an open university blog (not official!)

Finally completed T211 TMA 04 and submitted it yesterday. This was the one I’ve found most difficult so far, probably due to the increased emphasis on detail rather than coming up with ideas and possibilities! (though there is some element of that..) so we’ll have to see how well this one goes as I don’t think I’ve done very well!

Seems like we’re quite a way through the course already with TMA 04 being due soon (there are 6 TMAs total on this course and one of them is double weighted) – after the mammoth effort yesterday on M257 I’ve now ‘only’ got this one to complete for the moment, so feeling much less overwhelmed with outstanding TMAs now! There’s quite a lot of work involved in it by the looks of it, though the week or so I have to complete it should be enough…

After a concerted effort today I’ve now completed and sent TMA 02 for M257! It’s quite early for me (it’s not due until 1 and a bit weeks’ time) though good to have it out of the way as T211 looks like it will take a lot longer. This one was OK in the end – 3 programming problems of varying degrees of difficulty – the good thing with these TMAs is that they do result in actually producing a working system (well, should do in any case!) and I think with GUI programming it really makes it fall into place a bit as they are ‘real’ programs rather than just abstract code! On the whole it was quite straightforward, not easy but they are quite good with the TMA specifications in general and take a structured approach with writing all the methods etc. Though there were a couple of areas where I was unsure about the spec and so ‘assumed’ (dangerous I know!)

I’m now at the point of having 2 TMAs due within a day of each other (2nd and 3rd July) and not having started either of them yet, or even really looked at the questions in more than a cursory way! Though in reality it’s more than a day between the deadlines since the one for T211 has to be posted and M257 submitted electronically and therefore no postal delay for M257.

Hoping to make a start on one or other of them today though (probably M257 as it’s more straightforward!) as I’ve found historically it doesn’t necessarily benefit to spend ages over them, in fact TMAs for which I’ve gone back and re-re-written etc have frequently been the ones I haven’t done very well on! It’s the first part of ‘graphical’ programming I will have done for OU Java courses, as M255 doesn’t include any graphical components (ie buttons and mouse events etc etc) and M257 doesn’t introduce them until Unit 6.

Already at the stage of wondering what to do next February though or perhaps whether there are any good courses starting in October – I want to do more of the programming related ones, but on the whole they seem to be February presentations!

This article on the BBC News site (Students save for business dream, 12/6/09) looks at some of the students who have used their Student Loan money to fund a business venture.

It’s worth a read whether or not you agree with my thinking (see this post) that using student loans for ‘investment’ purposes (which starting a business is, really) is against the spirit if not the letter of the student loans system, as they say.

The article doesn’t outright suggest that students should necessarily do this or whether it’s “right” in some sense.. the students featured there do seem to have taken out the maximum loans they could (the loans are means tested, so what this maximum is can depend on the household income etc) even if they were not needed for the actual day to day expenses of being a student.

Some of the striking points from this article are that:

While student loans are a vital ingredient in getting many students through university, there are no rules on what the money is actually used for.

For those in the privileged position of not needing all the funds – perhaps because they already have savings, backing from their families or are just particularly careful spenders – the loan can prove a vital resource for entrepreneurial students to start up their own businesses.

Television programmes such as the BBC’s Dragons’ Den have inspired young people to go into business says Nigel Culkin, head of Enterprise and Entrepreneurial Development at the University of Hertfordshire – which runs a business ideas challenge called Flare.

“Ten years ago, enterprising students used their loans to make money on the stock market. That option is no longer as appealing and entrepreneurial students are now more likely to invest in themselves, by using their loans to start a business.”

The National Union of Students declined to comment on students who take advantage of the loans system to try and make money.

Although interest rates on savings are low now the BBC are right that the interest payable on a student loan is lower than you are likely to find on a commercial loan so if wanting to spend the money (e.g. on starting a business) then it can still be viable. Especially as the loans do not need to be paid back until a certain threshold of income is reached – which I could see people getting around somehow by actually being “employed” by Jane Doe Consulting Ltd and taking a ‘nominal’ salary rather than the £15000 or whatever the miniumum is now for SLC repayment.

This sort of thing makes me quite angry to read about though, as it means some people are getting an unfair advantage at the expense of the taxpayer… If people have so much spare money from the loan that they can ‘invest’ it in a business rather than spending it on their actual living expenses then I would suggest the loans should be reduced considerably or scrapped and let students go through their studies on the same terms as people who are actually contributing rather than taking from the economy!

It was in the back of my mind that there’s one more shipment of materials to come for T211, as I had had blocks 1-4 and associated materials in 2 batches already, but for block/TMA 5 and 6 I hadn’t had anything yet. I’ve been quite busy though and hadn’t checked the Materials Dispatch site so didn’t know that they were actually on their way! Came home to find a DHL “sorry you were out” and luckily picked up from a neighbour (sometimes if they can’t find anyone at home I believe the parcel will be taken back to the depot.. which for me is some miles away!).

Anyway I now have the Block 5 and 6 books, TMA book and guidance notes, specimen exam paper and solutions (eek!) – I’ll go through the specimen exam paper in a bit more detail another day once I’ve had a chance to digest it. (Obviously I can’t post a copy of it here though as it’s copyrighted and restricted to only T211 students/tutors!)

Probably not that many people check the Materials Dispatch site all the time so it would be much better if this was linked into the OU notification system somehow so that students could receive an email once the parcel had been dispatched (so that they could perhaps warn neighbours etc if they are not likely to be at home to sign for it themselves?) …

As I mentioned in the previous post I wasn’t sure how well or badly I’d done in T211 TMA03, as I didn’t spend very long on it and suspected I hadn’t really answered the question (in particular, I thought they may be after a more ‘innovative’ product idea than I’d come up with). However I was very pleasantly surprised to find I’ve somehow managed the elusive 100% on this one due to full marks on each section!

The tutor is very efficient and sends through an electronic version of the paper copy ahead of time, so we can see how we’ve done (I’m not sure if it is just my tutor who chooses to do this, or if it’s standard, as this is the first non-eTMA course I’ve done in quite a long time!). The emailed version actually came through a few days ago but the paper one took a few days to get through the admin system… so before saying anything about the 100% I wanted to make sure that it was actually real! (I do trust the tutor.. but it’s always possible for some sort of mistake to happen somewhere, as I should know from the amount of ’silly’ mistakes I’ve lost marks on on various TMAs!)

Hopefully I should be a bit more ‘inspired’ to start Block 4 and eventually TMA 04 in that case – there seems to be a bit more sketching etc required on this one, so perhaps a look back at the sketching book – my drawing skills I think are my weakness in this course, although the tutor hasn’t actually commented on any of the drawing particularly or said it wasn’t good enough or whatever. It’s quite hard when doing distance learning to be able to compare to other students (this is one of the benefits of the tutorials I suppose, but for various reasons haven’t managed to go to one yet this year!) so I’m not sure really whether my drawing is about ‘average’ or as expected or whether there is still some improvement needed.

It can only go downhill from here though (as I think the chances of getting 100% on more than one TMA are very very small especially having had a look at the TMA book for 04!) but I should be confident with the 92, 94 and 100 achieved so far that this gives a total of 31 “spare” marks (sum of difference between each of those and 85 which is the threshold for a Distinction) to average into the remaining TMAs and still be able to achieve a Distinction – actually due to the substitution rule that’s an over simplified view but it is something similar to that. I think I actually have enough marks on these 3 just to pass now (for a ‘basic’ Pass 4) which is reassuring!

The third (of 6) TMA is done and submitted for T211! I have to admit I’ve been struggling a bit to get motivated to study any more especially now that the weather’s been nicer but I got there in the end and got it sent off in good time! Not sure that it was very good though – as I didn’t spend that long writing it (but did work on it quite a bit beforehand just by thinking about the questions, and they do “only” suggest spending 20 hours on the TMA booklet, so maybe it’s enough!)

The next ones are due on the 2nd July (Java) and 3rd July (design) so it’s time to try and get a bit ahead with M257 I think so that that TMA can be done ahead of the deadline (as I don’t want to ask for extensions unless they’re really necessary and not just due to studying 2 courses!) – considering I am currently about 3 weeks behind there’s quite a bit to do, but the TMA covers only 2 units, so as long as they can be read and taken in quite quickly I can probably spend longer on the TMA itself than the reading. Maybe not an ideal study strategy though so not to be taken as advice

Java TMA 01 is back this week and I was pleased to have somehow managed another 98%! As usual there was a silly mistake (doing something a difficult rather than ‘obvious’ way) and should have added more comments to make it clear what was going on but I’m not going to complain about the odd 2% Time to get on with the GUI and ‘event driven’ programming…

I submitted T211 TMA 02 a couple of weeks back and received the feedback and mark through from my tutor (he sends it on ahead by email, while the actual paper copy + the original TMA wends its way through the postal system, so we can at least get advance notice of the score and comments!) – pleased and a bit surprised to find I have 98% on this one!

Unlike “brick” unis (so I’m told) where the mark is generally 70% for a “Distinction” or “first class” sort of grade, at the OU it’s 85% and tutors are able to use the full range of marks available. So for courses such as this one and M257 (or most computing courses actually), it’s theoretically possible to achieve 100% since there is a specified mark available for each question – 5 marks for correctly writing a certain method in M257, for example – so 98% whilst a good mark isn’t indicative of the OU being an “easy option” or marking being more lenient – as some seem to think – as much as reflecting the point that the TMAs are structured such that there’s a specified number of marks for each. So I’m not churlish enough to be worried about “what happened to the other 2%” (when I get the paper copy back I suspect it will be due to a careless mistake though, it usually is!) but rather pleased with the 98 especially since it was done in a lot less time than I inferred a lot of other people spent on theirs. Then again though, any time I spend ages planning, preparing, rewriting etc I almost invariably end up producing something far inferior to the one rushed out close to the deadline!

Anyway I need to make progress on Block 3 now as I haven’t started it yet – the next TMA is due on the 29th May so no rest for the wicked!