Another convert to the Open University
I finally managed to get Wendy going on OU study after chipping away for a number of years so all being well she’ll be starting on Arts Past and Present (AA100) in February.
We called in to the regional office this afternoon to have a leaf through the books before signing up. They’ve “improved” the library on their move to the new offices so it now has all the course materials nicely laid out quite a spacious room and with a desk for visitors. The surroundings are certainly a massive improvement on the extremely cramped conditions in the old place. However, whilst there was barely enough room to stand in the old library they somehow managed to keep several copies of every course so you could borrow them for a couple of weeks. Unfortunately, they’ve also “improved” the library by dumping all those extra copies so now it’s purely a reference library. Whilst that’s not a problem for most people, it does mean that it’s no longer possible to borrow the books a month or two before your course starts and thereby make a head start on it. And, no, they can’t give you a copy of the PDFs of the course texts even if you’ve paid for the course.
Also on the shelves are a copy of the AA308 Cities and Technology course which sadly has just finished its last run with no planned replacement (as is the situation with all too many great courses these days). Even sadder is that those books are destined for the bin rather than finding a good home in my house.
Wendy’s got some previous course credits which we will have to see about transferring in at some stage although as they’re from Australia it will probably take a “while” to do.
Slightly complicated in her registration is that the OU keep records of any contact you’ve made seemingly forever so we couldn’t complete the online registration this evening and have to wait ’til they check up on the records manually and send us something to sign.
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