract? A: There is no minimum. A reduction should be a sensible one. Term of notice is not known. 

Q: Will we be recompensed for IT use? A: Currently under negotiation.

Q: I’ve only had the one appraisal over 15 years. Will the time be made for this? A: We envisage an annual workload and CDSA meeting; an annual conversation; this will be a right and an expectation.

Q: Would it be possible to remain FTE and move onto a different module before October? A: speak with your line manager.

Q: Will assistant staff tutor roles and activities be counted? A: No; it isn’t in the contract.

Q: I want to get my workload spaced out better. Is this possible? A: Make sure your line manager is aware of your needs; have a chat with your staff tutor.

Q: I have a LLM that I have never met; it would be nice to meet them face to face. A: Ideally, yes.

A staff tutor’s reflection

I chose to go to this session for two reasons: the first was to add my understanding of what is going on, and secondly, to try to understand what the official UCU and management line on the contract was. The session confirmed some key fears that I have long held: that some very important aspects of the detail hasn’t yet been worked out. I have, for example, no idea how the historical tuition related activities will be managed, and nor do I know how to get an overview of which tutors are doing what, or how to get a quick summary of a tutor’s FTE score.

Faculty of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM)

The session provided an opportunity for STEM ALs to meet each other. It was said to be: “informal, giving ALs the chance to converse, raise questions, and discuss the priorities within the STEM Faculty”. Approximately 40 tutors were able to attend, which was great to see. 

Michael Bowkis from the School of Computing and Communications and Fiona Aiken from the School of Earth and Environmental Sciences gave a summary of updates to the curriculum.

For the School of Computing and Communications, Michael summarised the key qualifications that were run from the school. These are: Q62 BSc (Honours) Computing and IT, Q67 BSc Computing and IT & second subject, R62 BSc (Hons) Computing with electronic engineering (which starts this year, and has four compulsory modules: T193. T194. T212 and T312), R38 BSc (Hons) Data Science (which is technically managed by Maths and Statistics), and R60 BSc (Hons) Cyber security.

The BSc (Hons) Cyber security (R60) started in 2020, and is a specialist qualification that is aligned with industry certification (CompTIA  Security+, CeH (Certified Ethical Hacking) and is accredited by the British Computer Society (BCS). It comprises of 3 new modules: TM256 Computer Security and Digital Forensics, which starts in February 2022, which addresses aspects of systems security and introductory concepts of digital forensics. There is also, TM311 Information security, which is linked to InfoSec standards for cyber security analysts. TM311 starts in October 2021. There is also TM359, System penetration testing, which is concerned with building secure systems, testing, ethical hacking methodology including certification as ethical hackers. This final module begins in February 2023.

On the postgraduate front, there is a new qualification: F87 MSc Cyber security. GCHQ certification and BCS accreditation will be applied for. An important module will be: M817 Cyber Security Fundamentals, which will complement M811 Information Security, and M812 Digital Forensics. Also, advanced networking qualifications are being withdrawn, but networking will remain as a pathway option in the main MSc programme.

Finally, the school offers four undergraduate degree apprenticeship qualifications, and one postgraduate. These are: R24 BSc (Honours) Digital and Technology Solutions (England), R32 BSc (Honours) IT: Software Development (Scotland), R33 BSc (Honours) IT: Cyber Security (Scotland), and R40 BSc (Honours) Applied Software Engineering (Wales). The postgraduate programme has the title of: F83 MSc Cyber Security (Scotland).

What hasn’t been mentioned is also new machine learning and artificial intelligence module, TM358. The School of Computing and Communications is a busy place!

Refreshing your practice: working across disciplines to enhance the student experience

We were given a choice of what session we would like to attend, and I opted for this session, which was facilitated by Heather Richardson and Clare Taylor. I was attracted by the abstract. Here’s a section: “In this practical workshop you’ll explore how experimenting with the teaching approaches of a different discipline can help you look at your own subject in a new light. Drawing on the findings of the FASS scholarship project ‘Creative Interactions’, which brought together the disciplines of Art History and Creative Writing, you’ll first take part in some hands-on activity, and then move on to consider potential ‘interactions’ between your own and other disciplines.”

I was drawn to this session, partly because I’ve been studying an arts module, A111, and have also recently completed a creative writing assignment. I was curious about what these activities might be, and how the activities might relate to my own discipline of Computing. The abstract also went on to say: “In the first part of the workshop you will analyse and respond to a piece of visual art from the Open University’s art collection, firstly conducting an Art-Historical visual analysis of the artwork, and then being guided through producing your own Creative Writing response to the piece.” The session was related to a Faculty of Art and Social Sciences project called ‘Creative Interactions’. 

There was a reference to the university art collection, which is mostly hung in corridors and shared spaces. During this session, we were show a number of works, and introduced to some terms that could be used to create (or write) a formal analysis of a piece. Key terms that we were introduced to included: scale, space and composition, viewpoint, subject matter, material/medium, line, colour and light, display and function.

There was then a shift towards creative writing. With an artwork used as a prompt, we were asked: “imagine you’re in the space that is depicted in a picture; what do you feel through your senses, and what is your emotional state?” We were asked to comment on three questions and respond through text chat: how did you respond to the image? Which approach was more helpful? What did you gain by trying two approaches?

What I got out of this session was how our online teaching tool, Adobe connect could be used, to create an interesting, and thoughtful tutorial experience. In our breakout rooms we were asked to discuss the question: what other disciplines could your own discipline interact with? In the breakout room that I attended, we discussed the connections between our own disciplines, and others.

To summarise, this was a popular session, with over 50 delegates attending. It made me reflect on how I use the online teaching tools, and consider how I might be able to draw on other subjects to (potentially) make my online tutorials more interesting and engaging.

Reflections

 I always get something from AL development conferences. It was useful to hear the official line about the new AL contract, and I did really enjoy the final session, which certainly got me thinking. I can’t help but feel that whilst online conferences useful and helpful, nothing quite beats being able to share tips and experiences over a cup of coffee at a face-to-face AL development conference. I look forward to a time when these can happen again. 

Over the last few years, there has been a lot of talk about something called the new tutor contract. On 22 March 21, I received an email that contained the following words: “we have concluded that we will not be ready to implement the contract changes this October. Migration of ALs to the new Terms & Conditions will therefore be rescheduled”. 

The aim of this long blog is to present a staff tutor’s perspective. It is a perspective that is very nuanced, since we’re in the middle of everything. It has been written with the intention of sharing some important background to a number of different groups of staff: senior leaders, tutors, members of the project, central academics, union members, and anyone else who would like to learn more about what has happened. 

I’ve written a number of blogs about it, I’ve participated in some of the negotiation groups from the inside, and I’ve been to a whole host of briefings and updates. I’ve taken a keen interest in it because I think it is important and right that the university employs its associate lecturer staff on permanent contracts. I’m also interested in how it is going to be implemented, so I can do my best to support tutors and staff tutors.

At the time of writing, the “word on the street” is that the new date for the introduction of the contract might be August 2022. To get there, there is a lot that needs to be done, but there isn’t (yet) a clear vision of how we will get everything achieved by that date.

This blog isn’t a reflection of any negotiated position, and isn’t a reflection of any university policy or plan. Instead, it is intended to share some thoughts and personal opinions about what the next steps might be and highlights some of the clear and obvious challenges that remain. It is also a small chapter of a much longer story.

To make any progress, there needs to be a substantial reset of the project. It needs to be recognised that we’re not just talking about change; we’re talking about institutional reform. It is going to be really important to thoroughly understand the work and role of staff tutors and AL services. Also, the solution is not as “simple” as implementing an IT system since we’re talking creating new human activity systems. A sobering point is that the suggested date of August 22 is already optimistic; we need to get a move on if we stand any chance of making anything work.

For the time pressured, here are a list of ten things that need to be done. Each of these points are expanded in the article below:

1. Let’s go bottom up, not top down
2. Separate negotiation from implementation 
3. Uncover those requirements
4. Embed change agents within schools
5. Be practical, be incremental
6. Make things meaningful
7. Look at planning, piloting and risk
8. Structural simplicity and transparency
9. Don’t be afraid to build
10. Honest communication

Previous articles

In my first blog on this subject, New AL contract: Requirements workshop and C&C discussion, I summarised a very early attempt to “try to figure everything out”. A group of Computing and Communications staff tutors got in a room together in Manchester in January 2019 and asked ourselves: “so, how on earth can we make this thing work?” The truth of the matter is that we didn’t get out of the starting blocks, but we identified some of the key questions that needed answers.

After this first workshop, C&C staff tutors set up some working groups to try to answer some of the questions we had identified. No one told us to do this. We set up the groups because we wanted to be as prepared as we could be when the new tutor contract was introduced, and almost all the staff tutors in the school participated. The groups considered different aspects of the contract and what we thought we needed. It is summarised in the blog Understanding the new tutor contract: C&C working groups, and we presented what we had done to our associate dean.

We’ve always been told that although the terms and conditions for associate lecturers are going to change, the terms and conditions of staff tutors (the line managers of associate lecturers) are not going to change. I’ve always appreciated that some aspects of our job are likely to change. Being a firm believer in the benefit of scenarios, I wrote another blog to try to figure out how the staff tutor might look under the terms of the new tutor contract: A day in the life of a future STEM staff tutor. 

Amidst all this activity, I’ve also found the time to study a couple of modules. One of the modules I studied was a dissertation module, which was about educational leadership and management. In this module, there were some really interesting sections about institutional change. I didn’t have to think too deeply before I could see the link between an academic discussion of change and the ongoing institutional updates from the new tutor contract team. I felt compelled to write a short blog about the theories of institutional change, emphasising the importance of middle leaders in facilitating change: Studying educational leadership and management. I found the papers about institutional change and middle leaders fascinating; almost as fascinating as Computing.

Understanding complexity

It’s important to take a moment to recognise the amount of complexity that exists within the university.

The university employs around 4k part time tutors. Each tutor will have a different work portfolio. Some tutors will teach on a single module. Other tutors, on the other hand, will have a rich portfolio of modules, and will also do a whole range of other activities, such as marking exams through to helping to write assessment materials. There are also practice tutors who work on the degree apprenticeship schemes. This complexity means that there will be as many variations of the new contract as there are tutors.

Since tutors can do many different things, they may also report to different line managers (who are called staff tutors). To make sense of all this, there are two different key roles that staff tutors carry out as part of the management element of their duties. There is the role of a tuition task managers (or TTMs). TTMs look after a tutor who may be teaching on a module (a tuition task). Secondly, there are lead line managers (or LLMs). LLMs oversee everything that a tutor does, carry out their appraisal, and provide references. There is another role, which is called a cluster manager, but I’m not going to go into that here, since that really would be confusing.

On top of all this, there’s another dimension of complexity, which is: staff tutors can do different things. In my school, they work on module teams, do research and outreach, write module materials, they get involved with employability schemes and educational technology infrastructure development, are postgraduate programme managers, and work closely with the student support teams. Also, the number of tutors that a staff tutor looks after can and does vary. In my school, we are expected to look after 54 tutors as a TTM, and we should line manage around 20 as a LLM. At the time of writing, I’m currently supporting around 60 tutor contracts across all levels of the undergraduate curriculum. 

I have the impression that things are different in different schools. In STEM, some of the Science schools are a lot smaller than the Computing school. In the Faculty of Business and Law, staff tutors are not called staff tutors at all. Instead, they have the title of student experience manager.

There’s also complexity within the curriculum. Just because I don’t have enough to do, I’m currently a student in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. The introductory level 1 module A111 is very different (in terms of points, and structure) than TM111 in Computing. When you look up the levels, things are also very different too. Some schools have only undergraduate programmes, whereas others have postgraduate programmes and may also run degree apprenticeship schemes. 

It’s is also very clear that different modules apply different assessment strategies. Some use end of module assessments, some require written exams, and others use something called single component assessments and have an end of module tutor marked assessment. For some modules, the assessment marking fee is all bundled in with the salary, but this isn’t the same for other modules.

If you look a little bit further, there’s even more complexities that we need to be mindful of. Some modules may make extensive use of online discussion forums which require proactive and sensitive moderating, whereas other modules might not use very many discussion forums at all. There are also differences in teaching strategies. In non-pandemic times some engineering programmes need tutors to participate in face-to-face summer schools. Similarly, Computing networking modules had a series of compulsory face-to-face day schools that ran at university centres.

An important concept of the new tutor contract is to have a single line manager who has an oversight of all tutor’s work. To begin to move towards this ideal, it is essential to recognise that the reality is complex, messy and very interconnected. It is also important to recognise that everything is currently facilitated by people and personal relationships. To make the change to the new tutor contract, all the stakeholders that are linked to all aspects of a tutor’s workload need to be involved.

In a very early project meeting, I tried to make the point that the introduction of the new tutor contract isn’t just change; it is bigger than that. It is institutional reform. 

Reform takes time since there is a cultural dimension to it.

Recognising the inversion

Given all this complexity, it is useful to ask the simple question of: “how do things work at the moment?”

The answer to this is pretty straightforward: a tutor manages their own time and workload. 

If a tutor has capacity, and they see an interesting module, they might apply. They then might be shortlisted, interviewed, and then potentially be considered to be appointable, and then later offered a contract. Also, if they want to get involved in forum moderation, for example, they may respond to an expression of interest.

With the new tutor contract, everything is inverted. Rather than the tutor managing their own time and workload, the staff tutor becomes responsible for ensuring that the tutor’s time is used as effectively as possible by allocating them bits of work. This means that all the complexity that was previously described needs to be somehow understood and taken account of. That complexity also needs to be shared between fellow staff tutors within a school since they need to work together to solve common problems, such as tutor illness, marking appeals and student support issues. To make thing work, we need to create some form of “system” to collaborate and work with each other to make sense of all that complexity.

When I use the term “system”, I don’t mean a computer system. Instead, I mean a human activity system, of which there would be an information technology component. The humans we would interact with would include curriculum managers, colleagues from AL services, people services, and anyone else within the complex picture that was described above. What we have is a difficult problem to solve because it involves a lot of people, and a lot of information.

When considering the new tutor contract, it’s important to recognise an important inversion. Time management will shift from the tutor to the staff tutor, and this represents a fundamental cultural shift.

Imagining the next steps

At the time of writing, the work on the implementation of the new contract had paused since there was a recognition that the university would not be ready to make things work in October.

Another question I have been asking myself is: “if someone in the VCE asked me for my view about what they should do, how might I respond?”

As a starting point, and to facilitate further discussions, here are my suggestions:

1. Let’s go bottom up, not top down

One thing that I’ve realised is that top down change doesn’t really work when there are two factors at play: loads of complexity, and working with a rich community of colleagues who are free thinkers who really want to be involved. 

Staff tutors are smart people. They have a wealth of experience and knowledge. That experience and knowledge exists “on the ground” within the schools. They will be doing the work at the end of the day, so it is important to reach down to those grass roots.

2. Separate negotiation from implementation

The project team tried to negotiate their way to an implementation. It is right and proper that unions are involved in the negotiation of contract terms and condition, but the implementation of operational processes and system is substantially different. There isn’t any reason why the union need to be substantially involved (and I choose my words carefully here) in the gathering of detailed requirements. 

I’ve heard the argument “we couldn’t start the implementation because we were still negotiating” a number of times. This view doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. The broad aims and principles of the contract are understood and published. All the time on the project has been used up for negotiation, and not implementation.  There is no reason why everything needs to be completely defined before the work that is needed to implement the contract could begin.

3. Uncover those requirements

In the January 2019 workshop which I referenced earlier, I spoke about using tools such as personas, scenarios and use cases as potential ways to start to uncover user requirements. Before even considering system requirements, it’s important to ask a simpler question: “what, exactly, is the work that staff tutors do?” It’s important to capture scenarios, to evaluate them, to write new ones, and to test them thoroughly because different staff tutor communities might understand similar things in slightly different ways.

A whole host of issues were uncovered during the February 2020 staff tutor new tutor contract, but these issues were not clearly shared, understood and resolved in a way that was clear or understandable. All this gives the sense “the project team” don’t really understand what staff tutors need to be doing to make the new tutor contract a reality. 

4. Embed change agents within schools

I hate the term “change agents” but at the moment I can’t come up with anything better. 

The existing project had a role that was called a “faculty rep”. The faculty rep had the unenviable job of being an interface between the faculty and the project team.  Our STEM faculty rep has done a very good job in helping a lot of staff tutors understand some of the fundamental challenges that need to be resolved. Structurally, however, four faculty reps isn’t enough people to facilitate complex strategic change when there are at least four hundred centrally employed university staff who are directly affected by those changes (I include AL services colleagues as well as staff tutors within this rough estimate of staffing numbers).

A proposal is to have someone within every school (or a part of a person within smaller schools) who help with activities such as gathering requirements, testing requirements, and sharing updates about how systems and tools will work. 

In response to queries about the lack of engagement by the project team, I’ve heard members of the project and colleagues from the union say: “we have had staff tutors in all the negotiating groups”. That certainly is the case, but there is a fundamental difference between participating in a collective bargaining and negotiating structure, and having the need to actively uncover requirements, enact culture changes and help colleagues to understand new ways of working. 

The only way to effectively make bottom up change work, is to find a way to empower those communities that will be affected by those changes. A school rep (rather than a faculty rep), along with other stakeholder reps, may be the only way to do this.

5. Be practical, be incremental

Tutors and staff tutors will be making decisions, in partnership with each other, about what bits of work need to be done. These ‘bits’ might be module tutoring, exam marking, or a broad range of additional Tuition Related Activities (TRAs), as they are called. Effective decision making can only be facilitated by the provision of effective and accurate information. 

The idea is that every tutor will have a full time equivalent percentage, which relates to their salary. A bit of a tutor's FTE relates to TRA activities. The thing is, we currently have no way of knowing what that bit of time relates to. Subsequently, we have no idea about how to manage it.

The TRA bit of the FTE has been calculated by calculating an average of salary data over a period of three years. An average presents a summary; it doesn’t present the detail. What we need to make everything work is the detail of who has been doing what and when.

A practical suggestion is to separate out module FTE from TRA FTE, and find a mechanism to increase a tutor’s FTE over a period of time when substantial pieces of work are needed to be carried out. Rather than guessing what work people do (which is never a good thing to do), we should rely on real data. In the transition period, which could take a few years, tutors should be paid roughly the same for the same amount of work.

This approach gives us something else that is important: equity (in terms of making sure that work is fairly allocated between tutors), and transparency. 

6. Make things meaningful

One of my grumbles was about the first skills audit pilot. Tutors were essentially asked whether they would like to carry on doing the work that they were doing. The skills audit pilot that we were presented with wasn’t the systematic discussion about the skills, capabilities, and aspirations that I had expected. In January 2019, a question was posed that still seems to be unanswered: “will tutors be able to see their skills audit summary through TutorHome?” I still don’t know whether this is the intention of the project team. 

During the course of last 18 months, a project group was set up to develop training procedures to help staff tutors to understand how to make the new tutor contract work. This is an important piece of work, and this is something that certainly needs to be looked at. The problem was that the project group were trying to define training for procedures which hadn’t yet been defined, since staff tutor work practices had not yet been defined, since requirements had not been uncovered and analysed. We couldn’t be trained in systems that had not been defined.

Some parts of the project have been baffling. The workload planning group wasn’t really about workload. Instead, it was about FTE. There was a “support solutions group” that was, actually, a group about tools and systems. 

Substantial bits of work should always have meaning, and should make sense. It is important that any overseeing board takes the time to question the activities that have been set up and are taking place. 

7. Look at planning, piloting and risk

Towards the end of the first staff tutor conference about the new tutor contract that took place in Leeds, I asked a really simple question: “what are the next steps?”

There needs to be a clear project plan that has a set of interim deliverables, and that plan needs to be published widely. That plan isn’t expected to be perfect, since change is difficult, but it needs to offer more detail than has been offered by the previous plans that have been published by the project team. 

Piloting is important, and I think this is partly recognised. I have heard rumours of a second “skills audit pilot” that had been taking place in the Faculty of Business and Law, but I have no idea what it is all about. One thing I am certain about is that the curriculum in FBL is likely to be very different from the curriculum in other schools and faculties. Piloting ideas and concepts is obviously important, since they smoke out issues, and develop understanding within the community of staff that are involved within a pilot. Pilots should be embedded within a complex change programme to ensure that stakeholders are involved.

One of the obvious criticisms that can be levelled at the current project team is the lack of clear risk planning. With every risk, there should be a mitigation. Although it seems like it, August 22 isn’t a long way away when we’re dealing with complex change. 

An important question that needs to be asked early on should be: “how are we going to run everything if we don’t have access to the information systems that we need?” This “plan B”, whatever it might be, should be understood, designed and then piloted.

8. Structural simplicity and transparency

When I was on the union side of a negotiating group, I wasn’t quite sure about what I could say to whom about what. There was a high level group called AL NT, another group called ST NT, another group about FTE calculation, and another couple of groups which I don’t really know anything about. There were also two sides, a union side, and a management side. Meetings took place every two weeks, and there were always no less than ten people per group. 

Within those groups, I found myself repeating the words “engagement” and “requirements” many times. There is a fundamental issue at play here: the more complicated a structure, the more difficult it can be to actually get things done, and to get your voice heard. 

Communications between parts of the project need to be better for anything to work, and the whole project structure need to be simpler. When requirements are gathered, these should be made available for scrutiny. Transparency should be a principle that is adopted for the whole of the project. 

9. Don’t be afraid to build

The OU is a unique institution amongst higher education institutions. The new tutor contract is also likely to be unique amongst contracts that are used in the higher education sector. In one of the groups I was involved with, there was a general trend towards looking at “off the shelf” solutions to keep track of who does what and when.

Given the uniqueness and the complexity of everything, it is entirely plausible that an ideal off the shelf solution might not exist. Subsequently, it’s really important that the decision makers don’t rule out the need to develop a bespoke set of tools to help AL services and staff tutors if that is needed. The university has a bespoke version of a VLE and a bespoke student management system.

As suggested earlier, when considering systems, the project leaders should always remember that when the term “system” is used, it isn’t only used to refer to “information system” or “computer system”. The system needed to make the new tutor contract work is what is called a human activity system, of which IT will play an important part.

It’s also not only true that an IT system needs to be built, the project team need to take time to build understandings amongst all the different stakeholders, and build ways of working too. Drawing on my experience of tutoring on a third level Interaction Design module, it may also be a good idea to build prototypes too. 

10. Honest communication

Finally, a call for honest communication. 

A lot of the updates coming from the project team can be described as unrelentingly positive. Some of the messages that were being conveyed were substantially at odds with my own understanding of how everything was going. Some of the communications summarised work done rather than achievements gained and conveyed a false impression of success. Also, some of the email updates appeared to suggest (in my eyes) a lack of understanding of many of the complexities that were sketched out at the start of this blog. 

If there is going to be progress, communications from everyone who has a vested interest in the new tutor contract needs to be considered and measured. There also needs to be a degree of honest directness. It is also important to listen to those who may have something to contribute, and to thoroughly consider the perspectives of others.

Final thoughts

Given how important tutors are to the success of the university, there is something very wrong if the institution isn’t able to give tutor colleagues permanent ongoing contracts which recognises their commitment and dedication. 

I have been concerned about the state of the project for some time. I think I have been concerned by some of the very important misunderstandings, or differences of opinion, that appear to exist. The first of these is the concept of: “we can’t implement whilst we’re still negotiating”, which doesn’t make sense given the extent of the change that is necessary. The second is a misunderstanding of the conception of “engagement”. Engagement within a negotiation structure isn’t the same as engaging with those who are at the sharp end of any change. Engagement and involvement must be substantial and continuous. Staff tutors sit within a confluence of complex relationships: with tutors, AL services, module teams, people services, and other stakeholders. All these groups need to be involved.

It’ll put it another way: there needs to be a substantial “reset” in the way that the project is run for it to have any chance of success in August 2022. As suggested earlier, in the complex world of IT system procurement or development, this isn’t much time at all. Also, we need more than an IT system to make everything work. Meanwhile, systemic institutional reform that needs to take place. We have, after all, a profound inversion of working practices to figure out.

A significant concern is that staff tutors don’t yet have an understanding of how they will be able to practically manage module teaching under the terms of the new contract. Given that we don’t have a thorough or detailed understanding of how to make things work for modules, the idea of managing tuition related activities with incomplete information, having no real understanding about how to deal with that incomplete information, fills me with fear. There needs to be systematic uncovering of requirements, and the topic of the TRAs need to be thought through very carefully.

I want to support tutors (and students) by allocating work in a way that is traceable, transparent and fair. By working with AL services, I also want to ensure institutional and organisation efficiency by ensuring that that public money and student fees are used and spent in a way that is appropriate and justifiable. 

I don’t want to be in a situation in 2022, where I again receive the words “we have concluded that we will not be ready to implement the contract changes”. There’s a lot of work to be done, and a lot of hard decisions to be made before we get anywhere close to a workable solution. 

As an institution, we need to get a move on.

Acknowledgements

Many of the concepts that have been expressed in this blog are not my own, but have emerged through a process of extensive collective discussion of these issues of a period of many months. I would like to personally thank staff tutor colleagues within two groups, the cross faculty M-21 group, and the C&C staff tutor community. A personal thank you to colleagues who took time out of their busy day to proofread this very long article.

Updates

This blog was updated on 27 July 21, to simply some of the wording used to express the management of TRAs (or HTRAs, as they are sometimes known). Also updated 8 September 21, where the point about an alternative way of working and the importance of piloting was clarified.

A couple of years ago I received a shock; I received a TMA result which I was not at all happy about. 

I was initially really annoyed, but then after the annoyance subsided, I had a good look at my tutor’s comments. The main thrust of his feedback was that I needed to sort my academic writing out. He was kind enough to offer me a one-to-one chat that must have really helped, since I went from getting a score that made me really grumpy, to getting an EMA score that made me really happy.

What follows are three tips that I’ve picked up over the last couple of years. The second tip comes directly from my tutor.

Tip 1: Paragraphing

A paragraph should contain a single idea. 

It shouldn’t be too short, and nor should it be too long. My own principle is: if one is writing more than 4 sentences, then perhaps the paragraph is getting a bit big? Also, regarding the sentences, don’t make them too long.

Tip 2: Making an argument using resources

This was the killer tip that was given to me by my tutor. When doing academic writing, you might want to use the following template. Each part relates to an element of a paragraph.

Part 1: The main point

This first bit is the main point that you want to make in the paragraph; the point that you want to assert or are arguing about.

Part 2: The evidence

Introduce some evidence that supports your point. This might be a quote from something that you’ve read (perhaps a chapter from a set text, a paper, or some of the module materials).

Part 3: The connection between the two

This final bit represents almost a conclusion to your paragraph. Explain how the evidence that you’ve provided is related to the main point that you’re making. This, essentially, is the critical bit. 

When I was writing up my dissertation, I applied this pattern time and time again. I also had introductory and concluding paragraphs.

Tip 3: Referencing

One thing that my tutor was on my case about was referencing. This is important since it shows the extent of your reading, and referencing within an EMA demonstrates that you have understood the teaching from the module materials. A further tip is to make sure that your bit of writing is showing that you have met the learning outcomes that are being assessed.

My tutor was very insistent: put things in quotes, provide the name of the author, and provide a page reference. This final bit, the page reference, clearly shows how closely you’ve read (and have understood) the materials.

More information about referencing can be found by going to the OU’s Quick guide to Harvard referencing (Cite Them Right). Further information is available on the external Cite Them Right website.

Resources

There’s a whole set of resources that might be useful. One place to start is the OU Study Skills website which contains a section about writing and preparing assignments. 

Further advice can be found on pages about Writing for University and Writing in your own words. 

Another set of useful resources are the university’s Study skills booklets which you can print out, highlight sections and scribble over. A good one to look at is called Preparing Assignments (pdf). Looking back to my earlier Tip 1, part 5, which is about writing paragraphs, might also offer a good bid of advice.

Another booklet is called Thinking Critically (pdf). Again, looking back to Tip 2, part 5 of the booklet, Writing with a Critical Voice, might be useful too. The section on page 22, a process for getting critical thinking into your writing, certainly echoes some of those points that tutor told me, but presents everything in a slightly different way. Also, before you get to the writing, there’s also a booklet about Reading and Taking Notes (pdf). 

Finally, I do recommend The Good Study Guide (pdf). I was sent a copy of this book when I enrolled for my first ever OU module, and when I read it, I thought to myself: “if only I had read this book when I was an undergraduate, I might have got a higher degree classification”. I have a paper copy of it on a bookshelf, next to my desk (it is that good!).

Two chapters that specifically relate to academic writing are Chapter 10, Writing the way ‘they’ want, and Chapter 11, Managing the writing process (Northedge, 2005, p.296).

The title of Chapter 10 is important, since academic writing is a skill, but one that requires the use of a whole set of hidden rules. Hopefully some of the resources presented in this blog will help to explain what some of those rules are.